A Few Words About A few words about...™ McLintock! -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Mark-P]

Great news. Paramount will be releasing their own Blu-ray of McLintock!

 

[atfree]

Great news. Paramount will be releasing their own Blu-ray of McLintock!

VERY glad I held off ordering the Olive version....and hoping that Paramount uses a new transfer for this release! Pre-ordered!

 

[Torsten Kaiser]

I just came across this thread today, so - my apologies for not having been here earlier and having had to opportunity to shed some (apparently much needed) light on the issues. A lot has been said here, unfortunately much based on assumptions that have little but mostly absolutely nothing to do with the facts. Some of the posts suggest that the work that was done on the master used by OLIVE was shoddy. It is ironic, as it actually exposes the sum of the true knowledge about the work and master. Zero. It will become evidently clear when reading Paragraph 2 – the one which explains where else this very master was presented - and got praised by the very same people. Interesting. But also, a lot of the things stated here are from the perspective of TODAY, yet it is important to remember two things:

1) the time the master was actually made – and for what purpose (priority)
2) the background under which the whole restoration was made and why

Robert, I also can fill in some of the blanks you were wondering about.

So, to borrow a line from David Fincher's ALIEN3: "This is rumour control - here are the facts".

[*]First of, the OLIVE Blu-ray is based on a very extensive restoration made back in 2005 to mid 2006 - so some eight years ago - from 2 seperate sets of Technicolor Print Elements - the only complete Technicolor reference on 35mm that we know of after almost 2 years of search. The reason why these were used will be very clear in a moment. I know all this (by heart) - because we did that restoration.

It was made back then with the primary focus / priority of broadcast in mind. And before you start typing - keep on reading, maybe it will do some good and give some here the idea, not to post something "knowing" before actually knowing anything. I would also remind everyone of the quality of many of the masters issued by the major studios back in 2006 from VASTLY SUPERIOR elements.
You can find some images and details of our restoration of “McLintock!” and others HERE:
http://www.tlefilms.com/TLEFilms_MCL_portal.htm
and here: http://www.tlefilms.com/TLEFilms__FS_nav2.htm
[*]I read with interest that some are heralding the HD broadcast and Netflix presentations in the U.S. as well as the U.K., while having little nice things to say if any about the Olive Blu-ray. I say with interest because – and this may come as a huge surprise to some - all are based on the same master - the same restoration – ours.
[*]To clarify: Batjac is, indeed, not rightsholder of the motion picture copyright (anymore), the copyright, in fact, was simply not renewed when the time came and thus expired, therefore the film fell into the public domain. All BATJAC have is the Original Camera Negative (Eastman), and an IP (again, Eastman) struck in 1995. Technicolor references were to our knowledge not kept. However, BATJAC declined offers and did not want to grant access to these elements for decades to anyone.
The only way open at the time - and remember: this was way before the breakthrough Paramount / BATJAC package deal, and there was no way of knowing that it ever would happen – was to restore these last, complete surviving Technicolor elements as there was some considerable interest by broadcasters around the world in such a restoration – to present the film finally as it was actually conceived and made, and not, as it was available for so man years at the time, in extremely poor condition SD NTSC masters, often only 4x3, thus denying the film its original splendour.

As I said, when this restoration was made, Paramount had not made a deal with BATJAC yet – the later made package deal that focused not at all on “McLintock!” but was made because of HONDO (the film that Paramount was most interested in). “McLintock!” was merely an additive, nothing more. The transfer of “McLintock” was made in SD NTSC only at the time. Staying with that other master, while in general pretty solidly done, the colors and exposure levels are incorrect in many of the scenes, not reflecting the Technicolor palette accurately.

Opposed to that - aside from the detailed analysis of the elements and our knowledge of the Technicolor dyetransfer palette at the time, the saturation, shadow detail, hues and separation - we also researched extensively the registration of the colors of the used props even going as far as obtaining some - and found that these confirmed the work we have done to the t. And yes, the materials had their respective limitations, but I am sure Robert would agree that gaining this result from a couple of sets of Technicolor print elements is a welcome, unexpected surprise. The BBC thought so, HDNet thought so, NHK (developer of High Dfinition and beyond) most certainly thought so, and German public broadcaster ARD thought so, too.

[*]As to the limitations and the work done:
Technicolor was very good in separation of colors; however, a different set of prints (Robert, this should answer one of your Qs, as well) sometimes registered at time differently. With our 2 sets this was, unfortunately, the case, color timing was, accordingly, extremely difficult. Another problem was to match the over 3,000 late lights prior and after each shot, which had a slightly less or more exposed frame than the preceeding/following one(s) and thus completely different color values. Those were corrected /matched frame-by-frame. It took some 11 and a half days to color re-time.
[/list]
I noticed your surprise about the physical state, Robert. Believe me, when we got the elements, they looked a WHOLE LOT different, massive scratches on the base side and also pretty rough damages and blemishes on the emulsion, such as scratches, wire scratches, debris, tears, broken or slightly torn perforation, which needed fixing in more than 300 places (making among other things a wetgate transfer or scan impossible), dyetransfer blemishes such as stains, warpage and indentations, along with the color imbalances between the two now combined elements due to different handling of the Eastman Intermediate Negs themselves. Every single one of the frames was worked on to clean up and restore the image to its original state – over 180,000 of them.

