I'm sure his condition is: "none of our business," other than he's not able to continue the project.
I'd love to be a Laserdisk collector but its just too damn expensive. I have a hard enough time calling myself a vinyl collector.
In the book The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives, the Tie interceptor model is grey. (p. 119)
For what its worth.
Lowry gets around the issue of "removing detail" though, because you are right, the grain is the image, normal grain reduction like DNR isn't actually getting rid of the grain it just softens the image until you can no longer tell the grain is still there; DNR is more sophisticated than simply throwing the image slightly out of focus but thats the concept in a nutshell. Lowry gets around this issue by getting rid of the dirt/grain, and of course the image information/detail with it, but then digitally simulating the original information/detail, this time without the grain, in effect removing the "artifacts" but without any apparent loss in detail/information. Thats why Citizen Kane looks awesome and sharp, yet has very little grain--the grain is gone but the detail/image information is intact.
Thats the whole concept behind the intended usage of Lowry--to remove dirt and foreign artifacts. Its basically a very advanced alternative to running the film through a cleaning bath, it removes the "artifact", thus there is a digital "hole" in the film if you like to think of it that way--like someone hole-punched the dirt out--and then it fills in the "hole" by simulating what would actually be there. In effect, Lowry simulates the image rather than scrubbing the negative to reveal the detail underneath, so in this way it scan actually "scrub" out grain and simulate a clean image if that is the effect so desired.
Johnboy3434 said:
zombie84 said:
But why should your preference dictate how everyone sees it, or how the art, irrespective of ANYONE'S preference, should be presented.
That road runs both ways. Why should I be forced to look at those unsightly brush strokes and grainy pictures just because "they need no improvement". And there's a obvious difference between editing the presentation of a piece of art (removing grain and brushstrokes) and editing the content of it (adding Pikachu to Laurence of Arabia).
No, that is not what I necessarily prefer. Maybe I like having a clearer image. Maybe I would prefer that films be made a little differently. Maybe I would prefer better acting and better special effects so I'm not taken out of the experience of being absorbed in a story. But my preferences are incidental--films are what they are and they should remain that way, not altered to suit my fancy.
What do you think?
No, Johnyboy--this whole issue is framed in terms of YOUR humble opinion. Maybe grain should be erased and maybe brush strokes should be erased--in your opinion. For you, that is a preferable aesthetic. But why should your preference dictate how everyone sees it, or how the art, irrespective of ANYONE'S preference, should be presented. Instead of appreciating what the art IS we want it to be the way we want it to be. But why is your way "the best" way or an "improved" way? You open up a slippery slope that ends in a kamikaze dive-bomb. Maybe to me the best presentation is that everything should be presented in green tint, and have Pikachu from Pokemon somewhere in the frame because he's awesome; "everything can be improved." Maybe every film should be fullscreen, because this is how I prefer it, and maybe all black and white movies should be colorised, because this is how I prefer it, and maybe all silent films should be dubbed into sound, because this is how I prefer it.
And maybe all movies should end happily, because I hate sad endings, and maybe challenging messages should be edited out because I don't like to think too much when I watch movies, and maybe there should be comedy in every film because I find comedy most entertaining of all and films are designed to entertain above all else.
These arguments are illusions because it doesn't matter what I want or prefer. Films are what they are, and films are made on film, they have grain because they are made from silver halide crystals that react to light, they have flares because they are photographed with tubes of glass, they have bad acting and bad special effects sometimes because of the limitations of the skill of the players involved, and often they are made in ways in which we would prefer they be made differently. You have to respect what they are, not what YOU wish they would be.
They are objects that were created by people at a certain point of time and stand as artifacts of that effort across that point in time. They are what they are, not what you think they should be. Its this infection of this "me" generation that thinks everything should cater to them that is destroying the medium.
Johnboy3434 said:
zombie84 said:
But not respect for what the art actually is, nor the way it was made, nor the way the artists, regardless of intention, actually made it. And thats the point. Your opionion on what looks better means fuck all because thats not what the argument is even about, its about respecting the historical truth of the way the work was made.
It is the Mona Lisa, and after removing brush strokes and the like, it will still be the Mona Lisa. I believe intent is far more important than reality when it comes to art, especially when it's the creator's intent. If you want to respect the historical truth, then keep a written record of what it was like. Or take a fucking picture before the changes are made. Or release a low quality version of the original as a bonus to the revised version.
Or DONT CHANGE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE SINCE IT NEVER NEEDED TO BE "IMPROVED."
Baronlando said:
If the 77-83 restoration is what you want you should just leave it at that, without all the extra rage, that doesn't help the "cause", it just make us all look like crackpots. And crackpots are IGNORED in home video.
Ding ding!
Theres a difference between passion and fanatacism. Never lose your passion but never exercise fanatacism.
Johnboy3434 said:
ChainsawAsh said:
But if it wasn't made that way, it wouldn't be there at all, now would it?
So a piece of art is worthless if it isn't kept exactly the way it was made to begin with? Rubbish. Everything can be improved. We can only fight about what qualifies as "improvement". I think grain removal is an improvement. You do not. Such is the nature of aesthetics.
But not respect for what the art actually is, nor the way it was made, nor the way the artists, regardless of intention, actually made it. And thats the point. Your opionion on what looks better means fuck all because thats not what the argument is even about, its about respecting the historical truth of the way the work was made.
