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Letters to the Editor

LOST FILM SEARCH – Follow Up
In the December issue of Reel Deals, a critical picture was painted of the National Film and
Sound Archive’s inactivity on “Australia’s Lost Films – Search and Rescue” which had been
announced in June 2010. The Chair of the Archive board, Chris Puplick, wrote me a mollifying
but inconclusive letter but I have not heard further from the Archive.

However, a statement, headed “Most Wanted Collection Works”, has since appeared on the
NFSA website -- http://www.nfsa.gov.au and click the Most Wanted link.

There is a lot of information there for everyone concerned about the history of Australian film
and audio.

The statement gives generous mention of the situation with CAPTAIN THUNDERBOLT
(1953). A link is given to the NFSA catalogue entries for the existing material from the film.
The extensive study by Graham Shirley of the meaning of a “Lost” film, and the case study
details about CAPTAIN THUNDERBOLT, are not given a link; indeed, that 2010 material
seems to have been taken off the website.
The e-newsletter of NFSA is at - http://nfsa.gov.au/community/newsletters/ Online
subscription is free and of course, recommended to RD readers.
David Donaldson, Adelaide

The Editor
Reel Deals
In the December, 2011, issue, when discussing the restored movie `Mamba’ you made mention
of `the 2 strip Technicolor process of the day'. This is a misnomer, the process really being `2
colour' rather than `2 strip' which implies 2 separate negative films exposed in the camera. Early
Technicolor used a single negative on which two colour records were photographed by splitting
the light from the prime lens into two beams, passing these through colour filters, and recording
the resulting images ‘toe-to-toe' on the one strip of film.
These colour records were initially printed onto two positive films, one a red-orange record and
the other a blue-green record and the two films cemented together to make a projection print.
For many reasons this was not a satisfactory process and it was superseded by two colour
imbibition printing, which after the construction of the 3 strip camera was expanded to three
colour printing.

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Francis Evans
Thanks for pointing out the error Gordon – lazy journalism and a failure to check the details on
my behalf – ed.