A Few Words About A few words about...™ Funny Face -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[FoxyMulder]

I watched it about six months ago, I guess. I remember being struck by the incredibly beautiful color and perfect contrast levels. I wasn't looking for sharpening/grain smoothing, so I might have just overlooked it because of the incredible color. My personal tastes put priority on overall balances over fine details. It's actually easier to find sharp, clear blu-rays than ones with really good contrast/color.Also, I think my projection system might be doing some sort of cleaning up of sharpening artifacts. I stared at the UK Zulu over and over trying to figure out what people were complaining about, and I couldn't see it at all. Netflix HD streaming looks fantastic projected.The only films I can think of (besides the obvious Disney ones) that bother me when it comes to grain smoothing are Evil Dead II and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I bought the second re-release of Evil Dead II, it's supposed to be better than the first release, i haven't watched it yet, hopefully it's a huge improvement over the first release, i don't think it's possible for a projector to hide sharpening halo's, it's there and on the transfer, some people are immune to seeing them, it's possible you are, unfortunately i had to train myself to spot such issues when i started my website and the downside is that i spot them easily now and they tend to take me out of the film.

 

[EddieLarkin]

She is pretty much unknown in Europe because she wasn't in a Dove chocolate commercial like in the US

Yes she was (we call it "Galaxy" chocolate though). I think we got that advert before you guys did (about 1.5 years ago?). Most young people who I've spoken to identified her as Audrey Hepburn by themselves.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Yes she was (we call it "Galaxy" chocolate though). I think we got that advert before you guys did (about 1.5 years ago?). Most young people who I've spoken to identified her as Audrey Hepburn by themselves.

Is that the advert that uses digital trickery with the bus scene from Roman Holiday, it has moon river playing on the soundtrack. ?

 

[EddieLarkin]

Yes. I assumed these guys were talking about a different one because that one is so old! But no, Dove and Galaxy are the same thing.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Yes. I assumed these guys were talking about a different one because that one is so old! But no, Dove and Galaxy are the same thing.

I thought they were talking about a soap advert because they mentioned Dove, i thought to myself that was a strange ad for Audrey Hepburn even though she had great skin, it's funny to find out Dove is actually a Galaxy bar of chocolate.

 

[bigshot]

There are digital filters that reduce jpeg artifacting in Photoshop. It may be that my projector incorporates something like that for edge enhancement. It also may be that projection itself scatters light, softening sharpening rings a tiny bit. Whatever it is, I know that Netflix streaming looks a LOT better projected than on my iMac. That could be the difference between my Roku box and the Netflix web interface too. Hard to track down the source with so many variables.But with my projection system, I find that the quality of the film elements on blu-rays are MUCH more variable than the quality of the video. I almost never find video problems. But flat contrasts, dupey looking prints, grainy images, negative dirt, etc aren't unheard of at all.

 

[ahollis]

That's what I've been saying about the Disney animated features (lone voice in the wilderness)

I stopped buying them. I agree with you.

 

[MatthewA]

Not a lone voice, many people have been complaining about the Disney animated releases, i have been complaining for years.

Except Disney dismissed these concerns saying "this is the way it should look even though it has never, ever, ever looked like this before on film or video, and doesn't Sword in the Stone look so much better with Milt Kahl's pencil marks rubbed out with a digital eraser?"

It's funny how much of the Paramount library ended up at Universal. Either way, they'd get the same treatment.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Except Disney dismissed these concerns saying "this is the way it should look even though it has never, ever, ever looked like this before on film or video, and doesn't Sword in the Stone look so much better with Milt Kahl's pencil marks rubbed out with a digital eraser?"

It's funny how much of the Paramount library ended up at Universal. Either way, they'd get the same treatment.

One day when the studio is under new management they might put the film texture ( and HD detail ) back in and re-release them all. it's the only hope i have of the classic Disney films looking their best, i think the current ownership views them as cartoons and doesn't care and wants everything looking modern and "clean" for those people who see film grain as simply noise.

 

[MatthewA]

Why do studios still insist on using these tools in such a heavy-handed fashion—I'm not against their use per se, just their misuse—when it's pretty much a given the end product will be unwatchable on any screen larger than maybe 50"? Is it just an old habit that dies hard?

 

[FoxyMulder]

Why do studios still insist on using these tools in such a heavy-handed fashion—I'm not against their use per se, just their misuse—when it's pretty much a given the end product will be unwatchable on any screen larger than maybe 50"? Is it just an old habit that dies hard?

The average person isn't a home cinema fan and doesn't hang out at sites like this, they buy their big screen television based on how good it looks in torch mode in the shop, they get it home and crank up the contrast, colours and sharpness, they don't see the edge enhancement or garish colours, it all looks good to them, they think the image is clean, vibrant and has such pop to it, so a release which has more of this rates highly, you just need to read some of the Amazon reviews to know this to be true, not enough people care about calibration of their displays hence not enough people care about image quality or indeed sound quality full stop.

 

[schan1269]

The average person isn't a home cinema fan and doesn't hang out at sites like this, they buy their big screen television based on how good it looks in torch mode in the shop, they get it home and crank up the contrast, colours and sharpness, they don't see the edge enhancement or garish colours, it all looks good to them, they think the image is clean, vibrant and has such pop to it, so a release which has more of this rates highly, you just need to read some of the Amazon reviews to know this to be true, not enough people care about calibration of their displays hence not enough people care about image quality or indeed sound quality full stop.

