...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"

[CarlosMFreaza]

I had not payed attention to the Kodachrome slides frame data. They
say in one of the sides "KODACHROME Transparency", "Processed by
TECHNICOLOR R" (with the circle meaning Registered Trade Mark); the
other side says "Made in U.S.A. P.701" , the number of slide in the
batch is also printed in red (f.e. 1,2,3...) and even more
interesting, it is engraved on each frame (via pressure on the
cardboard, without ink) the slide process date: The 18 Kodachrome
slides in the little box were processed in "DEC 59" (December 1959)
and belong to the same roll. I suspect some other slides in the box
with plastic frames are also Kodachrome from this batch, because it
was necessary to replace the cardboard frame sometimes, when it became
broken or jammed during the projection.

"Processed by TECHNICOLOR R", could be the explanation for the vivid
colors these slides showed when they were new, Technicolor process
evolved and improved from 1916 to give and /or to improve colors for
movies and it was also applied to improve color vividness for films of
still photography too.

Carlos

One of my sisters found a box containing some K 14 35mm Kodachrome
slides taken by my father between 1958 and 1962, the box also
contained some E-6 35mm Ektachrome slides taken by me when I was 16
and 17 years old (1972/73). We believed all these old slides were lost
and, in fact, most of them are lost, but these few slides in the
little box have some of the magic from the old times, when, as
fascinated kids and teenagers, watched the projected images .
The slides show very faded colors, dust, scratches and some units have
fungus and humidity stains too, anyway four or five Kodachromes look
pretty good, I don't know the cause for the difference, they are from
the same time, same lab an were kept in the same box.
I'm scanning them using the infrared cleaning option, Vuescan works
fine for the purpose, at least a lot better than the Epson Digital ICE
software. Vuescan eliminates most of the scratches and dust; BTW, it
can not solve problems if the image was destroyed in the emulsion
itself.
The scanning software options to restore faded colors and chromatic
losses hardly work to improve the image quality for these cases, most
of the slides need very much work with levels and curves; I'm
having some acceptable results for a few slides but others are beyond
my limited skills and knowledge, I think I'll convert them into Blank
and White images.
Carlos

[David Sadowski]

Originally, Kodachrome was sold with processing included. In the 1950s,
the US government decided this was anti-competitve, and forced Kodak to
offer Kodachrome processing via independent labs.

While there weren't a lot of these labs, Kodachrome being a difficult and
complicated film to develop properly, Technicolor was one such lab.

This would have nothing to do with the Technicolor process for color movie
film. This was Kodachrome film and processing, just done by an independent
lab.

For a short time in the late 1980s, there were actually two such
independent labs in Chicago doing K-14 processing- Ross-Ehlert and LaSalle
Photo. It was even possible to have Ross-Ehlert do the film in four hours
(pro E-6 labs, however, could do Ektachrome in two hours), and they also
offered push processing.

It turned out the market for Kodachrome had largely dried up already, and
both of these ventures failed. LaSalle spent perhaps a million dollars to
put in their K-14 line, had to install a blast cap above the lab, and kept
a chemist on hand full time to mix the chemistry (some of which had to be
made "from scratch").

Post by CarlosMFreaza
I had not payed attention to the Kodachrome slides frame data. They
say in one of the sides "KODACHROME Transparency", "Processed by
TECHNICOLOR R" (with the circle meaning Registered Trade Mark); the
other side says "Made in U.S.A. P.701" , the number of slide in the
batch is also printed in red (f.e. 1,2,3...) and even more
interesting, it is engraved on each frame (via pressure on the
cardboard, without ink) the slide process date: The 18 Kodachrome
slides in the little box were processed in "DEC 59" (December 1959)
and belong to the same roll. I suspect some other slides in the box
with plastic frames are also Kodachrome from this batch, because it
was necessary to replace the cardboard frame sometimes, when it became
broken or jammed during the projection.
"Processed by TECHNICOLOR R", could be the explanation for the vivid
colors these slides showed when they were new, Technicolor process
evolved and improved from 1916 to give and /or to improve colors for
movies and it was also applied to improve color vividness for films of
still photography too.
Carlos

