Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!reiher
From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: First Color Films
Message-ID: <5634@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 03:16:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.5634
Posted: Thu May 23 03:16:24 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 26-May-85 23:47:49 EDT
References: <4882@ucla-cs.ARPA> <1117@hou5e.UUCP> <130@plx.UUCP> <2197@usceast.UUCP> <5142@ucla-cs.ARPA> <422@oakhill.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 27

In article <422@oakhill.UUCP> don@oakhill.UUCP (Don Weiss) writes:
>Another reason that the old Technicolor color-separation masters have 
>exhibited such great longevity is that the master strips are not in 
>color at all, but rather are black-and-white film stocks merely 
>*representing* the tonal variation of each of the three colors.
...
>
>Somewhere (on this net perhaps?) I heard that a previously unknown set of
>separation masters were found to an old movie (seems like it was GWTW),
>enabling distributors to get a very fresh looking color print.

My impression, which could be mistaken, is that, while the original three
negative masters may exist for old Technicolor films, there is no longer
equipment in the US capable of converting those masters into color prints.
I could be wrong about this, but I believe that all Technicolor films are
kept in special prints called matrices from which color prints are struck.
The matrices were originally made from the 3 black and white strips.  A
Technicolor print seen today is either an original print or struck from
the matrix.  The advantage is that the Technicolor process used long-lived,
but fabulously expensive, dyes to produce the matrix. (And the original
prints, for that matter.  I suspect that modern prints use the same stock
and dyes as all other films.)
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
				soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDA
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher