Club Obi Wan

Haven't posted for a while (okay, years). Guess I just didn't have much in the way of valuable input (or free time). Anyway, after searching through some of the many pics of my fedora (Akubra Federation Deluxe, Raiders style) I was really astounded at how different the color of the hat seemed to be based on the lighting. I went through my pics and made this color comparison collage. I know the debate over whether there were any gray hats in Raiders seems to still be going strong lately. I was personally convinced the China Clipper hat / DC stairs hat was a different hat than the main fedora worn throughout the film, but after seeing how gray my Fed Deluxe can look (while appearing very light brown and even reddish in different lighting, like the Raiders hat) I'm not so sure anymore. Let me know what you think, here's the color comparison:

http://public.fotki.com/gcr51581/gcrs_h ... rcomp.html


- GCR

Hummm. GCR. Now THERE'S a familiar name, but I just can't remember from where!

HOWDY STRANGER!!!! GOOD TO "SEE" you again!!!!

HIGH regards!

Michaelson

wiiiiiiiiieeeeerrrrrrdddddddd!!!!!

Watch out, my friend! I've posted evidence like this before and I got 20 lashes and 30 days in the hole!!


(I was later exonerated, though )


Great shots!

TR

Here's a couple that I saw in the AB thread that also look grey. I couldn't find BendingOak's example, but I know he took a couple shots of his brown AB that made it look grey because of one issue or another.





I hope it's okay with the respective members who originally posted those pics that I repost them here.

Very interesting. I just got an akubra fed regular in the mail last week and I found the comparison pics on the site here (from various people) to actually be different from what I saw. The hat to me looked much darker and more of a chocolate brown than a sort of rust colored brown. I've also got a lighter Barlesoni (no, not Borsalino, Barlesoni) brown one and it's DEFINITELY lighter than the Akubras. Lighting must really play a big role.

It could also be that after wearing a hat for some time, the natural wear and tear as well as sunlight may lighten the hat somewhat.


I still want a grey Akubra, though.

HOWDY STRANGER!!!! GOOD TO "SEE" you again!!!!

Thanks for the wam welcome back!

Watch out, my friend! I've posted evidence like this before and I got 20 lashes and 30 days in the hole!!

Geesh, sounds excessive...

Very interesting. I just got an akubra fed regular in the mail last week and I found the comparison pics on the site here (from various people) to actually be different from what I saw. The hat to me looked much darker and more of a chocolate brown than a sort of rust colored brown. I've also got a lighter Barlesoni (no, not Borsalino, Barlesoni) brown one and it's DEFINITELY lighter than the Akubras. Lighting must really play a big role.

It could also be that after wearing a hat for some time, the natural wear and tear as well as sunlight may lighten the hat somewhat.


I still want a grey Akubra, though.

My hat may appear lighter than a regular Federation because I think the Fed Deluxe is a shade or two lighter to begin with, couple that with the fact that my hat is over 3 years old and has been worn constantly (some of those pics in my comparison shot above are more current than others), so there's bound to be some fading from all that wear and exposure to the sun, etc. Other Federations (regular or deluxe) you see on this board could appear lighter for the same reason, or from the lighting, as I demonstrated and you suggested, or even from overly liberal applications of Fuller's Earth (or something similar). Give your hat time and use and it will lighten up a bit.

BTW, I have a Barlesoni myself, a straw "Panama" style hat. Picked it up for $20 about 5 years ago in a hatshop in Foxboro, MA. This is actually the first time I've heard of anyone having another hat from this brand!

Anyways, I'm still not convinced one way or the other on the Gray Hat / No Gray Hat debate. After all, Ford wasn't wearing a Fed Deluxe in Raiders, so who knows how a late seventies, early eighties HJ would react to some of these same lighting conditions??? We'd really need to get our hands on one of the original Raiders hats to find out for sure...but if we could, I don't think anyone would want to take it off long enough to take pictures of it...

I have a well worn Peters Bros. Indy, and have noticed the same thing with the lighting and tonal shifts.

GCR wrote:

Watch out, my friend! I've posted evidence like this before and I got 20 lashes and 30 days in the hole!!

Geesh, sounds excessive...

...

Not really. We just like beating on TR.

