A Question for the Experienced/knowledgeable

[Kyle Presley]

What were some of the popular Kodak film stocks from the early 90's? I'm watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and while the movie itself is questionable, I LOVE the look of the film, particularly that film stock. Any ideas?

[NateWeaver]

The look probably has at least as much to do about the colorist as the stock(s) used.

[Kyle Presley]

Did they have colorists back then? lol.

[David Mullen ASC]

It was mostly shot on Agfa XT-320, since discontinued. The closest stocks today to that look are probably Kodak 5229 Expression 500T and Fuji Eterna 400T, both low-con stocks, though you'd want to overexpose them to match the Agfa look.

Agfa needed some overexposure to look good -- DP's like David Watkin, who shot one of the first XT-320 features, "Out of Africa", often exposed it at 200 ASA instead of 320 ASA. When you did that, you got a sort of creamy look. To my eyes, these Agfa-shot movies had a brownish bias, with lightened greens and pale blues.

Douglas Milsome, who shot "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves", also started using Agfa (I believe) on "The Last of the Mohicans" before he was replaced by Dante Spinotti, who used Kodak stocks except for the waterfall sequence, which was on Agfa.

Agfa XT-320 was the first fast movie film to use T-grain in one of its layers, not Kodak, and some DP's preferred it over 5294, the 400T high-speed Kodak stock that was available at the same time. For example, most of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was shot on 5247 100T Kodak but the factory scene at the end was shot on Agfa XT-320 because Dean Cundey needed a faster stock.

One of the best-looking movies partially shot on Agfa was "The Mission", which used 100T Kodak for most of the day exteriors and Agfa XT-320 for the low-light work.

Other Agfa-shot movies include "Memphis Belle", the Mel Gibson "Hamlet", "Mountains of the Moon" and "Short Cuts".

Agfa stopped making motion picture color film around 1995.

There appears to be some degree of diffusion used on "Prince of Thieves" as far as I can tell, sometimes it looks like nets are on the lens.

[NateWeaver]

Of course I was flippant with my answer, and Mr. Mullen of course has the more useful response. Of course I should have probably had at least seen a frame from it before responding.

Both Fuji and Agfa have (had?) their signature characteristics. when I think of either, I think of a lower contrast look with a unique rendering in the greens. This is a casual observation based more on stills I saw in AC growing up and none based on experience.

I think my answer had more to do with the fact when you are watching something on video and shot from the mid 80s forward, remember there was a colorist in the chain that had his hand in the final look.

[Kyle Presley]

Thanks Nate and David. That's very informative. Is it possible to replicate this look on Red?

[NateWeaver]

I hope Mr. Mullen will shed his own light on this, but my answer is, while the Red does seem to have it's own set of looks with the curves and color spaces by default in the various softwares...

...anything is possible with a good colorist :-)

[M Most]

Other Agfa-shot movies include "Memphis Belle", the Mel Gibson "Hamlet", "Mountains of the Moon" and "Short Cuts".


And the television programs "Civil Wars" and "NYPD Blue" (the first 2 seasons). Brian Reynolds, the director of photography on both of those series, was a big Agfa fan - as was I (I was the colorist on both).

[David Birdy]

Mike are you still a colorist?
If so what production house do you work out of ?

I'm a Big fan of Chris Pepperman, I know he uses a Davinchi, what system do you prefer?

Your thought on Apple's Color program?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Dave