Lasergraphics ScanStation transferring some Beatles film . . .

From Beatles film restoration expert Paul Rutan's youtube channel . . .

 

That looks like 35mm reels, or am I wrong? I thought SFF/PL were shot on 16mm.

Either way, incredibly cool to see this.

 

It is 35mm. Perhaps a blowup from 16mm for photochemical restoration purposes?

 

One of the interesting stories about the “Penny Lane” film is that, last I heard, they did not have the negative to the actual finished film. They had all the trims/outtakes, but not the actual film. Thus, all recent uses/airings of the film came from a videotape of the TV airing (Hollywood Palace?).

It appears they’re scanning a 35mm version of the film. As others mentioned, I believe the stuff was shot on 16mm. I’m curious if this is a 35mm print of the film, and if it’s possible that a scan of that would look better than the videotape of the TV airing.

I should mention that I was able to watch but not listen to that (no speakers where I’m at, at the moment), so there may be some explanatory discussion on the video.

 

Nah, they don't even mention The Beatles. It's mostly just to show the scanner.

 

There is some explanation in the video of how the original piece of film is red-dye faded and the software that does the scanning can recapture 60-90 percent of the original color.

There do not seem to be any splices in the element being scanned, so it is most likely a print struck to send to someone for exhibition or distribution. There was no countdown on the film, so I am unsure how it would be cued/aligned when played back. It may have been extracted from a reel where such things were already trimmed off to facilitate splicing to other pieces of film.

Any actual film copy of the "Penny Lane" promo should look better than the video tape that's been shown around for years, which suffers from ghosting and frame blending.

 

This old post may explain some of this:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/beatles-promo-film-question.236830/#post-6084746

So that video may be the faded composite print discussed in that post.

 

I have to say, the color quality is remarkable though their explanation isn't quite right. What happens is that the yellow and cyan layers evaporate over time, leaving much more of the magenta layer (further down into the emulsion). This is why old color films fade to magenta -- kind of reddish, but not exactly -- over time.

One problem is that even when you digitally restore the missing color records, the density and quality of the image kind of "wavers" back and forth and is fairly unstable. You need really, really complex software and technicians doing laborious work in order to smooth all that out to something that looks great.

 

I was thinking that myself. I'm pretty sure the guy said "red dye fade" but in the back of my head going, " but the red is what's left over".

You would know better than most of us, do other people in the business call this "red dye fade" like that?

 

Sounds most likely!
And the Beatles' collection is missing interpositives in addition to the cut negative, though they have the trims... Weird.

 

Shall we speculate? Is this for a blu-ray of Anthology?

 

Perhaps Apple is finally going to release the promo videos on Blu Ray?

 

Sounds like this type of restoration can get rather expensive. True?

 

Yes. Particularly if there's rips, tears, broken sprockets, bad splices, lots of negative dirt, positive dirt, missing frames, color variations, density flutter, and so on. I know of cases where one film had to be pieced together from five or six different elements in order to create a finished copy. I believe King Kong, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind all had that done.

I've never heard it called that. I'd just say, "the dye layers are unstable... almost all that's left is the magenta layer."

 

Could this be for the Ron Howard live film?

 

My understanding is that the Howard film is concentrating on The Beatles live performances .

 

No. There are first generation fans still alive that actually want to see this, so the answer to your question is no. It will have to sit in the vaults for a few more years until they have all passed on, then it will be released.

 

Exactly. DC, Shea, rattle your jewelry, NME Pollwinners, Budokan. Those kind of films.

 

I'm just glad that there a people with the skill and knowledge to carry out these intricate restorations. The preservation of these films is so important that its worth every penny.

 

I'd like to know the status of this project. I believe I read the producers were looking for distribution deals at the Cannes festival last May. Haven't heard anything since.

 

Pretty good results for the software's "auto correct" setting.

 

That's a 35mm print, but there's no indication of when it was struck. My best guess is that it's an 80's vintage safety dupe. I know Paul Rutan, Jr. believes he can get a better result from transferring a 35mm dupe rather than the 16mm original, but both Vidiot and I believe differently. His restoration of "Magical Mystery Tour" is grainy, has the wrong colors and the fleshtones are waxy looking.

Derek

 

Nope. As Neil Aspinall once said, that would be too obvious.

 

Were 16mm elements still available for MMT?

 

He's out of his mind. Nothing is more accurate than the original camera negative (OCN). I wouldn't mind having the print around as reference, provided we can verify it hasn't faded too much. But if you transfer from a print, it's 4 generations down: OCN -> 35mm IP -> 35mm IN -> 35mm release print. Getting rid of the blow-up alone will give you a picture potentially at least 50% sharper, plus they can pin-register the 16mm in software -- something an optical printer can't do with 16mm.