Johnboy3434 said:
ChainsawAsh said:
You say that like it's a good thing.
I think it is. Obviously, a lot of the posters here may disagree, but I'd prefer a mere simulation of what it would look like without grain to a picture with a bunch of artifacts that are nothing more than an unavoidable side-effect of film-making. That said, I want the process of removing such artifacts to extend beyond merely blurring the image. It only looks good to me when it's been done by frame by frame, practically by hand, like the OT DVDs. Unfortunately, that's incredibly expensive and time-consuming, so we often end up with what Harris describes. Sucks, but that's life for you.
The flaw is thinking of them as "artifacts," since they are not. They are the physical makeup of the medium used to capture the image, just like when you look at a painting you can always see that it is dried semi-viscuous liquid moved and arranged by the movement of a brush. Would you like to have all "artifacts" (ie lines of paint, uneven quality to the layers applied, and visible and semi-visible brushstrokes) in every painting ever made to be erased too? This is fundamentally flawed reasoning, and a severe and fundamental misunderstanding of the medium of motion pictures. They are not artifacts. They are part of the medium and the art. They should not be tampered with. This is exactly what Harris is talking about, this flawed reasoning that grain is somehow "artifacts" in the way of seeing the real, clear image; its scary to realise how many people share this viewpoint. Thats what happens when afficionado-based mediums go mainstream; when I see the first "fullscreen" Blu-Ray, I might actually cry.
He definitely is showing his age. He's pretty good about his privacy so I'm sure whatever health problems he has are on the down low, considering he is a diabetic pushing 70.
"The lowry Bond and Indiana Jones removed all the fine grain as well as the dirt so they put digital film grain over the entire image, makes me want to throw the dvd's in the trash"
Where did you get this info from? I find it a little hard to believe.
skyjedi2005 said:
watching this interview made me want to puke. Seriously i thought George Could not go and lose any more respect and then he goes and opens his mouth. All he watches is Family Guy and Jackass reruns. Sort of expalins all those fart and poop jokes in the Phantom Menace.
Uh, he has a 14 year old kid. Any father of a 14 year old boy has inevitably seen Family Guy and Jackass. His Tivo is full of the shows because his kids are the only ones that use it.
Honestly, do people not even consider stuff like that or are their brains permanently set to "bash without thinking".
Most filmmakers don't watch their films. They've seen the films more than anyone because in the editing you watch clips of the film for 24 hours straight until the point where you never want to watch it again. And then when you do watch it you continually kick yourself for all the things you could have done better. And then every few years you have to watch it again because of whatever ceremony or festival thats screening it and you have to attend. So theres no reason to sit down at home and watch your own film. Most people hate their own films in that sense, thats why they go on and make other movies.
Tiptup said:
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.
In the case of Citizen Kane they did screw it up; it was their very first project and I guess they hadn't worked out the software completely, or even what their approach would be. In any case, their Citizen Kane looks very good, but there's almost no grain, its practically video-like. But in the case of movies like the James Bond's or Raiders of the Lost Ark, made much later, they did it as they should. There's the natural film grain, but the dirt is gone. In the case of Star Wars there were some problems, but there was also an aesthetic choice from Lucas I am guessing to make the film look as clean and sharp as possible, so it doesn't look exactly as it normally should in terms of the film quality itself. But its not that far off; its still pretty close to the quality of the original negative. Star Wars should not look like it does in the GOUT, this is the original negatives here and generally there should not be very coarse grain; if you look at the SE of ANH you can see the grain of the emulsion, so nothing's been erased, or at best very little has been minimized.
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.)
Lowry's process is not necessarily dirt per se, but thats what its intended for and what its used for. Basically, dirt looks different than emulsion grain so the computer can differentiate between whats on the emlusion and whats a foreign body on the negative. What it does is look at the frame before and the frame afterwards to reconstruct what the frame between them with the dirt actually looks like and then it erases the speck of dirt and paints in the pixels of what should be there based on the preceeding and following frames. This only works for small pieces of dirt, that sort of speckled dirt that just comes from wear and tear and age; if you have big globs of it or big tears and damage in the film I'm not sure how useful the program would be, so Lowry also has a team of rotoscope artists that hand-paint out the larger dirt/tears/damage, etc.
This process isn't unique to Lowry, I should point out. Their computer program is paricularly effective, but there are a lot of similar programs, and these techniques are pretty much standard now for serious restoration efforts. Criterion, for example, puts their films through a similar but not as aggressive process.
DNR is different than what Lowry does, keep in mind. He's not railing against Lowry, but DNR. Digital Noise Reduction just smears the image to create the illusion of smoothness. Lowry actually doesn't destroy information per se--though Lowry should never be used to destroy grain, unless it is dupe grain. 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. Generally though, Lowry and other clean-up software of its type are our friend--it should not be confused with DNR, which doesn't solve anything.
Not to take away from the general sentiment--this anti-grain thing is perplexing and frustrating. Film should not look like a digital rendering because its not a digital rendering, its film. Grain looks beautiful IMO, just like an oil painting looks more aesthetically pleasing that a crystal-clear digital photograph of the same scene--disagree if you like, but its an aesthetic element to motion pictures and it should be respected.