Tiptup

zombie84 said:

Lowry is a dirt removal algorithm, and dirt, generally speaking, is not part of the photography but foreign substance physically attached to the film through age/use and deservedly should be removed--its basically a more gentle way of running film through a cleaning bath. But it can--and has--been abused to remove grain that is part of the photography.

    Ahh, I misunderstood. All I remembered was a comment about using Lowry's technique to supposedly make Citizen Kane crystal clear. In that case, it wouldn't be the same film anymore, but a simulation of what a clearer version would look like instead.

    Dirt removal is good. But, is Lowry's process an actual cleaning/scan that directly interacts with the dirt? Or, is it merely a visual algorithm that compensates for the dirt? In the case of the latter, you'd still have to simulate what the image looked like before that dirt accumulated and it wouldn't be a precise view of what's underneath. (Though, if that's the only option to see the film in way that's closer to its original, clean state, then I'm all for it despite the tiny amounts of information loss.)

    I guess my biggest issue is that simply because a certain amount of information (in an image) isn't precisely recognizable as a sharp object, that doesn't mean it is bad or useless information. First, it can be aesthetically pleasing and, second, it is coherent in the sense that it came from real objects and they are both worth preserving. To use this technology to try and restore what the films looked like originally doesn't bother me as much, but a technique that does this cleaning with the least amount of information loss would be preferable.

bkev said:

Oh man, I knew where the music were and he didn't. That's kind of sad...

lol, I thought the same thing. The music in the original trilogy was perhaps the most important feature, after likable characters, which made it so great. Even the prequels are very good if I were to base them on their music alone.

I couldn't agree with him more. I've actually been thinking about this issue a lot since the last "film grain" thread.

Film grain is a product of actual, real light hitting actual, real molecules. It's a record of reality that is a reality itself that contains real information and any change of that information must result in a loss of that information.

I don't care how good a studio supposedly is (Lowry or whoever Zombie mentioned in the other thread), removing film grain will always destroy information regarding the random movement of light and the random behavior of the film as a physical medium (chemically speaking). Supposedly preserving that kind of immense information in a way where we put stuff "back where it belongs" is impossible.

At best we can only simulate what "should" be where and that just seems wrong in principle to me. Light is already where it's supposed to go and chemicals already move as they're supposed to move. I don’t care if we use a chemical or more electronic method to capture light-based visuals, there is no way to escape physical reality to the point where we can make a completely perfect image. Even if our goal is to merely simulate what an existing image would have looked like using a more accurate process, how do we define accuracy and perfection apart from another reality that is physically connected to it? A computer algorithm isn’t physically connected to the world which produced that image and it must destroy the information contained within grain and replace it with something else. That doesn’t seem right to me.

Even if I were okay with simulated information, I still can’t believe we have a sufficiently competent method to simulate the immense depth of information which can be recorded by film from frame to frame. Certain simulation techniques may look great, but I can’t believe the same level of complexity is preserved.

Lastly, film, like any visual medium, has its own unique beauty in the way it physically behaves. That beauty may get in the way of portraying certain visuals in the way an certain artist or viewer would like, but once it’s chosen as the final medium, it shouldn’t be supposedly improved later on without making it clear that we’re making a new work of art (as apposed to “improving” an old one).

CO said:

You will have the Michael Bay crowd that will be all action, all glitz, all CGI for all the ADD teenagers out there who can't standstill in their seats for more then 2 minutes at a time.

I often have a very short attention span myself and I don't think the lack of quick cuts or slick cgi are the problem with younger moviegoers. I will watch something slower and more contemplative if it's sufficiently breathtaking and meaningful.

Otherwise, I really look forward to this new Batman film. Sounds fantastic.