What (if anything) needs to be done to bring NAPOLEON up to snuff? (1 Viewer)

[oscar_merkx]

Thanks Patrick

 

[Porter Faulkner]

Thats strange. Now looking at the copy I purchased on the weekend, it must have been an advance printing just for the film showings. The publisher is Photoplay Productions which is Kevin Brownlows' company. It also included a CD of highlights from Carl Davis's score.

The BFI version will be released in March.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The old version is a fascinating book (for which I paid too much while it was out of print). How much new material is in the reprinted version?

 

[Porter Faulkner]

Mark, there are about another 5 pages, but loads more photographs and the printing is much better quality and the CD, of course.

 

[Steve Phillips]

I wish someone would find the 3-D footage Gance shot for this film. It never made the final cut though.

Yes, I'm serious.

 

[Jim Barg]

Just reading these reviews makes me want to find a copy of the film and Brownlow's book (having read his Lean biography, I can only imagine how fascinating the book is).

This smells like a job for Criterion... someday.

 

[Patrick McCart]

This smells like a job for Criterion... someday.

I really think Criterion is the only studio that could put together the right DVD, as well as justify the cost it would take to do it right.

If there were no extras at all, there's still a 5 1/2 hr. silent film needing a new HD transfer.

 

[Robert Harris]

There seem to be technical problems involving speed control and high definition, which thus far have not been surmounted. 24fps appears to be the only means of current transfer in that format.

RAH

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Respectfully, Mr. Harris, that makes no sense. If the film is simply scanned in, frame by frame, which anyone who is doing HD telecine should be doing anyway [rather than running 3-2 pulldown; I would expect that making progressive encoded HD-downconvert DVDs would be fiendishly difficult if they did that], frame rate is irrelevant. The digital scans can be cadenced or whatever is necessary to get them to video, after all the work is done -- that is, at the authoring stage.

 

[Patrick McCart]

24fps appears to be the only means of current transfer in that format.

Ick. That doesn't really make me anticipate seeing silent films in HD. I'm hoping that the specs of HD-DVD and/or BluRay would have a specification allowing different frame speeds.

In a worse case scenario, how bad would digitally "stretch printing" look for Napoleon?

 

[Robert Harris]

To ChristopherDAC...

We've been experimenting on another film, DVD and down-conversions aside.

The information give to me is that we have been unsuccessful. I've never suggested that I understand video in any meaningful way, so I'm unable to explain what the problems are. However, others have been reaching the same conclusion.

RAH