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Post #684756

Author
poita
Parent topic
Star Wars 1977 releases on 35mm
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/684756/action/topic#684756
Date created
21-Jan-2014, 9:04 AM

msycamore said:

I'm surprised by the amount of pink in those homestead shots, is that the case on both this low fade print and Tech print of yours, poita? In all the print sources I've seen the sky has always been more light gray, even the smoke is pink in that panning shot. Interesting.

 Absolutely, if anything it is slightly more pink than the images I have shown.

I have seen 9 different prints now all up, as well as countless Super8 prints which were taken from the international negative and all of them are pretty close to the image I posted here. Some are a little lighter, some a little darker, but all have a definite pinkish sky in this shot. (The only ones that don't are the dodgy 16mm dupe prints, most of the colour casts in scenes are washed away in those prints)

Reproductions in magazines and books will nearly always be balanced out by the pagesetter and appear without the colour-cast, they would most likely assume it was an unwanted artefact and adjust it out. Try taklng the image into photoshop and applying autocolor and you will get a nice dull neutral sky, which looks more natural, but is less striking. I have found on set photographs and books to be a useless source for colour, as it doesn't take into account the on-set lighting, any filters used, the final colour grade or the film stock.

The reddish tones appear to be intended, quite possibly to add to the menace and colour temperature to accompany the 'burning' of Luke's family, and adding to the 'hellishness' of the imagery with the skeletal remains.

But for whatever reason, the sky was pinky-red in 1977 when Luke's Aunt and Uncle breathed their last.