Film Quality of Early Cinema

[Allen Perkins]

Hey everyone, I was watching the 2006 restoration of HIMMELSKIBET and never realized that a film of that vintage could look so clear, stable and free of damage. I'm not sure how much this clarity is on account of the DFI's restoration or the print itself being already immaculate, but nonetheless it was startling to see a 1918 movie look decades newer than it is and cleaner than any movie I've seen from that period.

Anyway, forgive me if I sound like a newb, but here's my question: How would films from the beginning up through the 1910s have looked when they were new? Would they have appeared nearly pristine like HIMMELSKIBET, or would they have been filled with embedded damage? Would it have depended on stuff like the film stock, film lab, studio, or country?

Thanks in advance!

[Gagman 66]

An original first generation fine grain Nitrate print would have looked spectacular. Unfortunately allot of people still think that old movies are supposed to look old scratchy and beat up. They just don't know any better. They assume the prints were murky and out of focus. Nothing of the sort. That being said, in allot of smaller markets people were not always getting first run prints. And they were also getting prints that were nicked up by that time already.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Still photography was already well-developed by the late 1800s, and modern prints from original glass negatives have incredibly sharp clarity, detail, and contrast range. When movie technology was introduced in the 1890s, 35mm film was considered the smallest (and thus most cost-effective) format to yield an acceptable picture. Surviving original prints from the 1890s, if not too damaged or deterioriated, have a fine contrast range and clarity, although they are certainly grainier than films from 10 to 20 years later as film stocks and quality control improved.

By the 1910s and certainly the 1920s, properly exposed, processed, and printed 35mm movie film stock could record an image resolution equivalent to today's so-called "high-definition" video, and film emulsions improved with each succeeding decade (and continue to improve). By the 1920s, film stock was sharp enough that good 16mm film could look as sharp as 35mm film from 15 or 20 years previous and original 16mm prints struck from the 35mm camrera negatives in the 1920s are often sharper than modern 35mm archival preservation prints that have been copied from 35mm dupe negatives made from 35mm finegrain positives struck from 35mm presrvation negatives made from the 35mm surviving nitrate prints that were struck from the 35mm camera negatives. (In other words, besides natural wear and film breaks that come with use, its mostly the numerous stages of copying that make old movies look like "old" movies.)

The problem with older films is that most survive in heavily-worn original copies or in versions that may not show many scratches and splices but are degraded from being copies of copies of other copies, increasing contrast and grain with each time they're copied. Every now and then an original print in pristine or near-pristine condition is discovered, and sometimes even the original camera negatives, and those early films can be enjoyed in new copies that look the way they would have when brand new. Of course back in the early years, projection quality could also vary, with some theatres using cheaper projectors and lenses that could not focus as clearly, or showed objectionable flicker, or a slightly unsteady image. The best theatres had better projectors with better images, and some of the better of the earlier projectors (from the 1920s and 30s) are actually still in use today. Most modern non-digital theatres are quite likely to be using projectors built in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s rather than the 1990s or 2000s (and likely will still be until the threatened complete conversion to digital systems becomes a reality).

Jack or Bob or some others may want to add other technical details.

[Jack Theakston]

I might add, however, that not all conditions for projecting were ideal, and judging from original prints, no lab ever seemed to care about scratches on, nor cleaning their negatives, because almost every silent print I've seen is riddled with negative dirt (white specks).

In projection, the carbon arc (and earlier, incandescent) lamp houses that were used were not particularly efficient, so your brightness varied. Lenses from that period were not coated, and quite slow. Most theaters had a much smaller screen than we're used to now (the average screen size for a 1000-seat house was about 12-by-16-feet), so the image stayed relatively bright, but small, making focus issues and the like less apparent.

[Allen Perkins]

...and judging from original prints, no lab ever seemed to care about scratches on, nor cleaning their negatives, because almost every silent print I've seen is riddled with negative dirt (white specks).

This is something I've noticed in Japanese films as late as 1955. Visually they can be quite decent, but even at their best have tons of negative scratches and specks throughout. It is akin to watching a silent movie.

[sc1957]

Considering that I've seen a great deal of damage (scratches, splices, spots, etc) on the prints of modern films that have finally made their way to my small-town theater (and perhaps have played there for a week before I see them), I think it's only fair to guess that any film from the early part of the century would have shown the same sort of damage, unless you had the chance to see a new copy early in its distribution cycle.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Considering that I've seen a great deal of damage (scratches, splices, spots, etc) on the prints of modern films that have finally made their way to my small-town theater (and perhaps have played there for a week before I see them), I think it's only fair to guess that any film from the early part of the century would have shown the same sort of damage, unless you had the chance to see a new copy early in its distribution cycle.

Projector quality and projectionist quality have always been major factors in the quality of the image on the screen. The number of prints made is also a factor on earlier films (basically on most pre-1975 films before movies would open on 1000 screens or more at once). Once releases regularly began to be more than 200 or 300 prints (and duplicating stocks had improved in quality), the camera negatives would be used to make a fine-grain interpositive (IP) that would be used for making several dupe negatives to use for making the release prints. Only a few projection prints would ever be struck from the camera negatives for use in the premium showcase theatres in large cities, so by the 1970s-80s most people would be watching dupe prints in first-run theatres, and new dupe prints of any reissues of classic films, which depending on the lab work may or may not have been up to the quality of original prints from 30-40 years (or even 4 or 5 years) previous.

In the silent era typical runs of average films might be 50-100 prints. Films with larger print runs would start to show printed-through wear as white scratches and white dust, perhaps a few splices where film had broken in a printer, etc., and any re-releases would have a certain amount of wear built-in to the original negatives (in the days before wet-gate printing). This was also a major reason for multiple cameras and multiple versions prepared from multiple takes, so that an original negative could be used for re-issues, even if it was't quite the same film.

Films that survive in Kodascope and Show-at-Home 16mm printdowns from the original 35mm negatives usually have superb image clarity, but since they were struck after the major theatrical runs the most popular titles also tend to include quite a bit of printed-through scratches and dust, besides being somewhat abridged in the case of Kodascopes.