Whole Grain Pictures discussion thread

[sonicyogurt]

A curated collection of indie darlings of the 90s, 00's and more, rescued from obscurity. Coming soon to Blu-ray.

WHO WE ARE
Whole Grain Pictures is a new venture of MediaOCD, a Los Angeles-based post-production company world renown for its restoration and deluxe Blu-ray treatment of vintage anime titles. Clients include Discotek Media, All The Anime, IFC Films, NIS America, and many more. We're now bringing our expertise to the world of indie films!

WHAT WE'LL BE LICENSING
Art house, foreign, and independent films from around the world. (Probably not much horror, however, as there's already plenty of companies caring for those films.) Basically, whatever we think you'll love!

WATCH THIS SPACE
We'll be opening up product announcements, as well as unique opportunities to get involved!

Get... involved?
Seriously! We love passionate movie fans! We'll be providing our supporters with unique insights into our restoration, early announcements, discounts, direct communication with our crew, and much more.

That's cool. Will you just be doing Blu-ray?
For now. As we grow, we will absolutely consider UHD Blu-ray releases, going forward. DVD is less likely, but if we hear from people that there's a demand, we'll try it out. Premium "digital locker" services are on the table as well. We're listening to you!

So... when?
When I say "soon" I mean soon, but... the internet is littered with broken dreams. So, I'm writing this in September 2023, and we hope to be off the ground by early to mid 2024, perhaps even sooner!

If you find this site a decade from now and these promises are still here, you'll have some idea not to get your hopes up. But I don't think that'll happen.

How do I get in touch!
We're not ready to talk yet, but we will be soon!

[bergman864]

Always happy to see a new label enter the business. So many films even the sheer number of labels we have now can't get to all of them.

[koberulz]

Is that two new labels today?

[JupiterMission]

Sounds intriguing! I've been hoping a label would dive deep into 90s indies ever since reading this several years back
https://www.indiewire.com/features/c...is-1202006831/

Looking forward to seeing what Whole Grain puts out.

[jshaide]

I look longingly at all those weird DVDs I have that I expect to always remain on the DVD shelf and wonder. . .

[briwas101]

I love the name, now they need to deliver on that promise. They will be opening themselves up to a lot of hate if anything is overly DNR'ed. By choosing that name they pretty much have to commit to keeping grain intact. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer.

[sonicyogurt]

Originally Posted by briwas101

I love the name, now they need to deliver on that promise. They will be opening themselves up to a lot of hate if anything is overly DNR'ed.

Their work for labels like Discotek and All the Anime has been superlative. Sometimes they're restricted in terms of what masters they're supplied -- if excessive DNR is baked in, there's only so much they can do -- but they do some pretty superhuman work in terms of remastering and cleanup without betraying the intended presentation. (The "OCD" in "MediaOCD" is well-deserved, and we're better for it!)

They also go to lengths subtitling I've never seen anyone else rival: creative positioning, custom fonts, etc., to try to make translations of on-screen text look as seamless and integrated as possible.

[DukeTogo84]

Interesting. So they are going to release films from the 90's onwards? Will be interesting to see what their first few films are.

[jsevakis]

Hey there, I'm Justin for those who don't know me. I'm the CEO of MediaOCD. Very happy to see people excited about our future plans.

Not much to talk about yet but we will announce our first acquisiton in about a month or so, and hope to have our first disc hit the streets around spring. We're still very busy working for Discotek and other companies, so we're going to take this slow and really market every title. I can't imagine we'll have more than 5 or so titles in our first year, but hopefully we can grow from there!

Looking forward to sharing what we have in store. Can't promise everyone will love every movie we bring out, but we have some seriously cool stuff in the works.

[JoeKilledKenney2020]

Originally Posted by jsevakis

Hey there, I'm Justin for those who don't know me. I'm the CEO of MediaOCD. Very happy to see people excited about our future plans.

Not much to talk about yet but we will announce our first acquisiton in about a month or so, and hope to have our first disc hit the streets around spring. We're still very busy working for Discotek and other companies, so we're going to take this slow and really market every title. I can't imagine we'll have more than 5 or so titles in our first year, but hopefully we can grow from there!

Looking forward to sharing what we have in store. Can't promise everyone will love every movie we bring out, but we have some seriously cool stuff in the works.

