American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 86

Soup du Jour
Enhancement (ACE) process, which
shares many of the same features of

CCE, but is also scalable, like its Tech¬
nicolor cousin, ENR. "I
that ENR and ACE

can

tell you

are

similar

create

from

done

by Deluxe because of

a

contractual situation with the studio.
The director, Jean-Pierre

advancements in both

blacks can also plug up more.
a
bleach-bypass, the tones are

your

With

much duller and

more

muted, and

have a lot less detail in the shad¬
ows. The blacks are
very black, but
the nuances in the gray are dimin¬
ished. We do get some clients who

you

that look, but most of the time

want

people

say,

'I want the blacks to be

black, but I still want
detail.' This is
more

some

shadow

why they are usually
[silver-retention]

interested in

processes

such

as

CCE, ACE or ENR.
are
nothing in

"These tools

84 November 1998

hands of those who

are

not sure

of

what

they're doing," she adds. "I've
lot of people come in and
consider using silver retention as an
afterthought. They'll say, 'Take my
negative and give me a CCE print
had

a

Designed by vice president of
Beverly Wood and
executive vice president of engineer¬

because I

ing Colin Mossman, CCE is

same!' it is because the look of a film

three

silver-retention

offered

at

Technicolor controls

as

and ACE at lOOOnm. Wood notes

reading on a normally
processed 21-step wedge, the print
yields an IR number between 58 and
60. "When you skip the bleach
completely on a piece of print film
and retain 100 percent of the silver in
the film," she distinguishes, "that IR
number goes up to 240 - effectively

look and blacker blacks. However,

of

Just

their ENR process, Deluxe monitors
the levels of silver retained by CCE

chemical and mechanical technol¬

able to meet the film's
large print demand on time.
"CCE, however, is something
very different from ACE," she notes.
"CCE is a proprietary process that
produces a much higher contrast and
adds more grain. When you have
more silver,
you have a more grainy

one

look, but I know

that when Deluxe monitors the D-

ogy, we were

technical services

certain

our

recent

density and the colors begin to slightly desaturate. (Images
courtesy of Deluxe and Eastman Kodak Company.)

a

working with cinematogra¬
phers that it's important to shoot
tests and actually go
through the IP,
IN and release-print stages to be sure
about the look that they want."

Jeunet,

compared our ACE check-print with
his ENR answer print and was quite
happy with the result. And with the

direction, the

art

lighting really do
make a difference. Now, I am by no
means an expert on all of the
things
that the true experts do in order to

Alien: Resurrection [AC Nov. '97] had
its dailies and answer print done by

Technicolor, but the release prints

blacker blacks but the overall color rendition is still true.
Bottom: With CCE applied, the mid-tones have added

made in the

colors and the

processes," Wood submits. "In fact,

were

Top: A normally processed 5386 print. Deluxe utilizes this
image to illustrate the effect of CCE and ACE processes.
Center: The same image with 50 percent ACE applied yields

are

want

the look of Seven! We

will do the
but when

print for them of course,
they say, 'It doesn't look the

max

four times

as

much silver in the film

than there should be.
"When you

keep 100 percent

of the silver in, the blacks look great
in the dark parts of the room, but the

faces
them

now
as

also have

well,

so

lot of silver in

a

their

contrast is

all

messed up. The fleshtones may look
old and hard; therefore, you may say,

'Can I back off

on

the

amount

silver

in my print and still keep some of the
normal nuances of the curve?' What

this

basically

means

is that

you

should try to make only the top part
of the curve increase, while you keep
the toe

area

the

same.

To do

that,

we

back off from

skip bleach and go to
CCE. When we set up our propri¬
etary set of events in terms of print¬
ing and processing, we end up with a
D-max IR reading of 180 to 190. We
now have about 75
percent silver in
the print. What you will then see on
the screen is that you now have some
nice desaturation in the color; there's
still a little bit of grittiness and grain

is

truly a collaborative effort between
cinematographer,
the gaffer, the production designer

to

Shortly after the
release of Seven, the laboratory intro¬

the director, the

the blacks than if you just skipped
the bleach. For a movie like Seven,

duced

and the

where the

processes

Deluxe.

its

Adjustable

Contrast

costumer.

The choices that

it, but you'll have more detail in

lighting

was

predomi-
American Cinematographer - November 1998

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