digitally remastered Coronation

[jean]

the choir thread people will know better than me but I think the Latin title is Non vos relinquam orphanos...

Of course! I didn't spot it until you pointed it out because comfortless is a bit less specific than orphan.

But the motet is simple, beautiful and widely sung, so it must have been recorded quite a lot I would think.

(I sang it a couple of weeks ago, no reference to the Coronation as far as I'm aware!)

[mercia]

this is probably a very dumb question, but did the Church of England go through a phase of not liking/allowing things sung in Latin ?
I mean in the twentieth century

[salymap]

There were two films of the Coronation for cinema release. The first, A Queen is Crowned was made in Technicolour by the Rank Organisation, and had Laurence Olivier for the narration. The other film was shot in Eastmancolour by Pathe. Of the two, the technicolour version has survived better, it is still just about possible to make dye transfer prints from the original black and white separations, although I think the only surviving lab for processing is now in China,. In any case, the Technicolour version has been digitally reprocessed for DVD etc.

Eastmancolour prints have not survived so well, because the chemical processing used leads to slow deterioration in the negative, rather in the way that very old colour transparencies can turn pink. During the 1950s and onwards, film companies increased the amount of location filming, and took to Eastmancolour because the cameras could be less bulky, and the stock needed less light to give good results. Technicolour cameras were pretty massive objects.

Some years ago, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and others became so alarmed at the damage to some classic films shot in Eastmancolour that at one point they threatened to go back to shooting in black and white in an effort to force manufacturers to improve their product and help to finance restoration projects. I'm not sure if they were successful.
The washed out quality on old films that turn up on TV is often due to the fact that release prints have been used to make new negatives, and you can sometimes spot colour differences on reel changes where they had to sample several prints to get the best results. Of course, modern digital restoration can do a great deal, but it still requires the best available original sources.

Iremember seeing the one with the Olivier narration in a big London cinema as soon as it was screened.

Wasit ever availablefor sale as a DVD or video ?

[Nick Armstrong]

technicolour version has survived better ...
Eastmancolour prints have not survived so well...

The washed out quality on old films that turn up on TV is often due to the fact that release prints have been used to make new negatives, and you can sometimes spot colour differences on reel changes where they had to sample several prints to get the best results. Of course, modern digital restoration can do a great deal, but it still requires the best available original sources.

Fascinating stuff, Ff. I think this has been covered elsewhere on t'Forum before but not in such detail.

It's always striking how, for instance in repeats of "Dad's Army" (probably the 70s prog I watch most when it's on) - also in the recent repeats of "Whatever happened to the Likely Lads?" on BBC4 - the studio-based scenes come up fresh as paint and - save for the 4x3 format - could have been filmed yesterday... whereas scenes outside (the "Dad's Army" mob fooling around in a hay field getting the harvest in, springs to mind) look washed-out, grainy etc etc. and far older than their 1970s provenance...

Presumably the Eastmancolor process is to blame?

[jean]

this is probably a very dumb question, but did the Church of England go through a phase of not liking/allowing things sung in Latin ?
I mean in the twentieth century

I believe that after the Reformation it was always possible to sing in Latin where that was understanded of the people, which meant in Oxbridge colleges.

Sometimes music of the Tudor period was provided with both Latin and English texts, often unrelated (cf Tallis's Spem in Alium).

I'm not aware that there was ever a deliberate avoidance of Latin texts in the C20, though.

(On googling I found this thread, which I had quite forgotten ever having started.)

[mercia]

thank you for all that

I was simply thinking that had that been a 2013 Coronation, the Byrd motet might have stayed in Latin [I'm assuming it was in Latin in the first place]
but that in 1953 it might have been frowned upon - I'm probably talking through my tiara

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We must have been the toffs of Beaufort Avenue, Swinton. The whole street piled into our house to watch the Coronation. We were the only ones with a TV.

[mercia]

Iremember seeing the one with the Olivier narration in a big London cinema as soon as it was screened.