So, why go to all that trouble ? Again, remember: BATJAC had not moved on this for decades, granting access to NOONE. PD films do not equal automatically cheap or crappy presentations.

[*]I also read, that print elements “don’t telecine”. Actually the quote was

Billy Batson, on 07 Jul 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:
[/list](…)You can't really telecine it, the Spirit TK is designed for low contrast film: original, interpos, interneg, & at the end of the line, a low-con print.(…)
I wish this contributor had more knowledge and less urge to post. Because, to say this in general terms is to state something that could not be further from the truth and suggests that the contributor knows very little about the SPIRIT if anything.
Aside from the fact, that there is no such thing as a “Spirit TK” (SPIRIT Datacine and HD Datacine, 2K SPIRIT and 4K SPIRIT, however, do) – the SPIRIT was built with the aim of handling OCN, IP and IN first, low contrast master print sources were not the priority at all – but along them this is one of the few quite excellent Telecines/Scanners that actually capable of just that – handling Theatrical Prints – if you know how. The IMAGICA Imager XE Avd Plus Scanner (at the very top of the line) being capable of the very same, again, if you KNOW HOW. Other scanners so have problems with these types of elements.
In fact, it all comes down to capability – that inherent in the 35mm element (along with the restoration of the actual element, the telecine or the scanner and its inherent qualities and its use – and finally the color restoration and restoration of physical damage and blemishes and how this restoration is done.
This restoration was done under a whole lot different circumstances than was reflected here before. But knowing “the turf” from back then by reading about it here now will hopefully help to appreciate the work by so many that was done over many months and why it was done in a much better way. In the end, the inevitable question: can a new master based on the IP be better ? If made right, I sure would hope so. Minus the limitations, the basis we provided back in 2006 should give the makers there every opportunity. And they have the plusses of the far better sources and a whole lot less of damage to contend with to begin with.

 

[FoxyMulder]

@Torsten

I wish you would post more, you always have something good to say and one can learn so much, i guess work prevents you.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Torsten,

Does this mean the upcoming BD release from Paramount is probably based on the same master and restoration you did?

 

[Torsten Kaiser]

Torsten,

Does this mean the upcoming BD release from Paramount is probably based on the same master and restoration you did?

I do not know. Because of the special package deal with BATJAC Paramount are the only ones who have access to the 35mm OCN and/or IP. After all these years, and considering the possibilities re: high-quality scanning (such as NORTHLIGHT, IMAGICA) at 2 or even 4K level I would hope that this release would be based on a new (re-)mastering effort, with the original Technicolor palette of the time as (strict) guideline. I would be among the first to buy the Blu-ray.

 

[Alan Tully]

Billy Batson, on 07 Jul 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:(…)You can't really telecine it, the Spirit TK is designed for low contrast film: original, interpos, interneg, & at the end of the line, a low-con print.(…)
I wish this contributor had more knowledge and less urge to post. Because, to say this in general terms is to state something that could not be further from the truth and suggests that the contributor knows very little about the SPIRIT if anything.
Aside from the fact, that there is no such thing as a “Spirit TK” (SPIRIT Datacine and HD Datacine, 2K SPIRIT and 4K SPIRIT, however, do) – the SPIRIT was built with the aim of handling OCN, IP and IN first, low contrast master print sources were not the priority at all – but along them this is one of the few quite excellent Telecines/Scanners that actually capable of just that – handling Theatrical Prints – if you know how. The IMAGICA Imager XE Avd Plus Scanner (at the very top of the line) being capable of the very same, again, if you KNOW HOW. Other scanners so have problems with these types of elements.
In fact, it all comes down to capability – that inherent in the 35mm element (along with the restoration of the actual element, the telecine or the scanner and its inherent qualities and its use – and finally the color restoration and restoration of physical damage and blemishes and how this restoration is done.

Sorry Torsten, I can't let you get away with that little lot!

You go on about me calling a Spirit a telecine, well since I started using a Spirit in 2002 (at Techicolor) everyone there refered to it as a telecine, old habits I suppose, everyone knows it's a datacine, but everywhere I worked, everyone, other ops. engineers, bookings people mangers (a LOT of people) still call it a telecine. I'm doing some scanning work on a 4K this weekend, & the sign on the suite door...TK 2! So me referring to a Spirit as a telecine does not automatically mean I don't know what I'm talking about.

And your whole post would be more impressive if you'd ended up with something worth having (for all of your state-of-the-art kit). Let's not forget that Robert Harris gave it a very poor 2. And I quote; high contrast - whites blooming a bit - limited shadow detail...just what I'd expect from a projection print transferred on a Spirit. And this comes after a great looking R1 DVD, which I thought looked just about perfect, colour, contrast levels, all looked spot-on to me. If a Blu-ray doesn't look better than the DVD, then what's the point?

Looking forward to the Paramount release!

 

[Timothy E]

If Paramount can release this after all of the public domain releases of McLintock, and so soon after Olive's release, it gives hope that One Eyed Jacks still has a chance for a high quality release. How about it, Paramount?

 

[Alan Tully]

If Paramount can release this after all of the public domain releases of McLintock, and so soon after Olive's release, it gives hope that One Eyed Jacks still has a chance for a high quality release. How about it, Paramount?

Ha, so I'm not the only one who thought that!

 

[Matt Hough]

Put me down for the same sentiments!