- Time
- (Edited)
- Post link
Jonno said:
kk650 said:
Nobody here has called regrading Man of Steel a 'restoration'. I don't see how it not being a restoration suddenly makes it a fanedit though. No editing has been suggested by anybody here, so the only change would be the colour grading, so clearly the 'fanedit' category you want to place this project in does not apply.
The thread title includes the word 'fix', and it's in the preservation thread - hence my concern about its taxonomy.
I think your hard and fast definition of 'editing' is reductive, and that a deliberate alteration of colour constitutes an edit, but to me the larger issue is that the film materials are being manipulated for the hell of it, as opposed to restoratively.
I absolutely agree that 'proper' image and sound for a given film is subject to interpretation, but for my money a well researched and evidence-based approach such as Harmy's is always preferable to 'what looks right'. The intent is markedly different - on the one side, trying to recover *an* original look for the film from all available evidence (however limited), and on the other using personal taste and judgement to make adjustments.
Whew! I hadn't intended to argue my angle quite so vociferously, but I think this particular case (and people's attitudes to it) is an interesting one, because the original video was touted, embraced and posted here as some sort of repair when it was clearly nothing of the sort.
In moviemaking terms the term 'editing' refers to choosing what footage appears and doesn't appear in a film, which is the domain of the film's editor, not how the film looks colourwise which is the domain of the film's colorist. If your definition of editing also includes colour grading as well, that's fair enough, we'll just have to agree to diagree on that.
I'm not questioning the merit of restoration/preservations, there's clearly demand for such releases. They're difficult endevours that usually requires shot by shot grading to get it right. I think comparing them to what you might call 'removing blanket tint' projects like I do (which is not really 'grading to my own preference' like you put it, but more revealing the original colours in the transfer beneath the blanket tint) is like comparing apples and oranges, they both have completely different goals.
Saying restoration/preservations are superior to other fangrades because they recreate the colours of previous home releases seems a little silly to me because as we all know, one film like Star Wars has had many releases with totally different colour grading over the years. Which home release do you regrade to, which is how it is 'supposed to look like'? Ultimately it always comes down to ones own preference, something subjective that many others will disagree with you over.
Objectively, the only release that be considered to have the correct colour grading and look 'how its supposed to look' is the latest official home release of that film IMHO, saying a certain home release is 'how its supposed to look' is just you expressing your preference for the look of a certain home release, a viewpoint that many will disagree with you on.
A theatrical release preservation/restoration of something like Star Wars of course is a completely different kettle of fish compared to home release preservation/restorations, the questionable accuracy of the single frames used as references for how the whole film was supposed to have looked in the cinema, compared to the colour grading of home releases that can actually be seen in their entirety, makes any preservation/restorations of the theatrical release that much more unreliable IMHO, not to mention unappealing to watch when you have drastic changes in overall colours/fleshtones in the same scene from shot to shot.
Rather than slavishly regrade to each frame, irrespective of whether they are accurate or not colourwise, I would personally choose a frame with colours that I think look accurate and appealing and regrade the rest of that scene to fit that colour asthetic in order to maintain overall colour/fleshtone continuety from shot to shot. That would fix the colour continuety issues that the current despecialised editions have. That would be a preservation/restoration of the theatrical release of Star Wars that I would personally much prefer to the current despecialised edition. I'm strongly of the belief that if there is conflict between maintaining frame colour accuracy and maintaining colour/fleshtone consistency, maintaining colour/fleshtone continuety must be prioritised above all else.