One of my sisters found a box containing some K 14 35mm Kodachrome
slides taken by my father between 1958 and 1962, the box also
contained some E-6 35mm Ektachrome slides taken by me when I was 16
and 17 years old (1972/73). We believed all these old slides were lost
and, in fact, most of them are lost, but these few slides in the
little box have some of the magic from the old times, when, as
fascinated kids and teenagers, watched the projected images .
The slides show very faded colors, dust, scratches and some units have
fungus and humidity stains too, anyway four or five Kodachromes look
pretty good, I don't know the cause for the difference, they are from
the same time, same lab an were kept in the same box.
I'm scanning them using the infrared cleaning option, Vuescan works
fine for the purpose, at least a lot better than the Epson Digital ICE
software. Vuescan eliminates most of the scratches and dust; BTW, it
can not solve problems if the image was destroyed in the emulsion
itself.
The scanning software options to restore faded colors and chromatic
losses hardly work to improve the image quality for these cases, most
of the slides need very much work with levels and curves; I'm
having some acceptable results for a few slides but others are beyond
my limited skills and knowledge, I think I'll convert them into Blank
and White images.
Carlos

---
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[Richard Knoppow]

At some point Kodak began licensing others to process Kodachrome, evidently Technicolor was one of them. However, the process was exactly the same as Kodak used in its own processing plants. Technicolor was a completely different process. Tech ended the use of their original three-strip color separation cameras about 1951 and began using conventional color negative film for the originals. These, however, continued to be printed using the Technicolor "dye imbibition" or dye transfer process until it was also discontinued, I think about 1980 (not sure of this date). Tech provided lab services to the motion picture industry and also had a still processing division. FWIW, Technicolor had a long relationship with Kodak who made most of the specialized film materials for them.
Another FWIW, the Technicolor process could be adjusted to produce all sorts of "looks" including quite subdued color. The very vivid color those of us of a certain age associate with Technicolor was mainly due to market research on audience preference. I am not sure but think Kodak may have done the same thing with Kodachrome which was similarly very vivid. Technicolor prints seem to be very long lived because of the types of dyes used and, of course, the three-strip originals were B&W silver images. Technicolor worked well because there were very dedicated people there who made it work, it could look just awful if not done very carefully. Eventually, the equipment at the Cole Ave plant in Hollywood just wore out so they dropped the process. Technicolor was economical for very large runs of prints but at the time it was discontinued the industry typically made only a couple of hundred release prints at which volume Tech had a hard time competing with multi-layer films. I believe "Taxi Driver" was the last feature to be printed using the IB process.

--
Richard Knoppow
***@ix.netcom.com
Los Angeles, CA, USA


-----Original Message-----

Sent: Aug 8, 2014 12:44 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"
I had not payed attention to the Kodachrome slides frame data. They
say in one of the sides "KODACHROME Transparency", "Processed by
TECHNICOLOR R" (with the circle meaning Registered Trade Mark); the
other side says "Made in U.S.A. P.701" , the number of slide in the
batch is also printed in red (f.e. 1,2,3...) and even more
interesting, it is engraved on each frame (via pressure on the
cardboard, without ink) the slide process date: The 18 Kodachrome
slides in the little box were processed in "DEC 59" (December 1959)
and belong to the same roll. I suspect some other slides in the box
with plastic frames are also Kodachrome from this batch, because it
was necessary to replace the cardboard frame sometimes, when it became
broken or jammed during the projection.
"Processed by TECHNICOLOR R", could be the explanation for the vivid
colors these slides showed when they were new, Technicolor process
evolved and improved from 1916 to give and /or to improve colors for
movies and it was also applied to improve color vividness for films of
still photography too.
Carlos