Regards! Michaelson

Michaelson wrote:

GCR wrote:
Quote:
Watch out, my friend! I've posted evidence like this before and I got 20 lashes and 30 days in the hole!!


Geesh, sounds excessive...

...


Not really. We just like beating on TR.

Regards! Michaelson

Oh, that explains it! I was gonna say, 15 lashes and a week in the hole seemed more reasonable.

That's what we did at Indyfan. (grins) You ARE behind the times, GCR!!

Regards! Michaelson

That's what we did at Indyfan. (grins) You ARE behind the times, GCR!!

Regards! Michaelson

I guess I have been away too long. Next thing you know, you're going to tell me that the Dorfman-Pacific, wool felt fedora isn't a viable option for a screen accurate Raiders hat! I mean, c'mon...it's OFFICIAL, it has to be screen accurate, right?

Maybe THAT'S the answer...to my knowledge, Dorfman-Pacific never made a GRAY Indy hat. Seeing as how they NAILED the brown fedora PERFECTLY, they surely would have made one in GRAY if there had actually been any gray hats used in the film, right? I mean, they would know, being the "official" maker of Indy hats and all.

Nice work GCR!
I always thought there was a grey hat but your evidence is very convincing.
I am putting myself in the "not quite sure" camp!

Is that the same one that comes with the Disney pin? Or am I confusing my OFFICIAL Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers hat?

Nice work GCR!
I always thought there was a grey hat but your evidence is very convincing.
I am putting myself in the "not quite sure" camp!

Thanks. I may still be up in the air about whether there were gray hats or no, but that didn't stop me from ordering a gray AB!

Is that the same one that comes with the Disney pin? Or am I confusing my OFFICIAL Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers hat?

Ha!

Yep, sounds like the Dorfman. Available at the Disney parks, with an "official" Indiana Jones hat pin on the bow and the Indy logo imprinted in gold on the faux leather sweatband. I think the hat Chip (or was it Dale??? Dale's the one with the red nose, right?) wore might have been a bit more accurate than the dorfman wool hats.

- GCR

Funny thing about that gray/grey hat. I watched an old VHS of Raiders recently(and again last night) and that gray hat was brown!!!! On my dvds and boxed set of the Indy trilogy, the hat appears to be a brownish gray, or grayish brown. But, on this tape, the hat is clearly brown, although a washed out brown. I don't have any hair left on my head.

But, on all versions of this film that I have, the Nazi hat, the one you can still see a razor crease apparent, is definitely gray/grey. And it appears to be gray in the sunlight. I always linked that hat to the plane hat, as I thought they were the same. And regardless of which copy I watch, the hat on the steps is gray/grey as well. It certainly does not look brown, as a guy with a brown hat passes Indy and Marion, and you can tell it is brown, even when he is next to Indy's gray hat. That does it for me. Fedora

also add to that , the fact the Nazi on the plane ( Dennis Muren ) and people behind Indy in the back of the plane are wearing Brown hats that clearly look brown

You know Strider, that hat in the first pics looks a awful lot like mine.



This is one of those things that the more I learn about the less I understand it.

ive always seen a grey brown hat but dont want to start anything up again so i will keep shut

The Grey hat has a narrower bow cinch than the brown Raiders hat, so it's not the same hat, unless the ribbon was changed. That AB avove looks green. So does Dutch_jones's (pictued). Maybe these are Regular Federation owners pretending they own AB's. If the Grey hat was brown, and the brown hat was green, maybe the Grey hat was GREEN!.

Perhaps the type of felt the hat is made from has something to do with the way it reacts to different lighting? My Fed Deluxe is made from all Rabbit (or Hare) Felt, I believe. Are the AB's posted above made from rabbit or beaver? Does anyone have both an AB Rabbit and an AB Beaver and if so, have they noticed any difference in the way the felt color changes (or appears to) with different lighting?

I'm not quite sure what to make of the greenish tint that some hats have in some of the pics. I think that may be another effect of the lighting, as all the pictures where there is any hint of greenish tone to the AB's posted above seem to be in low light (two pics seem to be taken outside on cloudy, overcast days and one inside with no flash). Maybe the AB felt reacts differently to these lower light situations than my Fed Deluxe? I don't really have any comparison pics of my own hat taken in similar lighting conditions. Overall I would say the greenish tint is much more faint than the gray tint in the two pics posted by Strider.

