haineshisway
Senior HTF Member
Early on Mr. Harris made his point - and it's a good one to remember. In movie theaters, in earlier days, you had release prints that were generations away from the negative. That is what audiences saw. People now seem to think movies all used to look just like Blu-rays look now, but it's so not the case. Now you're usually getting an extraordinarily high-resolution scan off the camera negative or something close to it. These scans reveal things no filmmaker or camera person would have wanted you to see. They knew very well what would end up on screen in a release print generations away from that camera negative. They also knew what the projection throw and lenses would also do. We hear a lot these days, wow I can see the incredible textures on clothing, and the beard coming through on Cary Grant - you NEVER saw that stuff back in the day, because the projected image never had that kind of absolute pin-sharp clarity. So, no, I would have to now agree that audiences back then didn't see the wires of the Lion's tail. a) they weren't focusing on the part of the frame, and b) the inherent quality of the projected image of an IB Tech print from that era would not have given you the detail to see it.
This was all brought home to me last night in the most clear way possible. I went to a 35mm midnight showing here in LA of a little movie called The Faculty. As some here may or may not know, I had a little something to do with it. I hadn't seen it in 35mm since the premiere back in 1998. The only time I've really seen it since was when the Canadian Blu-ray came out - I'm told that transfer is close to the Echo Bridge transfer, which I'll have on Tuesday. It's got great clarity and sharpness. Guess what? The film as projected is nowhere near that clarity and sharpness. It looks like a release print looks like. Late in the film, one of the actresses has an extended nude scene (or semi-nude scene). In one shot, she's in shadows, and you can kind of see her top half but not really. In the projected film, the illusion is perfect. On the Blu-ray, with it's from the negative clarity? You can clearly see that the actress is wearing some sort of flesh covering - many of the Internet reviewers and posters said, "I don't remember that being visible in the theater" - and they didn't because it wasn't. You just don't see it on the release print, but you really see it on the Blu-ray. And there you have it.
This was all brought home to me last night in the most clear way possible. I went to a 35mm midnight showing here in LA of a little movie called The Faculty. As some here may or may not know, I had a little something to do with it. I hadn't seen it in 35mm since the premiere back in 1998. The only time I've really seen it since was when the Canadian Blu-ray came out - I'm told that transfer is close to the Echo Bridge transfer, which I'll have on Tuesday. It's got great clarity and sharpness. Guess what? The film as projected is nowhere near that clarity and sharpness. It looks like a release print looks like. Late in the film, one of the actresses has an extended nude scene (or semi-nude scene). In one shot, she's in shadows, and you can kind of see her top half but not really. In the projected film, the illusion is perfect. On the Blu-ray, with it's from the negative clarity? You can clearly see that the actress is wearing some sort of flesh covering - many of the Internet reviewers and posters said, "I don't remember that being visible in the theater" - and they didn't because it wasn't. You just don't see it on the release print, but you really see it on the Blu-ray. And there you have it.