Wasit ever availablefor sale as a DVD or video ?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Queen-Crowned-DVD-Castleton-Knight/dp/B007ON30O4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370251304&sr=8-1&keywords=a+queen+is+crowned+dvd

[jean]

I was simply thinking that had that been a 2013 Coronation, the Byrd motet might have stayed in Latin [I'm assuming it was in Latin in the first place]
but that in 1953 it might have been frowned upon - I'm probably talking through my tiara

If anything there are (I think) more Evangelicals in the C of E now than there were in 1953.

But I don't know how much influence they would have when it came to choosing music for a Coronation.

An Anglican church musician of advanced age needs to answer this.

[Ferretfancy]

Iremember seeing the one with the Olivier narration in a big London cinema as soon as it was screened.

Wasit ever availablefor sale as a DVD or video ?

Yes Saly, it should still be available on DVD, published by Granada Ventures. The title is A Queen is Crowned. The producer was Castleton Knight, and the narration was written by Christopher Fry, Amazon should have it.

[Ferretfancy]

Fascinating stuff, Ff. I think this has been covered elsewhere on t'Forum before but not in such detail.

It's always striking how, for instance in repeats of "Dad's Army" (probably the 70s prog I watch most when it's on) - also in the recent repeats of "Whatever happened to the Likely Lads?" on BBC4 - the studio-based scenes come up fresh as paint and - save for the 4x3 format - could have been filmed yesterday... whereas scenes outside (the "Dad's Army" mob fooling around in a hay field getting the harvest in, springs to mind) look washed-out, grainy etc etc. and far older than their 1970s provenance...

Presumably the Eastmancolor process is to blame?

Caliban,
As was standard at the time for shows like Dad's Army, all the location scenes were shot on 16mm film, and usually Eastmancolour stock. I did the film sound dubbing on quite a few of them, usually in the evening when feeling knackered after a long day! We usually worked to a cutting copy, which was poorer than the finished show print. Like you, seeing them today brings home how poor the film looks. It would, however, have looked a bit better when first shown, as it would have been a one generation copy onto 2'' Ampex video tape when combined with the studio material from TV cameras. Ampex is no longer in use, so a decision must have been made years ago to copy the shows onto one of the newer tape formats, with further loss of quality.I imagine it is now on a digital format, but restoration is expensive.

The fact is that back then the video resolution from TV cameras was better than that from 16mm film.

Dad's Army has certainly notched up some mileage!

[salymap]

Thanks Ferret, I'vejust been watching the latest Dad's Army from my hard drive.

Good to have your posts about the behind-the-scenes matters re recordings, etc. I've never forgotten your posts ages ago about the firat stereo recordings. I remember themm well.

Moving the radio and TV and the sound travelling across the room.

[pastoralguy]

There were two films of the Coronation for cinema release. The first, A Queen is Crowned was made in Technicolour by the Rank Organisation, and had Laurence Olivier for the narration. The other film was shot in Eastmancolour by Pathe. Of the two, the technicolour version has survived better, it is still just about possible to make dye transfer prints from the original black and white separations, although I think the only surviving lab for processing is now in China,. In any case, the Technicolour version has been digitally reprocessed for DVD etc.

Eastmancolour prints have not survived so well, because the chemical processing used leads to slow deterioration in the negative, rather in the way that very old colour transparencies can turn pink. During the 1950s and onwards, film companies increased the amount of location filming, and took to Eastmancolour because the cameras could be less bulky, and the stock needed less light to give good results. Technicolour cameras were pretty massive objects.

Some years ago, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and others became so alarmed at the damage to some classic films shot in Eastmancolour that at one point they threatened to go back to shooting in black and white in an effort to force manufacturers to improve their product and help to finance restoration projects. I'm not sure if they were successful.
The washed out quality on old films that turn up on TV is often due to the fact that release prints have been used to make new negatives, and you can sometimes spot colour differences on reel changes where they had to sample several prints to get the best results. Of course, modern digital restoration can do a great deal, but it still requires the best available original sources.

I have a 16mm Eastman print of the Audrey Hepburn - Peter O' Toole vehicle 'How to steal a million' and the greens, yellows and blues have all but disappeared leaving just shades of red.

The 'Raiders of the lost archive' did achieve some good things, notably the restoration of old nitrate prints that were still salvageable. But even the original negatives of such modern classics as 'Jaws' and 'Godfather' 1 & 2 were in very poor condition and required a lot to be spent on restoration.