New Casablanca SE - Page 2

Robert Harris · 07-31-2003, 12:40 PM

There are those who do not find the LDI record-outs to film in 2k "film-like."

One must step back here and separate the experience of seeing a classic film on a screen, no matter how pleasureable, with a direct side by side comparison of the new and old products.

Let's stick with reality.

RAH

Rain · 07-31-2003, 01:22 PM

Quote:

I think this redeems Rain's earlier assertion that Casablanca could benefit from an updated transfer. Many scoffed at that notion

Bygones.

But...I also mentioned another film in need of an updated transfer in that same thread...I hope WB comes through with that one eventually, too.

LarryDavenport · 07-31-2003, 01:32 PM

Now if Warner would only do a 2-disc SE for The Maltese Falcon. They could put the Mexican version that was shot at the same time as the 1941 classic as well as the original 1931 version. Maybe they can throw on Satan Met A Lady, the 1936 Bette Davis film based on The Maltese Falcon but told from the femme fatale's point of view. I'm sure there's a WB cartoon parody too.

Patrick McCart · 07-31-2003, 01:42 PM

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Now if Warner would only do a 2-disc SE for The Maltese Falcon. They could put the Mexican version that was shot at the same time as the 1941 classic as well as the original 1931 version. Maybe they can throw on Satan Met A Lady, the 1936 Bette Davis film based on The Maltese Falcon but told from the femme fatale's point of view. I'm sure there's a WB cartoon parody too.

I don't think they did a true parody, but The Great Piggy Bank Robbery would likely be a good one to include.

The 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon and Satan Met A Lady would not take up much room since they are 88 and 66 minutes respectively.

GlennH · 07-31-2003, 02:38 PM

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P.S. Glenn -- thanks for the tip on The Big Picture. I was a frequent visitor to their site prior to the pay service changeover, and I recall an interview they did with Lowry in which Gone With the Wind was named for PAL. Was this the same article in which The Women was mentioned? It's a couple of years old if so. I'll have to revisit their archive and reference it. Thanks again for the heads up.

Yes, I think that may be it, or at least from around the time they interviewed Lowry. It was quite awhile ago now.

Bill Burns · 07-31-2003, 07:26 PM

Robert Harris wrote:

Quote:

There are those who do not find the LDI record-outs to film in 2k "film-like."

One must step back here and separate the experience of seeing a classic film on a screen, no matter how pleasureable, with a direct side by side comparison of the new and old products.

Let's stick with reality.

For what it's worth, my view on the matter follows this line of reasoning (I'd put this in a rant tag, but that italicizes and emboldens everything, which looks obnoxious, so forgive me for leaving the rant tags out -- it is a rant, I suppose, as I think this must qualify as such, but I don't say so to suggest that I haven't thought through any of this; it represents an opinion I've considered very carefully):

Films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis have been digitally re-introduced or restored to film at 2K after undergoing "digital restoration." Every review of the Metropolis theatrical screenings I've heard or read, including one from a friend in New York who told me about it in person, have been glowing (my friend's not a big fan of the film itself, but the presentation looked great to him). Some have issues with the speed (I believe I would as well), but aside from that, everyone praises the experience and the presentation. I'm sure there are some who do not, but they're not a majority among critics who've spoken up on-line. I can't find anyone who says "this doesn't look like film! Who are they trying to kid?" This isn't to say there aren't digital anomalies one might discern, and which might be made far more transparent at 4K, but there are anomalies one discerns in photochemical restorations as well when those restorations are forced to present multiple generation elements. Neither looks like an original print from an original negative or dupe negative, so the question becomes one of degree -- how far removed are we from the original in the overall visual character of the picture?

Other titles, such as Columbia's The Matinee Idol, have also been digitally restored to film at 2K at considerable expense and to great response.

