Yeah, the difference is that digital black crush looks a whole lot worse than photochemical black crush. I could actually see more highlight/shadow detail on an original 70mm blowup release print of Ghostbusters than I could on the pre-4K transfer.
Like teal/orange, the real problem is the way it's applied in the digital realm.
borisanddoris said:
There does seem to be some loss in the shadows on the scan, but again, this could have been artistic. It's hard to really know because it's possible the release prints weren't right either in this regard. Really brings up that old debate of how was a film suppose to look: like the OCN or the release print?
"Supposed to" is a very fluid thing. Maybe the director or DP might have wished it to come out different, and we've seen several prints which look different from later, director-approved video transfers. But on films where the director had creative control all the way through, surely the director (and possibly also the DP) signed off on a fully-timed answer print, upon which the release print processing and timing would be based.
How a film was "supposed" to look, was "meant" to look, how the filmmakers "wanted" it to look are all valid, but how the theatrical release prints actually came out is a concrete historical record that is often forgotten or ignored. The prints may have varied, because of the imperfect nature of photochemical development, but they all have common characteristics. It's like a first edition of a book, or an original pressing of a vinyl record. It is a primary source, even if future releases don't follow it, it is an important historical document.
OK, that was long. I guess my point is, this project is meant to look like the release print, it is from a release print. I've seen 35mm prints, they do have photochemical contrast crush, but it never seems to be distracting when the film is being projected onto a cinema screen. Maybe it's just so much light that the "glow" makes it less evident?
Actually, every DVD I've seen of BTTF goes straight to the end credits. I have both the 2002 trilogy set and the 2009(?) reissue with the new documentary.
I don't remember any home release after VHS/laserdisc having To Be Continued.
I wouldn't think so. Just be more careful from now on.
team_negative1 said:
We'll put out a preview workprint if enough people are interested. Currently, even the preview reels have not got any comments or reviews.
Team Negative1
I see several comments on MySpleen. Many people would be interested in a preview workprint, I'm sure of it. I certainly would be.
Oh, I see. I don't think Blu-ray.com is the right place to ask, anyway.
There are other people here who are members of private film collecting forums - to any of you who are on those forums, maybe you could ask around?
As I said, should we really be calling attention to these projects in other forums?
I don't think we should even be discussing this stuff on Blu-Ray.com. What's the point? Do we really need to call attention to ourselves like that?
And we're not even trying to get as clean and sharp and finely detailed an image as an official transfer from the negatives. We know that's impossible, and that's not our goal. If you saw the movie in a theater it wouldn't look as detailed as the negative either.
I wonder if these are the kind of people who don't think there's no point to digital reservations of original vinyl records, either. No point in arguing with them.
poita says the print as projected isn't much more saturated. He told me the saturation could be boosted by about 2-3%, but not any more. I guess it really did look like this projected in theaters.
There is definitely more color that can be pulled out of the scan, but if poita says cranking the saturation makes it not theatrically accurate, I believe him.
Oh, I think I remember it being listed on eBay, was this something like 2 years ago?
Camera 3 Cinema in San Jose is playing BTTF II in a couple weeks, I am hoping it's 35mm and not DCP (but I fear it will be the latter).
Unrelated: The Castro in San Francisco is showing Jaws this weekend, in DCP. Last year, they showed a beautiful 35mm repertory print. I guess that with the new 40th anniversary DCP, that 35mm is being retired? A shame - Universal's 35mm prints are jaw-droppingly good; even though I had heard the 2008 fire wiped out their repertory print catalog, I have seen multiple Universal films in 35mm within the last couple years (including the unmolested 1978 cut of American Graffiti), and they all looked near-mint. Their 70s/80s films all look to have been printed around the same time, and have really clean heads/tails with the cue marks as little white rings instead of hole punches. Did their repertory prints survive, or did they actually strike new prints to replace the ones lost in the fire?
But anyway, a bit sad to hear that BTTF prints are rare. There apparently used to be at least one print of all three in the UK - I say "used to" because strips keep showing up on the UK eBay, indicating that someone had complete prints but chopped them up to sell piece by piece. This also happened to one of the surviving British IB Technicolor prints of Star Wars. Savages...
Where did you hear this? T2 is kind of messy as far as distribution, StudioCanal owns the film, Lionsgate has U.S. home rights, but Sony still has U.S. theatrical rights. And the rights are different in other countries.
