The colors are definitely washed out, but the general color biases are what I’m referring to. I think that skin tones are too frequently pinkish, and some scenes seem very dark, but most of the scenes I’ve compared look somewhat similar to the Blu-ray, and match your description of the print you saw pretty well.
The skin tones, like most 35mm on the era, are frequently yellowish in the daylight scenes.
That’s what I’ve gleamed from 35mm photos in the past.
I posted in the fanres thread that I think it seems to be the most accurate (I meant generally, though I didn’t really specify what I thought was accurate about it in that post), and that it matches the dozens of 35mm frames posted online rather closely, so I would think that the biases introduced by the telecine were subtle. With the washed out contrast it wouldn’t be projection accurate of course, but a subtle regrade of the BD on a shot by shot basis to try and match the color consistency of the DVD seems like a worthy effort to me.
The bias introduced by the telecine is anything but “subtle”. I’m very sorry to disagree.
The bias introduced by the telecine most likely includes the strong red push in the brights, but that’s also one of the idiosyncrasies I mentioned it having. Besides that and the pinkish skin tones, many scenes that I’ve directly compared look remarkably similar to the Blu-ray, and it is frequently also similar to 35mm frames that we have images of.
The only part of the film that I think is entirely wrong is the first half of the second-to-last reel. It’s incredibly green for some reason when the immediate previous scenes in the same location were much more natural looking, so I think that must have been an error of some sort. It could’ve even been a lab mistake on the print they used for the transfer even.
I think I’m going to try doing that with my updated regrade, and maybe those of us who are not quite satisfied with the BD will be happy with an alternative that isn’t far off from it. I’m curious, for everyone who has my regrade and enjoys it over the BD, would you guys be interested in something that stays closer to the BD and just makes subtle shot to shot changes?
I think this film is well worth doing a scan from a print, you’ll see the colours on the BD are faithful but there’s some subtle differences here and there. I mean no disrespect, but re-grading is a fool’s errand unless you’ve seen it projected yourself.
No disrespect taken. I don’t disagree that my lack of personal firsthand experience seeing a projection makes any of my attempts more speculative, but I do have sources for my interpretation of what a projection looks like. You’re description of the print you saw is comparable the 35mm frames we have, with those being good reference material IMO, along with most of the German transfer, taking into account that there is sometimes more green than needs to be there.
I agree that a print scan would be great. I would much rather watch that than even a new regrade of the Blu-ray.
Really, I’d love to see Arrow do a release of this as well.
By the way, when you mentioned the credits being original, what did they actually look like? was there no Donna Smith credit at all, or did it scroll up at the beginning of the credits during the fade-out like in the German DVD print?
Anyway, I would love to here feedback from yourself and anyone else that has seen it projected once I finish my new regrade, and maybe that will help determine the accuracy of what I’m able to cook up.