Why don't they make films in Technicolor anymore?

[ska invita]

Arent there filter you can get for DV, or even some kind of post productin effects that would give you the desired effect?

Im always suprsied there isnt more experimentation with colour palletes+DV - surely its a piece of piss?

 

[ska invita]

Can't the magic of computers do the same thing these days?

ditto

 

[laptop]

Can't the magic of computers do the same thing these days?

But how do you deliver it to the screen?

I've not seen a high-end cinema digital projector at work. Are they good enough to get that saturation?

I think for the moment, you'd be stuck with printing your re-balanced images to inferior 70mm film... losing much of your hard effort in the process...

 

[Reno]

There have been films like Blue Velvet or Far From Heaven, which have reproduced the three strip Technicolor look with lighting and grading. It can be done, it's just that the results are rather stylised and most films today go for naturalism.

 

[maya]

Not claiming to be an expert of film or anything, but didn't many directors use Super 8 or 16mm footage to achieve precisely that "overblown" colour effect- Think Wong Kar-Wai's photographer, Chris something, and the "Amelie..." film (which overdid it in a way, and got a sickly green colour overlaying everything)
?

 

[maya]

- edit!

(Rarrgh, it's really shocking how easy it is these days to click the wrong button and end up double-, triple- and quadruple-posting, nay smearing, your silliest arguments all over the same thread, further cementing your laughingstock status and dehumanising your innermost tenderheart dreams... It must be a conspiracy. The button-designers WANTED the "post" and "edit" buttons to be conspicuously aligned, heightening the error-statistics to humiliating curves, so us social faux pas-muppets can sit trembling, with tears dripping down the keyboard... Oh, we the damned... )

 

[Reno]

Not claiming to be an expert of film or anything, but didn't many directors use Super 8 or 16mm footage to achieve precisely that "overblown" colour effect- Think Wong Kar-Wai's photographer, Chris something, and the "Amelie..." film (which overdid it in a way, and got a sickly green colour overlaying everything)
?

Super 8 and 16 mm are grainy and lack sharpness when blown up, but Wong-Kar-Wei of course likes the garish effect of home movie stock and his films do look gorgeous. His regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle is brilliant, the best working right now IMO and he often lights films in a way that make them look like 40's Hollywood Technicolor. He frequently dresses actresses in orange and then places them against greenish backdrops. The contrast really makes the colours pop.

I wasn't keen on the way Amelie looked either, mainly because Jeunet uses digital grading on every frame. Everything he does has an overly fussy, fake CG look to it. He tries to emulate the look of films of the past, but it always comes of looking like an commercial.

 

[maya]

Super 8 and 16 mm is grainy and lacks sharpness when blown up, but Wong-Kar-Wei of course likes the gritty effect of home movie film stocks. His regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle is brilliant, the best working right now IMO and he often lights films in a way that make them look like 40's Hollywood Technicolor. He frequently dresses actresses in orange and then places them against greenish backdrops. The contrast really makes the colours pop.

Yeah... The "running" opening scene in Chungking Express is just extraordinary-
The way he uses out-of-focus shots, make the colours blur and shift into each other, like painting with the camera...

Also the sequence where the passers-by are sped up, fast-forward style- while the camera lingers on the two characters by the counter in the caféteria, both filmed in slow motion... And this scene goes on for a while, the effect is very emotional- Perfectly captures that, uh, alienating, 1990s "urban ennui" thing... Which is probably hopelessly outdated now, but felt so right at the time- Asian new wave stylee)

I wasn't keen on the way Amelie looked either, mostly because Jeunet becuse he uses digital grading on every frame. Everything he does has an overly fussy, CG look to it.

Glad it's not just me- I liked the actual film, but that yellow-ish green tinge made it very hard to watch... They should've done something to the overall look/colour palette of the film before releasing it, IMO... Will be interesting also to see if/how it stands the test of time, the colours will probably deteriorate further with age, so I wonder if there'll be anything left to watch for future generations- Probably just a yellow-beige crackly haze with sweet music to watch as an "art object"...lol

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

It did an' all.

Wasn't the film... something heaven something, with Julianne Moore shot in technicolour? Or was it just the 1950s style setting that fooled me?

 

[Reno]

It did an' all.

Wasn't the film... something heaven something, with Julianne Moore shot in technicolour? Or was it just the 1950s style setting that fooled me?

Far From Heaven, mentioned it above

It wasn't shot in Technicolor, but the lighting certainly evoked the style of the 50's Douglas Sirk melodrams it was a homage to.