Everyone is familiar with the Marcie chart but did you know a version exists without the Kodak logo?
I first came across the unwatermarked Marcie chart while searching the internet. I was working at a facility and believe it or not they didn’t have a Marcie on the network. So I fired up Google and went searching for a copy. A number of search results were files that had obviously been through numerous conversions and I was hoping to find a simple untouched Cineon or DPX file.
Finally I came across a promising link on the gluetools website. The file isn’t referenced anywhere on the site it’s just a direct link. After I downloaded the file and loaded it up in Nuke something just seemed off. That’s when I realized the Kodak logo in the bottom right was missing!
Its not uncommon to have different colors of the Kodak logo. There is the red and yellow one most versions contain and I’ve even seen a black and red one. But the file I had just downloaded contained neither. It was empty.
Then sometime last year I found myself pondering if a 4k or larger unwatermarked version might exist. So I hit up Google and began hunting for the Marcie Pokemon as I’d come to call it. And after many dead ends I finally came across a small nugget of info. It was just the right kind of evidence that would give validity to a larger versions existence.
Tucked away on an old mailing list I found a discussion from 2006 where a user by the name of TSassoon posted a directory listing of a Cineon demo tape.
testframe/marcie/3656×2664/0002
38958336 94:02:09:16:09:26 IMAGE
3656 2664 RGB PACK_10_LONG_LEFT LRTB
So with evidence in hand I hit up a friend at Marvel Studios. They were the perfect person to help spread word around in my quest for the this elusive Pokemon.
Now I thought in the best case scenario my friend would send out an email to a few colleagues and nothing much would come of it. Boy how I was wrong! I would have never expected the outcome that followed.
My simple request had stirred up the color community and people from all over the place were being pulled into the hunt. Technicolor, EFilm, ARRI, just to name a few. I felt really confident she would be found when I was told “This is like the Holy Grail for color nerds !“.
Two weeks after my request went out I received an email letting me know that Mike Tosti at Technicolor had a copy. She was found!
If you examine the headers c_time value you will see that it is set to 1994-02-09 16:09:26.