Posted: Tue., Jan. 20, 1998, 11:00pm PT

Kodak focuses on new hybrid film

New product eases most difficult shot in the book

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EXCLUSIVE
Photography giant Eastman Kodak has developed a new hybrid film for use specifically with one of film's most demanding shots: "traveling matte" shots that use a green or blue screen in back of moving actors, properties or sets.

The Kodak SFX 200T color negative film was developed by Kodak in collaboration with a number of practitioners in the SFX community, and was first proposed to the company by SFX wizards Hoyt Yeatman of Dream Quest Images and Bruce Nicholson of Industrial Light and Magic.

Kodak hybrid technical director Fred Franzwa said Yeatman's ongoing work on the Walt Disney Studios production "Mighty Joe Young," where a considerable amount of blue-and green-screened shots were planned and executed, helped fine-tune the hybrid film for everyday use.

"Hoyt and his team deserve a lot of credit for helping us to push the state of the art forward with this film," said Franzwa. "The result of their work will speak for itself."

As a hybrid film, the new Kodak stock bridges the gap between purely optical stock and that which fits the needs of SFX people working in the digital domain more often than not, according to Kodak research scientist John Brewer.

"When this special-purpose film is scanned into the digital format, characters and objects in the foreground can be separated more cleanly from the back-ground screen," Brewer noted.

The SFX 200T film is now available from Kodak's Professional Motion Imaging unit on a special-order basis.