Ke1Nishimaru

// NOTE: This project is currently in Development Hell. Reason: It requires French-to-English Translators for the commentary tracks and needing to work on the subtitle importing from the UK DVD release.

Getting down to business (AKA the short version):

• This project is intended for fans of the film wanting a definitive experience in presentation and additional supplements, being a hypothetical release. The goal is to improve on any physical release of the film.
• I am not a professional-grade Blu-Ray author-guy, I can only use the simple solutions available to make it, this means no animated or pop-up menus nor true lossless audio outside of using PCM Stereo. I am a newcomer to this whole thing.
• All of my copies are legitimate and ripped directly by myself for this project, though it took me 2 versions of the French release to even get those contents.
• This project is private- not intended for public distribution. I might consider a limited private release, but only for those who also own the film legitimately.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to the detail.

Renaissance is a cyberpunk motion-capture French-originated animated film from 2006. While often considered an average tech noir piece, its animation style and visual quality are unparalleled compared to most works in the medium. It follows an investigation into a kidnapping of a young scientist, this led by Barthelemy Karas (Played by Daniel Craig in the English soundtrack), only to begin unravelling plot that could potentially put humanity’s mortality into question.

Sounds like your normal cyberpunk fare, a simple kidnapping plot that becomes something more. That’s not the main draw of the film, but rather its restrictive monochrome visuals- everything (aside from a couple of shots for the detail) is completely in black-and-white. This with its futuristic depiction of Paris’ future, has led me considering it a forefront of the “Eurofuturism” sort of thing, where western-european influences the technology and atmosphere of the future. Adding to that is the motion-capture, which stands out amongst even films of its kind for the fact that it’s the only major non-english-originated MoCap production I’ve currently come across. I believe it’s important to consider that it was an independent production as well, considering its lower budget in animation and that it flopped at the office hard- made back less than a million in ticket sales. Nowadays Renaissance is obscure, so I intend to give it some well-needed attention with a customised Blu-Ray release.

This Blu-Ray Special Edition contains (or planned to contain):

• 2K Digital Restoration of the animated feature with PCM English, French and German Uncompressed Stereo.
• Three Commentary tracks presented by Christian Volckmann (The Director), the Creative Team and Technical Crew of the film in French PCM with brand-new English Translations for this release (Currently in Development Hell, as explained).
• “The Making of Renaissance” a mini-documentary featurette exploring the film’s conception and production, presented in PCM French Stereo with English Subtitles.
• “Inside the Mind of Christian Volckmann” A documentary featurette discussing the film’s director and his other works leading to Renaissance, presented with PCM French Stereo and newly-translated English Subtitles for this release.
• “Maaz” an 1999 short film created by Volckmann presented in Standard Definition 480p.
• Cast and Crew Interviews (Also Currently in Development Hell, same reason as the commentary tracks)
• Slideshow Stills of the film’s archives.
• Original Theatrical Trailer and Bonus Trailers.
• Brand-new cover art created by SentinelWorks for this release.

Currently, this release has had a troubled production. While acquiring the source and making the menu assets has been smooth (In fact, I did make a “prototype” disc of whatever I had just to make sure It’s working alright), getting the French release has become a nightmare. You see, the Fox Pathe Europa French Blu-Ray was notorious amongst french collectors and consumers for being prone to disc rot. I only discovered this after I had received it and attempting to rip the soundtracks from within, only to be greeted with corrupted video and extremely fragmented audio. This led to a change of plans, leading me to take a second gamble on the similar HD-DVD release that came on 2 discs (One being a DVD and one being the HD release). Currently, I am waiting to get my hands on the disc to begin that next step. The next major issue holding it back was the fact that the software I am using to make the disc, DVD-Architect, absolutely will not cooperate in importing the English subtitles into the disc properly. No matter what I do, I cannot get it to work due to its strange formatting that nothing else works with. I did note I am a newcomer to this sort of thing, after all.

Now that you’ve read all of this and would like a download of the disc, sorry to break to ya- Tough Luck! It’s not ready and currently intended to be a private release. I do apologise for pulling the rug from underneath, but these technical issues are plaguing the project so much I cannot release it. The Prototype Disc is not intended for anyone else other than me, as it’s not fully done and is missing planned features.

If anyone is a sage (If you just say get that one expensive authoring tool that can do it professionally and would work with subtitles, I’m currently under a tight budget- It’s not an option) or can provide assistance to the commentary track translations- Reply or PM me, I’ll take any help I can get.

Release Cover (The “005” marking in the box represents that this is my fifth disc, but this is the first one I’m happy enough to showcase in spite of its situation):

Disc Art:

Hopefully this peaks your interest in the film itself- It’s a good animation piece to visually bite into. From here at SentinelWorks…

Welcome to High Definition.

Heyo, I’m just a passerby whose come and gone here a couple of years. Took me some time to jump in, so yeah. I hope that someday we’ll get those 4Ks of the original trilogy as it once was. I am a collector of blu-rays, fan of Criterion and Arrow, blah bleh you’re probably not interested in that. Good time to mention that I do custom blu-ray authoring in my spare time for content exclusive to the internet or that needs a remaster. Hopefully my voyage into this frontier may enlighten me on things I never knew before, shall we go into the light!