If the contention here is that a film restored at 2K doesn't look like film (or more specifically, that the visual quality of the film looks markedly less like an original film source than would a photochemical restoration which requires the use of multiple generation elements), then we have a problem with the filmmaking community in general, because to my understanding (and correct me if this is wrong) digital grading, a process by which films are digitized, adjusted for color, densities, light sourcing, and other parameters, and then rerecorded to film (scanned to film), is becoming more and more commonplace in Hollywood. There's a documentary about this on the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Digital grading is most commonly used on only certain portions or scenes of a production as a "fix" to unsatisfactory on-set conditions, but more and more it's becoming a process used on much, if not all, of a film's length. James Bond in Die Another Day uses it extensively, and again some discussion of it can be found on that DVD. Many other films use it, but the Lord of the Rings pictures and Bond are perhaps the readiest and most well-documented exhibits for the process presently on DVD (The Two Towers arrives in extended form in November as another excellent example). I believe digital grading records back to film at 2K. If this isn't the case, I again invite correction.

I've seen all three of the above named pictures on large theatrical screens. If anyone were to say to me "these look like video," I'd say they were crazy. The uniquely manipulated colors, contrast, and character of digital grading are clearly evident, as production design no longer appears "natural" in many cases, but the images themselves look very film-like.

FX companies have been scanning to film for years now, of course, completing sequences in the digital realm and then scanning the completed shots back to negative. But digital grading is now making it commonplace to take shots from throughout a production which require no digital FX and entirely digitize them, strictly for the purpose of altering their specific visual character (light sourcing, color density, etc.). The results are reintroduced to negative. Now, if these scanned negatives are the preservation element (or the source of preservation elements) for the studio, if original unaltered negatives are not being preserved for future 4K and 8K and 300K

technologies, then both the filmmaking community and the studios who own the product of that community are becoming very content with digital scanning at 2K. Patrons are turning these films into the most financially successful ever made. If millions are being duped into watching "digital video" when they're paying to watch film, it's one of the greatest cons in movie history.

This isn't to say that 4K isn't better. John Lowry said, in his now well-referenced chat, that 4K "is coming," and looks great. He's understandably excited about it. The greater the resolution, the better. But home theatre owners have been saying from the dawn of DVD that a properly scaled, projected DVD can sometimes better, and very often equal, a theatrical experience. This is at screen sizes from 80" to 120", so we're certainly not speaking of theatre palace quality, but if this is so, or if it's even nearly so, it doesn't add up that 2K film scanning, which comprises actual on film resolution over four times greater than DVD, and greater than any of the high definition specs offered for the next generation of DVD, wouldn't and couldn't look like film when projected on a standard motion picture theatre screen.

John Lowry isn't paying me to say any of this.

But the reality of film production today is digital manipulation and digital alteration, and I believe most of that is still done at 2K for cost reasons. If those 2K results aren't a film experience when placed on film and projected for millions of theatre goers every week ... well, whoever makes that argument makes it against some of the best filmmakers working today, and most of the major studios. 4K will be better still, but isn't it disingenuous to suggest that 2K work is mere folly, a faux film we can dismiss when considered alongside "true" film? It's a big playing field out there in feature film production, and it's also a big field in the preservation and presentation of those films once they're made. If good, admirable work is being accomplished by schools of thought diametrically opposed to one another, I don't believe one has to be right and the other wrong. The results speak for themselves, and I doubt that every film in need of restoration and preservation will find it in any of our lifetimes, either photochemically or digitally. But when a film does find such restoration, by either method, and that restoration plays to the delight of theatre audiences ... I really think support and encouragement is the order of the day, rather than a criticism that simply says "if it doesn't start as film, it can never be film, so let's not acknowledge the effort by calling it a restoration." There has to be greater room in the marketplace of restoration than that. Metropolis, The Matinee Idol, Sunset Boulevard, and other films would still look very poor, and certainly wouldn't find themselves projected or enjoyed by theatre audiences today, if digital houses were relegated to video work. I saw Sunset Boulevard at a local theatre about a year prior to its restoration (or rather the release of that restoration on DVD). And all I can say, watching the DVD now, is "thank God for LDI."

