Negative
film was engineered as
a duplication system that
originates as a negative.
Subsequent copies can
be made directly into
positive prints for distribution.
There exist two other
optional steps called
inter-positive and inter-negative.
These play their roles
as buffer steps in compositing
and when the master negative
is too valuable to dupe
over and over again to
run off prints and you
want to preserve it from
printer damage. It works
like this, an inter-positive
is made of your hand-cut
negative and an inter-negative
is made from the inter-positive.
The inter-negative is
then used to run off scores
of prints. When the inter-negative
becomes too scratched
to make quality prints,
another inter-negative
can be made from the pristine
inter-positive, which
should be stored and environmentally
protected in a film vault.
