- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,425
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
My apologies in advance, as I may tend to be all over the
place here ---
Let's get to some basics.
Any discussion or comparison to VHS, 70mm, 35mm
or laserdisc as a comparison format is really out
of place here. The only question is "what does the
DVD look like?" as a completed published DVD.
There should not be any discussion here of Technicolor
(or My Fair Lady) vs. Eastmancolor or color by deluxe.
For our purposes there is no difference. MFL, SOM,
LOA (Lawrence), and every other large format film
made in this part of the world between about
1961 and the early 70s were all photographed on
basically the same photographic emulsion. All are
Eastmancolor and processing was handled in
basically the same manner in all labs worldwide.
TSOM, to the best of my knowledge, has not been
restored. The elements delivered for transfer were
the elements delivered for transfer.
Looking at the DVD, I'm seeing elements from different
sources, with quality all over the place. The most
obvious problem of which seems to be defective separation
masters. Not a problem unique to Fox or the industry, but
a problem which may rear its ugly head more often at Fox
as they have had no ongoing asset protection program.
They're just getting to it. Which is a major step in the right direction.
This means that the seps were probably never inspected or printed until after they were needed to create dupe footage. At which point, it was found that there were problems.
And there was no negative to go back to, to create
corrected seps.
No pun intended here, but let's start at the very beginning...
The THX logo is beautiful. It translates well to DVD.
The Fox logo, which had no Harrison filters involved in
its creation is however, ugly. It falls apart on the screen
with an excess of digititis and sharpening.
The Main Title sequence:
When this film was newly released in 1965 the MT was
already a fourth generation element -- not
a pretty picture before the introduction of the modern
Eastman duping stocks in the 80s (5243/5244).
Therefore, you are going to see anamolies built in to
the MT, which are, and have been part of it (and every
other film from this period) since day one. Throbbing, color inconsistencies, etc. are something that
we live with here.
One means around the problem might have been to go back
to the MT background -- used for foreign versions -- and
recomp -- on video -- the domestic graphics. Did the main
title background survive or was it junked? Only Fox can
answer than question.
Not part of this however, is the constant blooming effect,
digital artifacts, blown out whites, etc that are a part
of this DVD. Notice please...
I'm not saying transfer.
The transfer may be gorgeous, even as an NTSC image.
What I'm seeing in this image, which makes it totally
unwatchable to my eyes, are the constant horrific living
digital organisms which seem to have invaded what may have
been a great transfer. They pulse, they spawn and
replicate before my eyes and attempt to surround
everything as they attach themselves and
destroy the picture.
Whether this comes from compression or authoring, I can't
say. There are many who are much more knowledgable than
I in these areas.
Back to the film image a moment.
There are certain units (reels) which obviously are
derived from black and white sep masters as I've
already mentioned.
One of the problems that one will see in bad masters
is color throbbing. If you look at at scene with a
neutral background -- example 25 minutes in -- notice
that the walls throb from a neutral beigish to yellow/
magenta and back again. This is continuous.
And not correctible under normal transfer conditions.
Therefore this should not be a gripe as it cannot be
corrected during transfer -- or can it?
Something earthshaking occurred this week which
is not obvious.
Warner's beautiful new transfer of North by Northwest.
One must credit Warner's foresight here -- probably toward Ned Price and his staff, for attempting something
new and different. For Warner had a problem.
A big problem.
The original VVLA (35/8) negative of N X NW had been
allowed to fade beyond the use of any normal printing
methodology. This calls for a real Restoration.
But they didn't want to do that just yet, and they needed
a superior video transfer. So what did they do?
They took the faded original, made an interpositive in
8 perf and created what would have been a totally
unuseable and ultimately unviewable master. Because the
yellow layer had faded as far as it had, the film actually
flickered.
"So what's the trick then."
They thought through the problem and in my mind brilliantly came up with an answer.
For quite a while a gentleman named John Lowry had been
working on a process for digitally correcting yellow layer
failure and other anomolies on film -- but correcting them
on video.
Warner had the guts to go in a different direction, used
his process (the basis was the uncorrected VVLA transfer)
and out the other end came...
The beautiful new transfer of North by Northwest (which
should go into everyone's library - with a back-up copy.)
Buy two, they're inexpensive.
Would this process have been able to take care of the
problems created by the sep masters? Possibly.
So where does this leave us?
Here's my view. And I may be wrong on some counts.
A beautiful HiDef transfer was created from whatever
was delivered to the transfer facility by Fox. I read
in one very interesting piece that one reel -- 5B? -- had its timing (light) changes out of sync -- two frames off -- which necessitated major corrections in transfer.
This is called defective lab work, which is routinely
kicked back to the lab and remade gratis. This is not
a $20,000 remake of a reel. An entire print would cost
$20,000. A reel of interpositive, $4,000.
But, nevertheless, the transfer people had to deal
with it and seem to have done a terrific job.
Getting past the minutia, we should all agree that
the transfer staff and colorist had their hands full.
Fortunately they had Bob Wise and Ted McCord to give
notes. And I don't doubt for a moment, that they created
a superb transfer, taking into account the worts and all
status of the material deposited with them.
But in the end, it's not Eastmancolor, nor 65mm, nor
filters (take a look at the Golden Gate Bridge sequence
in "Vertigo" to see filtered/softened light taken to DVD) which make this an unpleasant viewing experience.
But rather, something that occurred after the transfer.
Something too dark and hideous to even ponder.
Something that marred this superb work with festering
digititis. And left in its wake, a truly horrific
example of DVD technology in the late summer of 2000.
I don't know what happened. I don't have the answers.
However, if it were my transer-- if I were Fox --
which I ain't...
I would recall and go back to the beginning.