As for the Gray (or gray looking) hat in Raiders being the exact same hat Ford wore throughout the rest of the movie...that, I doubt. Whether it was supposed to be the same hat or if it was the same type (ie, same color) of hat that was merely left unturned and undistressed, I don't think we'll ever know. We do know there were gray hats made for the film (for the Cairo Nazi Agents) but we don't know if any of them ever ended up on Ford's head. Does anyone know the exact order of filming for Raiders? And whether or not the China Clipper and DC stairs (both shot in CA, right?) were filmed before or after the location shooting in Tunisia?

- GCR

yeah take a picture that was taken by a cellphone VGA Camera (A)
If you look at the other pictures you will see it is not green.

GCR wrote: Does anyone know the exact order of filming for Raiders? And whether or not the China Clipper and DC stairs (both shot in CA, right?) were filmed before or after the location shooting

The Bantu wind boat scenes and the scenes at the submarine base were the first scenes shot, at La Rochelle,France,then all the studio scenes at EMI Elstree,in England.Then the production moved to Tunisia for the Cairo/Tanis dig scenes,next was Kauai,Hawaii, for the opening exterior jungle scenes and the very last' normal' production scene shot was the DC steps scene-actually the San Francisco city hall steps,which was added at the last minute because they realised they had left Marion out of the end of the film.

In that mix, I wonder when the plane scene was shot? Anyone know? Fedora

I always understood it to have occured the same day the court house scenes were shot.

Regards! Michaelson

Indiana_Tone wrote:

Dutch_jones wrote:also add to that , the fact the Nazi on the plane ( Dennis Muren ) and people behind Indy in the back of the plane are wearing Brown hats that clearly look brown

Dutch, that's the kind of info that gets filtered out of logic, unfortunately.

Lighting isn't consistent in an airplane. It's a dark tube perforated with portholes that let light in. Light is going to shine on some things and not others causing similar things to look different as dramatically illustrated in GCR's collage, right?

the very last' normal' production scene shot was the DC steps scene-actually the San Francisco city hall steps,which was added at the last minute because they realised they had left Marion out of the end of the film.

So the scenes with the mystery hat were shot last? Or close to last?

Lighting isn't consistent in an airplane. It's a dark tube perforated with portholes that let light in. Light is going to shine on some things and not others causing similar things to look different as dramatically illustrated in GCR's collage, right?

That's true, an airplane is dark with not very much natural light and a whole lot of artificial light. My gray hat effect on my hat is observed most commonly in situations where there is little to no natural light and lots of artificial light very bright and very close to the hat. The picture in my collage where the hat looks gray was taken in a completely darkened room with only a very bright light shining above and directly onto the hat. It was purely accidental, as the hat didn't even look all that gray to the eye. I was trying to get a light source to accent the front dents of the bash for a post here at COW about 2+ years ago. When I loaded the pics from the camera to my computer, I was heated that the color of the hat got all washed out and it looked so gray. Now, as I think about it more and more, the interior scenes of the Pan Am Clipper were shot inside a real Pan Am clipper, right? Not a set, so wouldn't the production crew have to rely on lots of artificial light to keep the interior lit well enough for filming. Surely they couldn't have relied solely on what little light filters in through the portholes. I know a few members have made the trip to see the Clipper...does anyone know if there are lights inside? Do they still work? I recall MK made the trip to the clipper and took pictures of himself (with an Indy Fedora on) inside. His hat looked plenty brown to me in those shots, if I remember correctly, but what kind of lighting was he in???

The Ribbon on the plane hat is different then rest of the movie ! and the same on the nazi hat :O Coincedence I think not;)

Put the crazy back in the box, Mr. Tone, or you'll get it all over everything. I'm kiddin'.

"I recall MK made the trip to the clipper and took pictures of himself (with an Indy Fedora on) inside. His hat looked plenty brown to me in those shots, if I remember correctly, but what kind of lighting was he in???"