And they are buying LCD. If you care about PQ...you don't buy LCD*.

The only time anybody finds out they screwed up is when we get the thread titled...

"Why do I have so much of a lip sync problem"...

*I did buy LCD for my uncle. 83(at the time) and heard all the stupid "anti-plasma" crap(fill it back up when it runs out...burn in...yada yada)...

Bought him a 50" LG(maybe 52, forget) and two garage sale find Polaroid 26". All three will be sold...eventually...they won't litter my house.

 

[schan1269]

By the way...

It gets rave reviews...

Anybody got the Region B?

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Well, if Audrey Hepburn eats Dove, then I'm going to give it a try too. Yum yum, that's a mighty tasty bar of soap! Pardon me while I froth ...
But really, I suspect Audrey Hepburn would be as well or even better known in Europe and Australia than in the USA. So many children of my youngest daughter's generation (she's 33 now) identified with her even after she was well and truly departed -- she was a global phenomenon not really related to film but to the entire image-thing;.

 

[john a hunter]

I watched it about six months ago, I guess. I remember being struck by the incredibly beautiful color and perfect contrast levels. I wasn't looking for sharpening/grain smoothing, so I might have just overlooked it because of the incredible color. My personal tastes put priority on overall balances over fine details. It's actually easier to find sharp, clear blu-rays than ones with really good contrast/color.

Watched Funny Face last on my new PJ setup. While not as bad as Patton or the even worst Longest Day, it was definitely softer than you would expect with some fussy sequences. Not knowing the film at all, am not sure whether they are deliberate or not.
Then I watched the VV doc which was OK-superficial(you would thought that Paramount invented widescreen with hardly a mention of Scope let alone 70 mm), hazy and confused about horizontal VV, omitted any comment on the process’ Achilles heel-shit Perspecta sound and unable to spell Technirama). So like much of what we get from Hollywood these days it was technically proficient but with a poor script.
However it includes lots of clips of current VV BD releases (save Anything Goes which I don't think is out yet ) and they all looked decidedly soft. So much so I looked out some of my own copies which were, to my relief, much cleaner and sharper.
So the VV doco PQ was like the feature-Ok but not as good as it should have been. Definitely some softening going on.

 

[RKR1970]

Interesting to read Mr. Harris’ review of Funny Face. Back in 2012 I said close to the same thing here about the image being overly scrubbed with the version screened at the TCM festival from a DCP.

Funny Face looks like affected video. Nothing like film. And certainly nothing like Vista.The less one is aware of the true capabilities of film, and the less one is exposed to true cinema, the better these hybrid beasts will look.My battle, since day one, has been to achieve a level of performance via the ability of the Blu-ray format to reproduce the look of film.Nothing more.Nothing less.By those standards, Funny Face is a failure, as it beautifully reproduces the look of low to medium quality video.RAH

 

[OliverK]

Interesting to read Mr. Harris’ review of Funny Face. Back in 2012 I said close to the same thing here about the image being overly scrubbed with the version screened at the TCM festival from a DCP.

Paramount obviously doesn't care and deems the DCP version good enough to be shown theatrically. Among the big studios it is probably only Universal that releases even worse DCP versions - they even have a Spartacus DCP that apparently looks as one might expect after having seen the Blu-ray version!

 

[verneaux]

I watched Funny Face last night and it is indeed a shame that it isn't the visual treat that it could have been.

I have an issue with the sound. The second audio option: English Dolby is mixed correctly. The first option: English 5.1 is not. At this stage in his career Fred Astaire handled all of his own dances while the named choreographer (in this case Eugene Loring) did all the other dances. Astaire's choreography dictated the dance music arrangement and he was very specific about drum accents. Watch the Clap Yo' Hands number from after the soft shoe ("roses are red") to the end using the 2nd audio option (English Dolby) then watch again using the 1st (English 5.1). In the 5.1 mix, the drum accents are so soft that you can hardly hear them. This is especially unfortunate when Astaire sinks to the floor using the guitar as a machine gun - without the drum roll it just doesn't work. I prefer the 5.1 sound musically but I will watch using the dolby track for the more accurate mix.

 

[Doug Otte]

I finally got around to watching my copy this weekend. It was shocking how bad it looked. The first night, I turned it off in disgust after a few minutes. Last night, I gritted my teeth and watched most of it before I went to bed.

The beautiful design and cinematography peek through if you squint your eyes, but the horribly smooth, contrast-boosted digital image is a travesty.

I also didn't like the surround mix - it was too boxy sounding, so I switched over to the DD 2.0 mix, which sounded more natural.

 

[cwilli]

Well, if Audrey Hepburn eats Dove, then I'm going to give it a try too. Yum yum, that's a mighty tasty bar of soap! Pardon me while I froth ...But really, I suspect Audrey Hepburn would be as well or even better known in Europe and Australia than in the USA. So many children of my youngest daughter's generation (she's 33 now) identified with her even after she was well and truly departed -- she was a global phenomenon not really related to film but to the entire image-thing;.

Why would you say Audrey Hepburn is more known in Europe and Australia than the US. She has made most of her movies in Hollywood and had developed a legion of fans of all ages up until her death in 1990.