This new sample is terrific!
I think the efforts to regrade are perfectly valid and very good looking in their way, but I would be much more inclined to trust that the uncorrected print is a really good colour source. Certainly compared to blu-ray, despecialized and grindhouse, this one struck me as being beautifully saturated and colourful, as well as very lifelike. Weighing in just briefly on the “blue of the cave” convo, I would find it unlikely, from a cinematography point of view, that Peter Suschitzky would light that scene (and the following dark scenes outside) neutral grey and white. I quite like how it looks in the grindhouse, but that version really can’t be trusted on colour. I think it’s much more likely that it was intended to be blue. Ice gives you blue shadows, snow gives blue shadows. I’m positive the original team would have opted to give the audience an easily readable sense of cold and gathering darkness, and I think that would have led them to a blue colour palette.
I’m not saying don’t do a grade, but for me personally, this is the best looking version of reel 1 I’ve seen and I think it would be a shame to alter it too much.
On another note, Poita, would it be useful to have access to Team -1’s raw grindhouse scan, for missing frames and maybe the odd shot you might prefer? Presumably Dre’s tool would allow to you to conform the grindhouse to the colours of the German print.
Thanks so much, it’s awesome to see Empire looking this good! Although I’m no colour technician, a less compressed version would be terrific, just to see all that beautiful grain 😃