That's how I see it, at any rate. I appreciate more than I can say all work that brings films to audiences in a theatrical or theatre-like setting, all work that moves even a single great film toward a longevity that will allow future generations to enjoy it in a version of quality, a version that at least suggests what was seen by original audiences (a differing grain structure, perhaps, limitations in contrast due to surviving elements ... but a visual feast nonetheless). Dupey, contrasty, grainy, "unrestorable" multiple generation elements are the alternative. If photochemical restoration isn't possible (due to elements, financial constraints, or other reasons), do we then dismiss digital because it's different? When the results delight audiences in movie theatre settings, and when the technology is becoming an intrinsic part of original feature filmmaking today (digital grading, as described earlier), I just don't think this is fair, and I don't think it offers those who have put great effort into such restorations their due. Photochemical restorers have received our thanks many times over, and will always continue to receive that acknowledgment; I don't think this needs must preclude similar thanks to digital restorers.

And that (digital manipulation, digital grading, digital repair ... digital symbiosis with the film form) is, I believe, the reality of today. I'm far from the only one to say it, but no, I'm not George Lucas: I don't believe films should originate as digital when they needn't. But I do believe that the digital tools in use today cannot and should not be thought of as the ugly kid brother to "true" film restoration. Both the current and the future prospects of the technology are far more exciting than that. This is strictly my opinion, and I express it not for the sake of argument, but because I really and honestly believe LDI and other digital houses are doing the world of film, and the community of film lovers, an extraordinary service, and with technology improving every ... well, month, I'd say, certainly every year, the quality of their output becomes more and more laudable. If audiences thrill to Metropolis at 2K, I'm indeed very eager to read reactions to the next big silent "digitally restored," this time at 4K. It's a bold, new world (even a "brave new world"

) of possibilities, but the traditions and the demands of the past continue to thrive and receive their proper respect -- note in his chat that Lowry emphasizes the unequaled value of original film materials, and fully acknowledges that even the best digital technologies have short lifespans in the marketplace. Thus a digital restoration is re-recorded to physical film, and we hold on to and cherish those physical elements from which the restoration was made, that future technologies, all the more robust, might revisit them and bring them back to their full luster still further (once again, Lowry mentions several films he'd already like to revisit from the elements used the first time around, as progress with the technologies involved has already made such a revisit worthwhile, only a couple of years after their first pass).

Original film elements are king. So long as the symbiosis persists (physical film restored either photochemically or digitally, but the surviving film elements used in these restorations themselves preserved as best as possible that future technologies might improve them still further, while the current "restorations" are also preserved as insurance against the loss of those original elements and as a means of keeping the films readily available to the public), I believe there's more than enough warranted praise to go around.

And with that ... I'm very eager to see Casablanca.

Robert Harris · 08-01-2003, 08:44 AM

Bill Burns...

Its all in what you're seeing...

and what you're not seeing...

and what you're using as a comparison.

You're friends may have seen a 35mm print of the newly digitally restored (in 2k) Metropolis, but what they haven't seen is a print produced from the 2k record out.

There is nothing wrong with 2k, nor with using 2k as opposed to 4k.

The need for a certain digital resolution is not a generic point. It must be tested and discovered ON A SHOT BY SHOT BASIS by testing, scanning and recording back to film.

Digital is certainly NOT the ugly step sister of film restoration.

Used well and used properly, digital provides a wonderful set of tools.

Digital resolution used for either effects or intermediates is not relevant to anything, as there is no film being compared and no specific quality requirements to be hit.

I don't believe that anyone has said that there is more than 2k information in 50 year old films, although scanning in 4k and down-rezzing to 2k might provide an image which can better survive additional photo-optical generations.

In brief, none of this is as simplistic as it may appear.

In order to retain both original quality and grain structure, we are currently scanning VistaVision at over 24 megapixels per frame.

This does not mean that a "pretty" image cannot be had for less.

RAH

Gordon McMurphy · 08-01-2003, 09:56 AM

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In order to retain both original quality and grain structure, we are currently scanning VistaVision at over 24 megapixels per frame.

What VistaVision film would that be?

Please tell us if you are at liberty to!

Gordy

Robert Harris · 08-01-2003, 10:07 AM

"Liberty"

An interesting and appropriate choice of a word.

Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot

Gordon McMurphy · 08-01-2003, 10:29 AM

Oh, WOW!

The Colonial Williamsburg Museum used to show 70mm prints, but those were missing enterance/exit music, right?

This superb short film is part of American heritage and many will be glad it is being restored.

How bad are the elements? Is it a tough job?

Best of luck, Robert!

Gordy