Who Done It? The Clue Documentary (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Pennington]

I just received and viewed Who Done It? The Clue Documentary from ETR Media/Vinegar Syndrome. While I enjoyed the film, I’m perplexed at the combing artifacts throughout the film. I would blame it on encoding, but there is no setting (1080i, 720p, 480i, 1080p with various video source settings, etc) that will remove or reduce all of this combing. It appears that the problem goes back to post and the various sources not being conformed to one standard size, frame rate, and frame format (interlaced or progressive). So many clips appear to be from DVD or lower resolution sources or well and poorly upscaled when high definition sources are available. I demuxed the disc and tried processing the video to deinterlace/decomb it at various resolutions to no avail; the combing was only made worse. Why in the world would the filmmaker output such a poor file for Blu-ray?

Who Done It? The Clue Documentary – Vinegar Syndrome

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vinegarsyndrome.com

 

[Chuck Pennington]

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Why in the world would the filmmaker output such a poor file for Blu-ray?

It happens.

I remember when Paramount released “The Roddenberry Vault” edition of select episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series on BD in 2016. The sole selling point of that release was the first official inclusion of deleted scenes and outtakes from the original series. Rather than presenting them as easily accessible bonus features in their native frame rate, they made several documentaries with all the familiar talking heads recounting stories told a million times before, and the only way to see the outtakes and deleted scenes was within those documentaries. That’s frustrating in and of itself, but the real tragedy was that (much like this Clue documentary) they didn’t conform the footage or interviews to a single standard, so while all of the interviews looked fine, all of the deleted/outtake material was riddled with horrible interlacing artifacts. They screwed up the one thing everyone was buying the set for.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

 

[Chuck Pennington]

It happens.

I remember when Paramount released “The Roddenberry Vault” edition of select episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series on BD in 2016. The sole selling point of that release was the first official inclusion of deleted scenes and outtakes from the original series. Rather than presenting them as easily accessible bonus features in their native frame rate, they made several documentaries with all the familiar talking heads recounting stories told a million times before, and the only way to see the outtakes and deleted scenes was within those documentaries. That’s frustrating in and of itself, but the real tragedy was that (much like this Clue documentary) they didn’t conform the footage or interviews to a single standard, so while all of the interviews looked fine, all of the deleted/outtake material was riddled with horrible interlacing artifacts. They screwed up the one thing everyone was buying the set for.

But this problem is throughout 95% of the entire feature: clips, interviews, animation, motion on stills, etc. There is no way to fix it. I’ll take ghosting or stuttering over ugly combing any day.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yeah, that’s poor post production, unfortunately it does happen particularly on some of these lower budget productions made by people with perhaps limited experience working in the realm of professional film and TV distribution.

Talk to any tech person working at a film festival and they’ll have a million examples of this sort of thing where the DCP that was submitted to them is nowhere close to what it should be.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Yeah, that’s poor post production, unfortunately it does happen particularly on some of these lower budget productions made by people with perhaps limited experience working in the realm of professional film and TV distribution.

Talk to any tech person working at a film festival and they’ll have a million examples of this sort of thing where the DCP that was submitted to them is nowhere close to what it should be.

And the filmmaker talks of how he has a film degree. Um… How could a company release a product like this? The time to correct it should have been put it before releasing it as a premium product.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And the filmmaker talks of how he has a film degree. Um… How could a company release a product like this? The time to correct it should have been put it before releasing it as a premium product.

I’m not disagreeing with any of that, of course.

For what it’s worth, I have a film degree. Film school does not teach you frame rates or proper usage of video formats or any of that. In my experience, the only thing that film school teaches you is how to direct a self-financed independent film. All of those jobs that scroll by at the end of the film credits? Film school doesn’t teach any of that, let alone mastering for home video.

I’ve worked for small home video distributors before. Sometimes the lawyers sign the contract, the deliverables are specified, and the right material never comes. Or that’s just how they made their film and you’re stuck with it. It sucks. It happens. It shouldn’t but it does.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

I’m not disagreeing with any of that, of course.

For what it’s worth, I have a film degree. Film school does not teach you frame rates or proper usage of video formats or any of that. In my experience, the only thing that film school teaches you is how to direct a self-financed independent film. All of those jobs that scroll by at the end of the film credits? Film school doesn’t teach any of that, let alone mastering for home video.

I’ve worked for small home video distributors before. Sometimes the lawyers sign the contract, the deliverables are specified, and the right material never comes. Or that’s just how they made their film and you’re stuck with it. It sucks. It happens. It shouldn’t but it does.

The director was directly involved with this release on a special boutique label. This is a problem that could be addressed, unless he trashed all of his original files and raw footage (which I doubt).

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Why release this at a premium price on Blu-ray when the overall quality isn’t even up to DVD standards?

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Wrote to Vinegar Syndrome - their response:

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for reaching out! Have you reached out to ETR Media? This is their release, so they might have some more info for you about the process or any issues here. We haven't heard anything else about this, so I'm not sure what the issue could be. I would see if they can help and if not, let me know and we can look into it further or get you a new disc to try.

Thanks,
Evie


Then I wrote to ETR Media, who seemed to pass the buck:

Hi,

Sorry to hear about this & wish I had more of a technical answer but we do not produce the Blu Rays, we simply take the supplied assets from the film makers, get new art made & provide that to the distributor to produce. No one else has mentioned this but I will bring it up to the film maker who provided us with the film assets.

As you may or may not know, we are primarily a record label that does limited edition reissues & the partner label sort of just happened through a set of circumstances. That said, I am a big pop culture doc fan which is the main reason we have the partner label so again I am sorry to hear this. Even though the order was not placed through us, we can provide you a $5 off your next order though our store as an apology if that interests you, we have a bunch of clue stuff in stock right now if your into that among other things Sorry again to hear this, each Blu ray project is different regarding assets as some are controlled by larger companies & some not but i will bring this up with the director now that I was made aware of it.

-Ross Shotland-
Enjoy the Ride Records