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70 MM later this year from FOX

post #1 of 18
7/13/09 at 3:16pm
Thread Starter 
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will release 2 classics on Blu-ray later this year: 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' and 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'', both shot in Todd-AO
 
There's a full reported over at Blu-ray.com
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post #2 of 18
7/13/09 at 4:03pm
I read the report and while I applaud both these two titles coming to Blu-ray, I was concerned with the following statement:

 Additionally, film opticals made at the time looked "crude by contemporary standards", so it was decided to apply sharpening and grain reduction "to make those scenes look more acceptable to modern viewers."

 It was followed by this statement: 

Hopefully the results will be subtler than those on the previous 70mm films from Fox previously released on Blu-ray.

 Oh well, I guess we can get ready for a long forum on this subject.  But, I will add these two titles to my list to check out when they arrive.  Thanks for the information Greg. 
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post #3 of 18
7/13/09 at 4:12pm
Just when I finally get around to buying The Agony and the Ecstasy on DVD...

On the most recent DVD of The Sound of Music, the restoration featurette talks about the negative for that being A/B rolled. I guess these films were not? Or am I misunderstanding the nature of A/B rolling.

I'm guessing we may also see this for 1950s Cinemascope films.
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post #4 of 18
7/13/09 at 4:28pm
 Anything they can do to make terrible optical dissolves better is aces with me - they couldn't make them look better then, so why not do it now?  Certainly no one could complain about that because if these films were being made today none of them would have those sorts of opticals and it's certainly not part of the director or cameraman's design or want.  Certainly no one could complain... Oh, wait, I forgot where I was :)
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post #5 of 18
7/13/09 at 6:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MatthewA View Post

Just when I finally get around to buying The Agony and the Ecstasy on DVD...

On the most recent DVD of The Sound of Music, the restoration featurette talks about the negative for that being A/B rolled. I guess these films were not? Or am I misunderstanding the nature of A/B rolling.

I'm guessing we may also see this for 1950s Cinemascope films.


A/B roll is used primarily with 16mm film to help hide the splices. 16mm film has so little space between the frames and the splice, that it is visible when projected unless A/B roll editing is used. Also for a time there was no way to do a dissolve in a 16mm film, hence A/B roll.

Any film where the splices show up in projection, IE early Cinemascope films before the change from 2.35:1 to 2.40:1, might use A/B roll to help hide the splices. I'm not sure why a 70mm film would need to unless there was some damage done to the film.

Doug

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post #6 of 18
7/13/09 at 6:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyFeldman View Post

 Anything they can do to make terrible optical dissolves better is aces with me - they couldn't make them look better then, so why not do it now?  Certainly no one could complain about that because if these films were being made today none of them would have those sorts of opticals and it's certainly not part of the director or cameraman's design or want.  Certainly no one could complain... Oh, wait, I forgot where I was :)

I really don't have a problem with them fixing old optical dissolves, however they are an interesting artifact of a different age of film making.

Doug

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post #7 of 18
7/13/09 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahollis View Post

I read the report and while I applaud both these two titles coming to Blu-ray, I was concerned with the following statement:

 Additionally, film opticals made at the time looked "crude by contemporary standards", so it was decided to apply sharpening and grain reduction "to make those scenes look more acceptable to modern viewers."

 It was followed by this statement: 

Hopefully the results will be subtler than those on the previous 70mm films from Fox previously released on Blu-ray.

 Oh well, I guess we can get ready for a long forum on this subject.  But, I will add these two titles to my list to check out when they arrive.  Thanks for the information Greg. 
 
Hopefully they're only referring to grain reduction in scenes that would be swimming with grain caused by multiple passes through an optical printer; @ least, that's the way I'm reading it. That's a circumstance where I find grain reduction acceptable, provided no high frequency detail is lost.
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post #8 of 18
7/13/09 at 9:19pm
Technicolor started to A/B roll dissolves on 35mm features in about 1959.  This allowed them to have the same generation as the original camera negative, since the printing matrices were made from the OCN.  You will notice Technicolor films from this period on don't have the in-and-out "pop" at dissolves.  I believe they even received a technical academy award for this development at the time.
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post #9 of 18
7/14/09 at 4:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Monce View Post




A/B roll is used primarily with 16mm film to help hide the splices. 16mm film has so little space between the frames and the splice, that it is visible when projected unless A/B roll editing is used. Also for a time there was no way to do a dissolve in a 16mm film, hence A/B roll.

Any film where the splices show up in projection, IE early Cinemascope films before the change from 2.35:1 to 2.40:1, might use A/B roll to help hide the splices. I'm not sure why a 70mm film would need to unless there was some damage done to the film.

Doug

 

 




Most 65mm productions were cut and conformed either A/B roll or auto select.
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post #10 of 18
7/14/09 at 6:47am
I hope we see Cleopatra soon. I'd like to think that they're holding out for the deleted scenes...but that's wishful thinking!
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post #11 of 18
7/14/09 at 5:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Harris View Post




Most 65mm productions were cut and conformed either A/B roll or auto select.
I was not aware of that. Never worked with 65mm film. Thanks for the info.

Doug
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post #12 of 18
7/14/09 at 9:31pm
HELLO, DOLLY! is a 70mm Fox offering that I would like to see on Blu-ray.
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post #13 of 18
7/15/09 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek M Germano View Post

HELLO, DOLLY! is a 70mm Fox offering that I would like to see on Blu-ray.
 

Dolly will probably be on BD at some point. Wall-E created a boost in interest, so I'm sure it'll happen. Hopefully the picture and sound will be better than the DVD.

I assume we can also expect The Sound of Music within the next couple of years (next year is its 45th anniversary, and it tends to get reissued for multiple-of-five anniversaries).

The Todd-AO version of Oklahoma! probably needs restoration (I hope they don't dare release the crummy 2005 transfer in SD on Blu-Ray, but after the roadshow version of South Pacific was done that way I wouldn't put it past them).
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post #14 of 18
7/15/09 at 7:18am
It would be SO tragic if the Todd-AO version of OKLAHOMA! isn't done right with a proper restoration/remastering and released on Blu-ray. It's a better version of the film than the Scope version, and if it were to be done correctly, it would be simply stunning.

Of course, what we have now on DVD is unwatchable to my eyes.
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post #15 of 18
7/15/09 at 8:36am
Some original negative rolls are full of dissolves that run the length of the scene, that means a lot of artificial sharpening and grain reduction!
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post #16 of 18
7/16/09 at 3:17pm
I must say that I was surprised that Hello Dolly has not already been released in BD  given the sucess of Wall E .Fox lost a lot of sales by not advertising it as "See  Wall E's favourite Film"!
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post #17 of 18
7/17/09 at 12:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by john a hunter View Post

I must say that I was surprised that Hello Dolly has not already been released in BD  given the sucess of Wall E .Fox lost a lot of sales by not advertising it as "See  Wall E's favourite Film"!

Perhaps they don't want to do a rush job. The existing DVD master does not do it justice.
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post #18 of 18
7/17/09 at 1:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by john a hunter View Post

I must say that I was surprised that Hello Dolly has not already been released in BD  given the sucess of Wall E .Fox lost a lot of sales by not advertising it as "See  Wall E's favourite Film"!
I think that Fox might indeed have been able to see higher sales for Hello, Dolly ! if they had released it in conjunction with the Wall-E Blu-Ray but I am quite certain that they were not ready to go with a master that was deemed worthy for a release and that they wanted to take their time and not rush things.
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