Silver and "softening the colors"

<p>I was watching an interview with a cinematographer who said he had tried to convince the director to treat the film with silver to "soften the colors". I gathered that this could be done either to the unexposed film or in "post-production". I don't hardly know anything about color film processing and hope someone here can identify what he was talking about. Thanks.</p>

 

<p>Maybe bleach bypass? Basically skip or partially skip the bleach step and leave some of the silver in the print/neg. Kind of gives a low saturation gritty look made popular by Saving Private Ryan.</p>

<p>Thanks, Chuk. The cinematographer said he got the director to accept its use in post for the film Zatoichi (by Takeshi Kitano).</p>

 

<p>yup, that sounds like bleach bypass. And they used it with "Terminator: Salvation" to give it a surreal, kind of grim look to fit with the post-apocalyptic story. I also heard they used it with "Minority Report" and probably a lot of other movies.</p>

I am surprised to hear that any of the movie industry still uses film. Of course there's nothing wrong with that.

<p>Bleach bypass was used on all three of those films mentioned.</p>

<p>Charles - the movie industry uses a ton of film. Most big budget movies are still shot on film. This year's Best Picture was even shot on 16mm...</p>

<p>Spielberg has stated that he will continue to use film no matter what. George Lucas gave it up years ago...but his movies have been crap so that's no big deal.</p>

<p>The motion picture business is keeping the film manufacturing facilities at Kodak open. As long as this continues, still film is safe (albeit with fewer varieties).</p>