Yeah, CEE also sometimes gets better transfers too? I remember that before the Shout Factory release of Battle Beyond the Stars, there was a PAL version floating around on Russian trackers that was a better transfer than the New Concorde DVD (it had the 80s WB logo at the front). Or was that just an existing PAL transfer from Western Europe?
Forgive my use of the word "amateur." I was not using it to slight poita (far from it, he was a projectionist, he worked with film for years, so he knows his shit). I was using it in the classical sense of not doing it as a paid profession. As in, people outside of the industry transferring 35mm with their own second-hand or homemade equipment. I should have used another word, I just couldn't think of one.
I understand all of that about the color, it fits with what poita told me, and I am willing to defer to him because as I said already, I know he knows his shit.
Don't worry, I am not criticizing this transfer. I absolutely think it looks amazing. I also donated to make this scan happen.
What is CEE?
OK, poita confirmed to me in email that the scan can be tweaked to look closer to the print, but as far as saturation, it can be increased maybe "another 2-3%". He confirms that the print as projected is not very saturated, and that the 35mm stills from eBay are oversaturated "as is often the case with taking photos with digital cameras."
Very intriguing, I wonder why taking photos of a film print would amp up the saturation compared to when the print is actually projected. That means that even theatrical prints contain more color information than would be seen in a theater?
This is is more proof that everything we know is wrong about how movies looked in theatrical release, and that just because a recent video regrade is very different from older video transfers, doesn't make the older transfers any more accurate. It also lends credence to my theory that many of these "revisionist" regrades can in some ways be closer to the theatrical timing, while still being botched and marred by revisionist tendencies (teal skies, Jersey Shore spray-tan complexions, contrast being both crushed and flattened, etc.)
This is why I'm so glad to see amateur 35mm scanning of original release prints becoming a reality.
Oh, I agree. I think this color palette is much better than any of the home transfers.
I've talked to poita, he says the print is indeed less saturated than the video transfers, but that the scan wasn't fully corrected to match the print yet?
I don't understand why the frame grabs from that eBay auction are much richer. The color palette seems about the same between the two, just the saturation and brightness/contrast seem different.
Regardless of saturation, this seems to be another one of those ones where the regrade is closer to the theatrical, but also somehow arther away (pink skies, teal skies, teal water, skin tones being too orange, etc.)
I love it when 35mm prints come along to answer these color timing mysteries...
Even though the VCL T2 is not a theatrical print like T1, I think we need to get it (if only those sellers on eBay.de shipped to the USA). We also need to keep a lookout for more screenings. (Of course, the holy grail would be an actual print.)
It could also be that blue vs. purple was some kind of consequence of variance in the photochemical processing. Perhaps one batch of prints came out more blue, others more purple? This could explain why Beber's screening, kaosjm's screening and the 8mm point to purple, and TylerDurden's screening and that one 2013 screening that the camcorder YouTube clips come from, point more to blue or teal.
As I said, on the VCL DVD screenshots the night scenes look purple, but when I did some very rudimentary color-correcting on them to remove the tint from the Carolco logo, they went back to blue. (But the explosions in the future war screenshots stayed yellow...)
Here is the Siskel and Ebert episode in its entirety: http://siskelandebert.org/video/GD1Y4DDD53BR/Terminator-2-Naked-Gun-2-12-Europa-Europa-1991
The trailers raise some questions, because some of them lack any kind of color pushing in the night scenes. I just can't believe that some prints would have no color pushing in the night exteriors, and others would.
And this trailer transfer also seems to be rebalanced for home video?
Speaking of, I noticed that if I just did rudimentary color adjustment on the VCL DVD screenshots in MS Office so that the Carolco logo looks silver instead of yellow, much of the blue blanket comes back.
The Siskel and Ebert review clip has the "you can't go around killing people" scene with a blanket over the scene, but it looks more purple. Though I'm not sure how much of that is due to telecine adjustment, or the fidelity of the off-air VHS recording.
Anyway, I understand. Valid points. I am more concerned with stuff like the compression and noise removal artifacts in some of the previews, not to mention that it feels like some of the same previews have been rehashed over the years, and some times don't show much increase in quality. But the ESB Grindhouse release and the recent stills eased some of my worries, as it shows they are capable of higher quality than their earlier previews let on.
I guess I misinterpreted it as a criticism of their general opacity, and/or their lack of transparency on their cleanup/encoding processes.
OK, I'll stop editing too. Sorry about that.
OK, I understand the point. I just don't understand how any of this has any kind of bearing on the quality of the project itself.
Honestly, what does it matter who is and is not on the team? Why not just let them finish the project? I just can't understand what point you guys are trying to make.