Similarities to Wizard of Oz
I watched it last night. Wonderful film but did notice there were similarities in terms of visual effects with Wizard of OZ. Any of the makers involved on the two films?
I'm obsessed with the mess
its a miracle
No, the only people credited on both films were:
Natalie Kamus. She was the wife of the inventor of the Technicolor process and she got a credit on just about every Technicolor film. She tried to control the look of Technicolor films so that they showed off the Technicolor process to best advantage. She usually had more luck with this in Hollywood films. Other people tended to ignore her
Cliff Shirpser. Cliff was one of the assistant camera operators of the Technicolor cameras.
Have you seen many Technicolor films? The colours do often look quite different to modern films or to other colour films from the time. There are also differences that can often be seen between American Technicolor films (like The Wizard of Oz) and British Technicolor films (like The Thief of Bagdad).
Was it a difference in the processing? Was it something in the water? Was it the ambient light? (The sun doesn't always shine in Britain like it does in California). I don't know the reason, but you can usually tell if it's a British or American Technicolor film just after watching a short extract
Steve
The best guess that I've seen on the US / UK dichotomy (and it is there; the British ones have an overall "softer" feel to them; compare The Adventures of Robin Hood to any of the Powell & Pressburger technicolor pictures) is that it's rooted in the difference in intensity of ambient light. Being at a lower latitude, LA gets more direct intense sunlight than the UK (even compared to the clear, bright, sunny summer days the England does get). Then, of course, both groups would work on getting their studio lighting to match the look of their exterior photography for the sake of visual continuity.
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