I know that this film can look much better.
place here ---
Let's get to some basics.
Any discussion or comparison to VHS, 70mm, 35mm
or laserdisc as a comparison format is really out
of place here. The only question is "what does the
DVD look like?" as a completed published DVD.
There should not be any discussion here of Technicolor
(or My Fair Lady) vs. Eastmancolor or color by deluxe.
For our purposes there is no difference. MFL, SOM,
LOA (Lawrence), and every other large format film
made in this part of the world between about
1961 and the early 70s were all photographed on
basically the same photographic emulsion. All are
Eastmancolor and processing was handled in
basically the same manner in all labs worldwide.
TSOM, to the best of my knowledge, has not been
restored. The elements delivered for transfer were
the elements delivered for transfer.
Looking at the DVD, I'm seeing elements from different
sources, with quality all over the place. The most
obvious problem of which seems to be defective separation
masters. Not a problem unique to Fox or the industry, but
a problem which may rear its ugly head more often at Fox
as they have had no ongoing asset protection program.
They're just getting to it. Which is a major step in the right direction.
This means that the seps were probably never inspected or printed until after they were needed to create dupe footage. At which point, it was found that there were problems.
And there was no negative to go back to, to create
corrected seps.
No pun intended here, but let's start at the very beginning...
The THX logo is beautiful. It translates well to DVD.
The Fox logo, which had no Harrison filters involved in
its creation is however, ugly. It falls apart on the screen
with an excess of digititis and sharpening.
The Main Title sequence:
When this film was newly released in 1965 the MT was
already a fourth generation element -- not
a pretty picture before the introduction of the modern
Eastman duping stocks in the 80s (5243/5244).
Therefore, you are going to see anamolies built in to
the MT, which are, and have been part of it (and every
other film from this period) since day one. Throbbing, color inconsistencies, etc. are something that
we live with here.
One means around the problem might have been to go back
to the MT background -- used for foreign versions -- and
recomp -- on video -- the domestic graphics. Did the main
title background survive or was it junked? Only Fox can
answer than question.
Not part of this however, is the constant blooming effect,
digital artifacts, blown out whites, etc that are a part
of this DVD. Notice please...
I'm not saying transfer.
The transfer may be gorgeous, even as an NTSC image.
What I'm seeing in this image, which makes it totally
unwatchable to my eyes, are the constant horrific living
digital organisms which seem to have invaded what may have
been a great transfer. They pulse, they spawn and
replicate before my eyes and attempt to surround
everything as they attach themselves and
destroy the picture.
Whether this comes from compression or authoring, I can't
say. There are many who are much more knowledgable than
I in these areas.
Back to the film image a moment.
There are certain units (reels) which obviously are
derived from black and white sep masters as I've
already mentioned.
One of the problems that one will see in bad masters
is color throbbing. If you look at at scene with a
neutral background -- example 25 minutes in -- notice
that the walls throb from a neutral beigish to yellow/
magenta and back again. This is continuous.
And not correctible under normal transfer conditions.
Therefore this should not be a gripe as it cannot be
corrected during transfer -- or can it?
Something earthshaking occurred this week which
is not obvious.
Warner's beautiful new transfer of North by Northwest.
One must credit Warner's foresight here -- probably toward Ned Price and his staff, for attempting something
new and different. For Warner had a problem.
A big problem.
The original VVLA (35/8) negative of N X NW had been
allowed to fade beyond the use of any normal printing
methodology. This calls for a real Restoration.
But they didn't want to do that just yet, and they needed
a superior video transfer. So what did they do?
They took the faded original, made an interpositive in
8 perf and created what would have been a totally
unuseable and ultimately unviewable master. Because the
yellow layer had faded as far as it had, the film actually
flickered.
"So what's the trick then."
They thought through the problem and in my mind brilliantly came up with an answer.
For quite a while a gentleman named John Lowry had been
working on a process for digitally correcting yellow layer
failure and other anomolies on film -- but correcting them
on video.
Warner had the guts to go in a different direction, used
his process (the basis was the uncorrected VVLA transfer)
and out the other end came...
The beautiful new transfer of North by Northwest (which
should go into everyone's library - with a back-up copy.)
Buy two, they're inexpensive.
Would this process have been able to take care of the
problems created by the sep masters? Possibly.
So where does this leave us?
Here's my view. And I may be wrong on some counts.
A beautiful HiDef transfer was created from whatever
was delivered to the transfer facility by Fox. I read
in one very interesting piece that one reel -- 5B? -- had its timing (light) changes out of sync -- two frames off -- which necessitated major corrections in transfer.
This is called defective lab work, which is routinely
kicked back to the lab and remade gratis. This is not
a $20,000 remake of a reel. An entire print would cost
$20,000. A reel of interpositive, $4,000.
But, nevertheless, the transfer people had to deal
with it and seem to have done a terrific job.
Getting past the minutia, we should all agree that
the transfer staff and colorist had their hands full.
Fortunately they had Bob Wise and Ted McCord to give
notes. And I don't doubt for a moment, that they created
a superb transfer, taking into account the worts and all
status of the material deposited with them.
But in the end, it's not Eastmancolor, nor 65mm, nor
filters (take a look at the Golden Gate Bridge sequence
in "Vertigo" to see filtered/softened light taken to DVD) which make this an unpleasant viewing experience.
But rather, something that occurred after the transfer.
Something too dark and hideous to even ponder.
Something that marred this superb work with festering
digititis. And left in its wake, a truly horrific
example of DVD technology in the late summer of 2000.
I don't know what happened. I don't have the answers.
However, if it were my transer-- if I were Fox --
which I ain't...
I would recall and go back to the beginning.
I know that this film can look much better.
