a question about color consistency in The Godfather (1 Viewer)

[andrew markworthy]

I've recently changed TVs (the new one is a Panasonic Viera 32" LCD) and playing The Godfather (original box set, R2) I noticed that the color of objects changes between shots. The most notable instance is where Kay is trying to give a letter for Michael to Tom Hagen outside the Corlleone house. She is wearing an orange coat - well I say it's orange but as the angles change, the coat varies between orange and pink. The change is subtler than I've just made it sound but it is still noticeable. Another example (at the risk of sounding ghoulish) is that the color of blood changes from maroon to red to a rather delicate pink in different scenes.

I should stress that I've only noticed it in this particular film, and all other DVDs I've tried are fine (plus the system has been properly calibrated with the Digital Video Essentials disc). And nor is it just me who can see it. My wife and kids can also see it (my kids only saw the scene with Kay, lest you accuse me of being a bad parent ).

Have others detected the same thing on R1 discs, or is this purely an idiosyncracy of the R2 set or even just my particular copy?

 

[Lew Crippen]

I'll get out my copy sometime today and see if I notice the change.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Thanks for this, Lew. In the meantime, I tried the disc on a different player using HDMI (I'd previously used a component input). The color change on the coat is now very subtle. In honesty, I'd not have noticed it were it not for the more exaggerrated response on the first system. The blood colours are still inconsistent, though (e.g. the famous shot through the glasses scene produces pink/violet blood).

 

[Richard Kim]

I've always thought that it was due to the fluids from the eye diluting the blood, making it pinker/paler than in other scenes.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Well that's nicely put me off my food.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I don’t have the R2 version, so I tried the R1 Godfather box set on two different displays and two different players (I did not go to the trouble of mixing and matching).

I could see no change at all on my bedroom setup (Samsung 30” CRT HD TV connected via component to an old Samsung DVD player that I picked up in Oz and which I have set to R0).

On my other display (Sony 34” CRT connected via DVI to a Denon 900 player), I could notice a very subtle change in her orange coat when she walks away (that I believe after watching several times is due to a slight variation in lighting). This change does not seem to be a color shift, but just a bit of a difference in saturation (again, I think due to light reflection from two different angles).

It is possible that there is no difference at all and I’m just trying to see something.

This gave me an excuse to watch the movie again.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Lew, many many thanks. I think it's probably just a bizarre glitch of a particular disc-DVD-TV combo. It's never manifested itself in any other film and like you, on my other system I may be 'seeing' what isn't there - it could well be a simple lighting effect. However, it really and truly is striking on the first system I tried. Ah well, just one of those little oddities, I guess.

Sorry I had to force you to watch The Godfather all over again.