MovieChat Forums > Moby Dick (1956) Discussion > I need a technical expert to explain the...

I need a technical expert to explain the following:

posted 17 years ago by tom-1536
5 replies | jump to latest

Could someone who knows the technical aspects of film-making please explain what the following excerpt from the "Trivia" section of this film's IMDB entry:

"To create the desaturated pastel effect image of the movie, director of photography Oswald Morris used a unique dye transfer technique that uses broad-cut black and white matrices. This causes the separation, and contains the other two colors before recombining to create the desire effect. A silver layer was later added in the 4th pass."

This may as well have been written in Sanscrit, for all I was able to understand. However, one of the things I love, and which I believe, makes this film so special, is the look the Technicolor process gave.

Many thanks for anyone who can translate the above!

TjB

[–] wrfarley 17 years ago

The way I understand it is two prints were combined to give it the desaturated effect the filmmakers were looking for. First, the color print was faded to reduce the color elements. What you have at this point is a blanched print with muted colors. To re-enforce the black, a black and white print is "married" frame-for-frame to the color print, which added a further grey component (the word "matrix" is used by the cinematographers - I'm not sure what that means), but that's a layman's explanation.

The same technique is used in the movies TOM JONES, OLIVER!, and GLORY.

[–] clwowski 16 years ago

From DVD Savant---
All in all, MGM's DVD of Moby Dick is a reasonable disk. Since it was released in 1956, it was originally shown widescreen, cropped to 1:66 or 1:85 like any other movie of the time, but MGM has once again given the film a fullscreen transfer, probably cropping a bit off on both sides. The image is good but has none of the delicate color feeling of the original. The LA County Museum showed it several times to audiences that marveled at its strange color scheme - shot in Eastmancolor but printed in Technicolor, a fourth black and white pass was added to the three Technicolor dyes to provide even more control, subduing colors some and greying out others. Seen in an original Technicolor print, the effect was like an illustration in an old book. 2 MGM's various versions look okay, but are simply transfers from the negative without reference to the original prints (like anyone at a studio cares about such things on a 'minor' film like this?). Just the same, it's nothing to write home about. At least there isn't much grain, and the bit rate looks sufficient to carry the wide action shots. The only extra is a trailer that doesn't seem to know how to sell the movie.

[–] darkness_surroundz 9 years ago

it has been restored at 1,75 on the telly, so MGM must have this ready to release

[–] rwsmith29456 16 years ago

That's a real mouthful. Thanks for the explanation.

[–] chris776 10 years ago

If you (or any other reader) really would like a full and factual explanation of this process, find a library that has a collection of American Cinematographer magazines, look up from 1967 the article about Reflections in a Golden Eye, and that will explain it all. I remember reading it myself way back then.