by Darrel_Griffin » 11 Jan 2019 08:46
Thanks again Brent.
Regarding 'identical releases', I said I was "not sure" about whether that should be used in this case, which is ambiguous phrasing - apologies for that, but I meant it literally - I really don't know what the rules are regarding this, so I will leave that for others to decide.
GENERAL NOTE: THERE ARE NO OTHER DATABASE CORRECTION SUGGESTIONS IN THIS REPLY, JUST GENERAL DISCUSSION.
Personally I have very broad tastes in movies, although perhaps my favourite era is the 1970s, especially European movies. But I have made a point of trying to familiarise myself with movies from all eras, including the silent era, and I do have quite a few early movies, such as ones directed by F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, mostly on Blu-ray. I haven't actually watched many of them yet, but plan to watch the rest in the not-to-distant future. The earliest feature film I have is the original (at least I think it's the original) 'The Student of Prague' (1913), although it is a poor quality version that is massively sped up and is also missing a lot of footage. I also have the Eureka UK DVD of 'The Golem' (1920), which I think has some tinted shots. By the way, I've just found out that it looks like Sony are due to release 'The Golem' on Blu-ray in Germany in two weeks. I assume it will have German intertitles. I don't know if it will have English subtitles, but it's potentially another one for my wish list!
I did finally buy the Blu-ray of 'The Lost World' (1925), but not watched that yet either. But I think that has some tinting in it. I did watch a small section, and was somewhat disappointed at how much the image density seems to fluctuate from frame to frame, causing it to flicker quite a bit. Although perhaps I shouldn't have been too surprised, given that it is released on a label called 'Flicker Alley'!
I really don't know anything about 'sepiatone', and I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that on 'Mighty Joe Young' sepiatone was only used at some other point(s) in the movie, as the orphanage scene colouring looks to be a very vibrant orangey-red, and nothing like sepia photographs I've seen which are more like a mild brown hue. But perhaps the sepiatone chemical process can be adapted and/or used in conjunction with other processes to create a variety of hues. Obviously, digital tools can create any hue desired, so when tinting is created digitally there is no reason to automatically assume that the result is close to the original chemical process that it is attempting to emulate. However, I feel that the normal brown sepia look I am used to would not look very impressive when trying to create the spectacle of a burning building, so I can only assume there must be more to the sepiatone process than that. Can you shed any light (no pun intended!) on this Brent?