If someone did this with some early 1980's Kodak 7245 stock in a still camera, with a lens comparable to a Panavision one and set to the same exposure, in that plane on a day with identical weather conditions, with a bounce board making some fill light and the lab conditions and state of their chemicals were identical to the day this seaplane can went through them, that hat would look a whole lot less brown. I'll betcha a dollar.

There are a LOT of variables that could easily 'change' a hat's colour, or at least appear to do so.

ALSO for your consideration, think of the film print and the fact the processing chemicals could be fresh or stale and that would have an effect on what you eventually see... And further to this...

Check out this page: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/DVDCompare6/sting.htm
)in the set just above the playing cards).

Near the bottom, there is a comparison of DVDs of the film "The Sting" shown in different DVD regions, and darn it if'n a hat don't change colours in the same frame from brown to grey just in the mastering of transfers.

Admit that it's entirely possible before commiting to the theory there was another hat.

It's back up/corroboration.

I have nothing against 'the two hats worn by Ford in the film theory', but you'd have to show me both the hats with witness affadavits to convince me.

I can totally buy the thought of a new hat at the end of the film to replace the one Jones lost on the submarine ride. He did lose it, didn't he? Or was it still stapled to his head?

that was another movie , but I think the idea to have a everyday hat and a fancy dress hat is not that weird.. but the fact indy wears a suit when he flies to nepal is weirder.

Indy didn't lose his hat on the u-boat. He left it on the Bantu Wind.

Seeing those pics that Indiana Tone posted gave me another crazy idea. We all know Dennis Muren of ILM fame was tapped to play the brief role of the Nazi agent reading the issue of LIFE on the clipper, BUT look at his hat. What if Muren is wearing one of Ford's brown hats, and Ford is wearing one of the Nazi Cairo Gray hats? What if the intention was for Muren to wear the gray hat (to thus coincide with the idea that all Nazi agents wear gray fedoras...except Toht and the guy that was with Toht in Nepal) and Ford was to wear his standard Brown hat. But what if by the time they got around to filming this scene, the brown hat they had on hand for Ford to wear was just too beat up and shrunken? HJ only made about 10 to 12 brown "Indy" hats for the film, right? Between stuntmen hats and hats that get completely drenched (ie, Indy's little swim in Peru) and hats that get covered with sand and dust, there probably weren't too many good looking brown hats by this point so close to the end of production.

Basically, what if the costume people, on the day of (or in the week or two leading up to) the shooting for the Clipper and DC stairs scenes, go through their costumes and realize that the brown hats they have on hand for Indy in these scenes, look HORRIBLE with a finely tailored suit. No matter how much they try to clean and reshape these hats, it's useless, so they take the hat that was meant for Muren (possibly the same hat used by one of the Cairo Nazis) which is in much better shape and give it a quick brush and plop it on Ford's head instead. It's possible one of the Nazis in Cairo or Muren or both had the same hat size as Ford...7 1/4 isn't uncommon, so there's a decent likelyhood that Ford and one of those other three (Muren and the 2 Nazis) could have had the same hat size. That would explain the reason why Indy's hat on plane looked grayer than the obviously brown hat Muren wore. And while Murens hat doesn't look much like a typical Raiders Fedora, remember, this theory hinges on the idea that the brown hat was TOO beat up and shrunken to go with Ford's snazzy suit. Plus, it's also not impossible to think that the costume people may have modified the brown hat once it was known that it would not be worn by Ford, possibly by trimming the brim, etc.

???

- GCR

GCR, great to see you back.

Your theories are great. I can't believe those pics are of the same hat!

Been thinking about that too... to me, it does make sense that the hat on Muren's head is in fact an "Indy"-hat... considering the awkward brim, it's also likely that Ford's (or stunt guy's, for that matter) hat didn't really fit Muren that well... that, and the fact that it might have been a beat up hero or stunt hat is quite plausible, IMO.

GCR, great to see you back.

Your theories are great. I can't believe those pics are of the same hat!

Thanks Canyon...not only for the welcome back, but for this:

Throughout this post I've been scouring the net trying to find good screengrabs of the clipper or DC scenes for better view of the supposedly gray hat. After seeing your post here in this thread, I decided to check out your collection of RARE RAIDERS PICTURES on your homepage, and I found this:



Outside, in sunlight, the hat looks pretty dang gray to me...(I hope you don't mind me posting this here)

The gray hat that was a brown hat that looked gray because of the lighting...is actually...A GRAY HAT.