One of my sisters found a box containing some K 14 35mm Kodachrome
slides taken by my father between 1958 and 1962, the box also
contained some E-6 35mm Ektachrome slides taken by me when I was 16
and 17 years old (1972/73). We believed all these old slides were lost
and, in fact, most of them are lost, but these few slides in the
little box have some of the magic from the old times, when, as
fascinated kids and teenagers, watched the projected images .
The slides show very faded colors, dust, scratches and some units have
fungus and humidity stains too, anyway four or five Kodachromes look
pretty good, I don't know the cause for the difference, they are from
the same time, same lab an were kept in the same box.
I'm scanning them using the infrared cleaning option, Vuescan works
fine for the purpose, at least a lot better than the Epson Digital ICE
software. Vuescan eliminates most of the scratches and dust; BTW, it
can not solve problems if the image was destroyed in the emulsion
itself.
The scanning software options to restore faded colors and chromatic
losses hardly work to improve the image quality for these cases, most
of the slides need very much work with levels and curves; I'm
having some acceptable results for a few slides but others are beyond
my limited skills and knowledge, I think I'll convert them into Blank
and White images.
Carlos

---
Rollei List
in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
http://www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list

[CarlosMFreaza]

Yes Richard and David, after a brief research it's clear that
Technicolor working as lab developed "my" Kodachrome as Kodachrome,
using the K 14 process. I found an interesting thread in Flickr where
a well known photographer in the site comments he has his father's
Kodachromes with frames containing identical data regarding my
father's Kodachromes and he wanted to know about the
Kodachrome-Technicolor relationship and facts were that the
Technicolor lab was authorized to process Kodachrome.
I obtained this link from that thread, you can see under the year
"1958" my frames, they are identical except for the date, "NOV 58" and
my frames "DEC 59", the image caption says: " Technicolor labs; a
collection of film laboratories across the world owned and run by
Technicolor for post-production services including developing,
printing, and transferring films in all major developing processes, as
well as Technicolor's proprietary ones. (1922 - present).."
http://www.zoggavia.com/Kodachrome_Slide_Film.html

Carlos

Post by Richard Knoppow
At some point Kodak began licensing others to process Kodachrome, evidently Technicolor was one of them. However, the process was exactly the same as Kodak used in its own processing plants. Technicolor was a completely different process. Tech ended the use of their original three-strip color separation cameras about 1951 and began using conventional color negative film for the originals. These, however, continued to be printed using the Technicolor "dye imbibition" or dye transfer process until it was also discontinued, I think about 1980 (not sure of this date). Tech provided lab services to the motion picture industry and also had a still processing division. FWIW, Technicolor had a long relationship with Kodak who made most of the specialized film materials for them.
Another FWIW, the Technicolor process could be adjusted to produce all sorts of "looks" including quite subdued color. The very vivid color those of us of a certain age associate with Technicolor was mainly due to market research on audience preference. I am not sure but think Kodak may have done the same thing with Kodachrome which was similarly very vivid. Technicolor prints seem to be very long lived because of the types of dyes used and, of course, the three-strip originals were B&W silver images. Technicolor worked well because there were very dedicated people there who made it work, it could look just awful if not done very carefully. Eventually, the equipment at the Cole Ave plant in Hollywood just wore out so they dropped the process. Technicolor was economical for very large runs of prints but at the time it was discontinued the industry typically made only a couple of hundred release prints at which volume Tech had a hard time competing with multi-layer films. I believe "Taxi Driver" was the last feature to be printed using the IB process.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
-----Original Message-----

Sent: Aug 8, 2014 12:44 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"
I had not payed attention to the Kodachrome slides frame data. They
say in one of the sides "KODACHROME Transparency", "Processed by
TECHNICOLOR R" (with the circle meaning Registered Trade Mark); the
other side says "Made in U.S.A. P.701" , the number of slide in the
batch is also printed in red (f.e. 1,2,3...) and even more
interesting, it is engraved on each frame (via pressure on the
cardboard, without ink) the slide process date: The 18 Kodachrome
slides in the little box were processed in "DEC 59" (December 1959)
and belong to the same roll. I suspect some other slides in the box
with plastic frames are also Kodachrome from this batch, because it
was necessary to replace the cardboard frame sometimes, when it became
broken or jammed during the projection.
"Processed by TECHNICOLOR R", could be the explanation for the vivid
colors these slides showed when they were new, Technicolor process
evolved and improved from 1916 to give and /or to improve colors for
movies and it was also applied to improve color vividness for films of
still photography too.
Carlos