Congratulations jsvekas! Do you think you’ll be able to release the vintage anime from the 80’s also? Do you think your new company will be able to try to commission an uncut 4K restorations of old-school Japanese animations (like Fist of The North Star 1986, though I don’t think it’s really possible) or something else? Regardless, I’m still excited what you’re new company can really do!

[jsevakis]

Originally Posted by JoeKilledKenney2020

Congratulations jsvekas! Do you think you’ll be able to release the vintage anime from the 80’s also? Do you think your new company will be able to try to commission an uncut 4K restorations of old-school Japanese animations (like Fist of The North Star 1986, though I don’t think it’s really possible) or something else? Regardless, I’m still excited what you’re new company can really do!

MediaOCD will continue to be involved in vintage anime in other ways (known and not yet announced), but Whole Grain Pictures will specifically be for non-anime titles. Fist of the North Star is a Discotek property.

[asmodeux21]

I would love to see Hisayasu Sato's films in HD. He made some of the most interesting and stylish pink films I've seen.

[Chie Satonaka]

Really interested is seeing what kind of films you'll be putting out.

A few questions:

Will the disc you use be pressed or burned?

Please tell me you won't be slowing down work for discotek. The stuff you've done for them has been gold and I'd hate to see that become rarer.

Any chance of television or mini series?

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Chie Satonaka

Really interested is seeing what kind of films you'll be putting out.

This is what I'm really curious about. It sounds like we will be getting international features and really hoping it's HK and Japanese films for sure.

[PonyoBellanote]

This is pretty good news. Me, myself, I'm very limited in my tastes and I'm not sure if their indie releases will probably be what I'm interested on, but who knows, maybe I find a jewel in between. The one thing with indies is that every movie is not the same. So, although I probably think I won't have much to find in this new label, I'm very happy and glad it exists, for those who watch and enjoy everything and indies. I am sure they'll be releasing some very good discs. Justin, Discotek and his team, in my books, almost always deliver, mall stupid nitpicks aside.

I am fully convinced the name is a tongue-in-cheek inside joke, even if it's a good name. I'm pretty sure it has a different double meaning in the inside.. but that's a theory. A movie buff theory.

By the way, and I say this just because I can and not as a demand (I'm not that kind of a-hole) but I'm still hoping one day for Gisaburo Sugi's Stormy Night by Discotek. A man can dream.. That reminds me, Justin, is Night on the Galaxy Railroad still available or is it OOP? I still want to get it at some point, but importing is expensive.

[Nailwraps]

First of all, welcome aboard and thanks for continuing the existence of physical media!

Second, I don't know what your preference is to animated titles (including foreign ones), but if you could be able to release the original Asterix and Lucky Luke movies to the US and Canada (with both French and English tracks), I'd appreciate it.

The fanbase in America for these characters is small but strong and we do slowly but surely keep growing and I feel maybe releasing the animated films could help bring more appeal. I enjoy these movies and it's a shame they're not giving proper treatment on home video that pleases everyone. So if you could kindly consider this proposal, I appreciate it.

And yes; DVD is still an essential format and still makes money so if you can also releases films on that format along with Blu-ray and 4K, that'd be great.

Thanks for listening Whole Grain and I look forward to what you have in store!

[GeoffOliver]

Congrats on this new venture, Justin. I’m sure any film will be lucky to have your company look after it. Will you be mostly handling new releases or older, overlooked indie films that still aren’t available?

[Kriztoffer Swank]

Definitely interested but it remains to be seen if their catalog will be in my range of interest. Arthouse and indies aren't especially promising, though the mention of foreign films could open up the doors to wild Hong Kong flicks, which 88 Films have representation of in the UK but I haven't noticed a whole lot of coverage here. (I assume Japanese movies will continue to be released under Discotek's Nihon Nights banner.)

[Thomas Veil]

Whole Grain is an excellent source of fiber so they got that going for them...which is nice.

[jsevakis]

Originally Posted by Chie Satonaka

Will the disc you use be pressed or burned?

Please tell me you won't be slowing down work for discotek. The stuff you've done for them has been gold and I'd hate to see that become rarer.

Any chance of television or mini series?

We will never do burned discs. And no, Discotek work will be untouched, and they have us booked well into 2025 at this point with more to come. And that work is what's paying the bills...

Short TV series are definitely on the table. Beyond that, I can only say we'll be releasing non-anime stuff we like that we can get the rights to and think we can sell. It's a wide range of stuff, but most of it will be older. For the initial year or so, we're going to be getting very creative.