From: Mark Toscano (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Aug 08 2006 - 18:00:09 PDT
Hi John and all -
As Ross isn't on Frameworks, and I know enough to at
least answer your questions, I figured I'd just chime
in.
Fireworks, KKK, and Scorpio: these prints are 35mm
prints made from brand new 35mm internegatives blown
up from 16mm sources.
Rabbit's Moon was shot in 1950 on 35mm nitrate b/w
negative, and was restored by UCLA from the original
negative.
Fireworks was restored from more than one existing
16mm print, as the original negative is lost. KKK and
Scorpio were restored from the camera original
reversal rolls.
Regarding the Rabbit's Moon "image orientation": when
Kenneth rediscovered the 35mm negative in 1970 or so
(at the Cinematheque Francaise), he had it reduced to
16mm and cut his A and B rolls in 16mm from that
reduction. The 1970s "long" version derives from
these A and B rolls. However, when the reduction was
done, the image was unintentnionally flopped
left-right, creating an image orientation that was a
mirror image of the original intended shooting
orientation. UCLA preserved both the 35mm original
with its "correct" orientation, AND the 16mm reduction
version with its mirrored orientation. Also, for what
it's worth, this is the first time this film has been
printed and shown in its original 35mm.
As for aspect ratio, 16mm is slightly different from
35mm full sound aperture, but not so much as to create
any kind of cropping or weird matting problems. Of
course it's not exactly the same, and some folks
object to blowups for that (and other) reasons. But I
think there are reasons both for and against blowing
up 16mm films to preserve them in 35mm. Kenneth
seemed thrilled that his films had been blown up to
35mm, for what that's worth.
hope this answers your questions -
Mark
p.s. In his talk, Kenneth mentioned that Scorpio was
apparently blown up to 35mm years before (maybe
'60s?), and was shown in many theaters that way.
--- john porter <email suppressed> wrote:
> Thanks Mark,
> For anyone:
> Are these all prints "restored" from OLD 35mm
> internegatives, or are they NEW blow-ups? It's not
> clear here, in fact there's no mention of the films'
> original formats - 16mm!
> And what does this mean: "presenting the
> cinematography's original image orientation for the
> first time"? Isn't the originals' aspect ratio
> different than on 35mm? Is "image orientation"
> different? I'm not familiar with the term.
> John.
>
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.