One of my sisters found a box containing some K 14 35mm Kodachrome
slides taken by my father between 1958 and 1962, the box also
contained some E-6 35mm Ektachrome slides taken by me when I was 16
and 17 years old (1972/73). We believed all these old slides were lost
and, in fact, most of them are lost, but these few slides in the
little box have some of the magic from the old times, when, as
fascinated kids and teenagers, watched the projected images .
The slides show very faded colors, dust, scratches and some units have
fungus and humidity stains too, anyway four or five Kodachromes look
pretty good, I don't know the cause for the difference, they are from
the same time, same lab an were kept in the same box.
I'm scanning them using the infrared cleaning option, Vuescan works
fine for the purpose, at least a lot better than the Epson Digital ICE
software. Vuescan eliminates most of the scratches and dust; BTW, it
can not solve problems if the image was destroyed in the emulsion
itself.
The scanning software options to restore faded colors and chromatic
losses hardly work to improve the image quality for these cases, most
of the slides need very much work with levels and curves; I'm
having some acceptable results for a few slides but others are beyond
my limited skills and knowledge, I think I'll convert them into Blank
and White images.
Carlos

---
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'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
http://www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list

---
Rollei List
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'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
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[Richard Knoppow]

I found a note, I think in the Bulletin of the Technical Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (not sure I have that title correct) that Technicolor used special low-contrast Kodachrome for some difficult location photography. I believe some of the exterior shots in "Shane" were made on special Kodachrome and the printing matrices made from that. I don't have easy access to the archive of the Bulletin, frustrating since it has quite a lot of detailed information on the process by which various Hollywood feature pictures were made and also gives full credits for camera and sound crews. Kodak offered low-contrast Kodachrome in 16mm for original photography where the film was to be duplicated. This was quite commonly used for industrial and educational pictures before color negative-positive processes became available. Technicolor made IB prints in 16mm as well as 35mm so probably printed from this film. Technicolor wanted to get rid of the color-separation cameras for some time because they were large and clumsy and the process difficult. They experimented with various multi-layer films but did not drop the three-color cameras until Kodak came out with Eastman Color Negative. There is a noticeable difference in the color rendition of pictures made with the three-color cameras and ECN. The overall quality of the IB prints fell off a lot as the process was speeded up and other changes made in order to be competitive with newer processes. I was able to see original issue Technicolor prints going back to their two-color process, mostly from the UCLA archive. These are no longer projectable due to the degradation of the nitrate film base.

--
Richard Knoppow
***@ix.netcom.com
Los Angeles, CA, USA


-----Original Message-----

Sent: Aug 8, 2014 1:54 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"
Yes Richard and David, after a brief research it's clear that
Technicolor working as lab developed "my" Kodachrome as Kodachrome,
using the K 14 process. I found an interesting thread in Flickr where
a well known photographer in the site comments he has his father's
Kodachromes with frames containing identical data regarding my
father's Kodachromes and he wanted to know about the
Kodachrome-Technicolor relationship and facts were that the
Technicolor lab was authorized to process Kodachrome.
I obtained this link from that thread, you can see under the year
"1958" my frames, they are identical except for the date, "NOV 58" and
my frames "DEC 59", the image caption says: " Technicolor labs; a
collection of film laboratories across the world owned and run by
Technicolor for post-production services including developing,
printing, and transferring films in all major developing processes, as
well as Technicolor's proprietary ones. (1922 - present).."
http://www.zoggavia.com/Kodachrome_Slide_Film.html
Carlos

[David Sadowski]

When you made a movie in Technicolor, you had to hire a color consultant.
In the early days, it was usually Natalie Kalmas.

Post by Richard Knoppow
I found a note, I think in the Bulletin of the Technical Committee of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (not sure I have that title
correct) that Technicolor used special low-contrast Kodachrome for some
difficult location photography. I believe some of the exterior shots in
"Shane" were made on special Kodachrome and the printing matrices made from
that. I don't have easy access to the archive of the Bulletin, frustrating
since it has quite a lot of detailed information on the process by which
various Hollywood feature pictures were made and also gives full credits
for camera and sound crews. Kodak offered low-contrast Kodachrome in 16mm
for original photography where the film was to be duplicated. This was
quite commonly used for industrial and educational pictures before color
negative-positive processes became available. Technicolor made IB prints
in 16mm as well as 35mm so probably printed from this film. Technicolor
wanted to get rid of the color-separation cameras for some time because
they were large and clumsy and the process difficult. They experimented
with various multi-layer films but did not drop the three-color cameras
until Kodak came out with Eastman Color Negative. There is a noticeable
difference in the color rendition of pictures made with the three-color
cameras and ECN. The overall quality of the IB prints fell off a lot as
the process was speeded up and other changes made in order to be
competitive with newer processes. I was able to see original issue
Technicolor prints going back to their two-color process, mostly from the
UCLA archive. These are no longer projectable due to the degradation of
the nitrate film base.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
-----Original Message-----

Sent: Aug 8, 2014 1:54 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed

by Technicolor R"

Yes Richard and David, after a brief research it's clear that
Technicolor working as lab developed "my" Kodachrome as Kodachrome,
using the K 14 process. I found an interesting thread in Flickr where
a well known photographer in the site comments he has his father's
Kodachromes with frames containing identical data regarding my
father's Kodachromes and he wanted to know about the
Kodachrome-Technicolor relationship and facts were that the
Technicolor lab was authorized to process Kodachrome.
I obtained this link from that thread, you can see under the year
"1958" my frames, they are identical except for the date, "NOV 58" and
my frames "DEC 59", the image caption says: " Technicolor labs; a
collection of film laboratories across the world owned and run by
Technicolor for post-production services including developing,
printing, and transferring films in all major developing processes, as
well as Technicolor's proprietary ones. (1922 - present).."
http://www.zoggavia.com/Kodachrome_Slide_Film.html
Carlos

---
Rollei List
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'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
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[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Sadowski" <***@gmail.com>
To: <***@freelists.org>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2014 4:23 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago
"Processed by Technicolor R"

Post by David Sadowski
When you made a movie in Technicolor, you had to hire a
color consultant.
In the early days, it was usually Natalie Kalmas.

The color consultant was supplied by Technicolor. The
process was very tricky and did not reproduce many colors
correctly. For that reason lighting, makeup, set painting,
costume, all had to be designed with knowledge of how the
process would affect their on-screen appearance.
Natalie Kalmus was the divorced wife of Herbert Kalmus,
one of the founders of Technicolor. She had nothing
whatever to do with the productions; her name appears in the
credits as a condition of the divorce settlement. The credit
is something like color director. If you look at the
credits you will find another name among the technical
credits for color consultant. These men worked for
Technicolor and you will usually see the same name for each
production company, i.e., the same fellow worked with M-G-M
or Paramount, etc. Tech also had their own directors of
photography who were available for producers who wanted
them. They were often credited along with the producer's DP
or sometimes alone. My memory is no longer clear but I
think W.Howard Green was the chief DP for Tech. Even after
Tech began using multi-layer film for original photography
they still supplied a "color consultant".
Some type scenes, particularly low-key, were very
difficult in the original process because the color tracking
was not very good. Nonetheless some very good low-key stuff
was done. See for instance "Margie" a 20th-Fox movie. I
once asked the DP about it but he had no memory of making
it. "Margie" despite being a very charming movie was
actually a B picture; amazing!


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
***@ix.netcom.com