Myth...busted?

- GCR

GCR wrote: The gray hat that was a brown hat that looked gray because of the lighting...is actually...A GRAY HAT.

Myth...busted?

- GCR

Tee hee... I'll go pop me some corn...

Here's the brown hat worn in the plane by the Nazi.

Well, with the pic of Ford from Canyon's site (again, Canyon, please let me know if there is a problem posting this here. Awesome collection of "Rare" raiders pics, BTW) and the pic of the Muren hat posted by Fedora, I am convinced that Ford's hat on the plane was gray and the hat Muren wore was one of the "Indy Brown" hats. Whether they switched hats and gave Muren the beat up brown one and Ford the gray or the gray was meant for Ford from the get go...who knows? At least I can say I feel a bit more justified ordering a gray AB now!

- GCR

Glad you saw the light GCR, and that brown hat turned grey of yours is still awesome. --- Fedora, The hat seems to go nuts when it's not on Harrison's head- like there's a rubberband under the ribbon? Maybe you think the hat is crushed down, because of the flat spot at the top, but that is just a white border at the top of the picture. The hat looks to me like it's about one inch above his ear, so it's just sitting on top of his head- and it looks like a rubberband is maybe cinching the base .

like there's a rubberband under the ribbon

Sounds like a new theory!

IF....and that's a big 'if'... that was the case, I guess it would have been a practical solution to help the hat stay on during action scenes...hmmm

3thoubucks wrote:In the late 80's when I was makeing a straw hat I painted brown into an Indy hat, I went into a tiny old fabric shop to look for some ribbon. - I may have just dreamed this, but I remember finding typical looking ribbon that stretched like a rubber band.... I even went back there this century to try and find it again, but couldn't.... Or maybe the Raiders hat was a very round oval that reverts when it's not stretched on a head.

Maybe not the ribbon itself but a rubber band under the ribbon?
This might cause this bulge in the ribbon which you always considered to be caused by a folded sweat...

Cheers
HP

hp wrote:

3thoubucks wrote:In the late 80's when I was makeing a straw hat I painted brown into an Indy hat, I went into a tiny old fabric shop to look for some ribbon. - I may have just dreamed this, but I remember finding typical looking ribbon that stretched like a rubber band.... I even went back there this century to try and find it again, but couldn't.... Or maybe the Raiders hat was a very round oval that reverts when it's not stretched on a head.

Maybe not the ribbon itself but a rubber band under the ribbon?
This might cause this bulge in the ribbon which you always considered to be caused by a folded sweat...

Cheers
HP

When you push the ribbon down on your Hat you also get the folded sweat look. Couldnt that have caused it?

Instead of a round oval, how about a regular oval with a huge turn? I just took a brand new never been bashed Regular Fed and bashed it a about two inches off center- I'm VERY impressed. - Must sleep now....

Maybe you think the hat is crushed down, because of the flat spot at the top, but that is just a white border at the top of the picture.

No, what I was referring to is the back of the hat. Look on the top back and you can see where the hat kicks out. Look at the front and you can see evidence of a "squashed hat" at the ribbon area. Fedora

The whole Grey/Gray issue.....
Beating a dead horse Im a thinkin...

Very, very interesting. I was in Yosemite a couple of weeks ago and was wearing my grey Fed. When I was in the forest, my wife said to me, 'When did you get the green hat?". I took my Fed off and lo and behold, it was green!!!! I was starting to freak out, as I had read here that some Feds have turned green, but it hadn't been in the rain at all.

However, once I came out of the forest in the bright sunshine, it was it's old grey self again.

I have no idea what the implications are here for the whole brown/grey thing, but I sure found it interesting....KC

I've found any gray hat, if light enough gray in color, tends to take on the 'hue' of it's surrounding area as it's refecting back the color of light that is hitting it. If you were in a heavily forested area, sure, I can understand it looking green, then back to gray when you were back in open sunlight.

I've seen this happen many times, and not only with Feds, but the gray AB's as well.

Regards! Michaelson