"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Careful Kris, regarding Gangs of New York -

Looks like Robert Harris agrees with him!

A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

~Alan

[Bluhorizon]

I've searched the forum and can find no posts on SPR.

P-M, I would love to know when this will be released - any feedback?

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Careful Kris, regarding Gangs of New York -

You may be right or completely wrong, as I haven’t seen the Blu-ray edition. However, the theatrical presentation is coming up at the Academy in 3 weeks and there just may be a post-film panelist there that can confirm (during Q & A), that the DP used pro-mist or even fog filters during the entire primary photography………..not to mention the fact that they also used a lot of smoke (which I’ll speculate prompted a bunch of calls into the local Italian fire department by some residents that were unaware of the shoot).

Just a heads-up, like I said I haven't viewed the Blu-ray yet.

Fog and Mist has nothing to do with this atrocity. Whoever said this was okay to release on Blu should be fired. I'm not kidding.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

That's because they DNR'd the crap out of it to keep the grain out of the dark parts

Is this speculative or do you know this to be fact? Warner doesn't seem to have much of an issue with grain based on their previous HD releases. And having just watched the Dirty Harry Collection and Natural Born Killers there is no reason to think they've started having an issue with it now.

[WickyWoo]

Is this speculative or do you know this to be fact?

Fact

[Kris Deering]

Interesting

[HeavyHitter]

Correct me if I'm wrong...

But doesn't every Blu-ray release from every studio contain at least some DNR? In many cases it's very light and hardly noticable - some call it "theraputic." However, once in a while it's way overdone and quite noticable (e.g. Patton, Twister, Face Off). But, isn't DNR just part of the overall practice of creating a Blu-ray? Again, just asking as I'm not entirely sure.

[WickyWoo]

Yes and no.

As Penton has pointed out, DNR is often applied in the process of making the movie

No, DNR is not standard procedure. More often it was on DVD to make it easier to compress and because 480 didn't have the resolution to resolve it in the first place.

There's a big difference between theraputic DNR, and the "Kill the grain! Kill it dead!" approach that some studios take

[coolmilo]

I really liked Gangs of New York too. But I caught wind that the BD was not up to par and so I cancelled my pre-order. Hopefully Warner will do the right thing and redo this release.

At the other end of the quality spectrum is Men in Black. What a terrific BD. The True-hd audio track is full of life and the video looks quite good as well.

[WickyWoo]

GONY is Miramax/BVHE

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by coolmilo

I really liked Gangs of New York too. But I caught wind that the BD was not up to par and so I cancelled my pre-order. Hopefully Warner will do the right thing and redo this release.

At the other end of the quality spectrum is Men in Black. What a terrific BD. The True-hd audio track is full of life and the video looks quite good as well.

Wicky is right, Gangs is a Disney/Miramax release, not Warner.

Funny you mention MIB. I thought it looked good all things considered, but a few friends of mine didn't care for the transfer at all.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Funny how that works huh

Opinions over every movie out there vary so much that honestly I don't really care at this point. I thought it looked great, others don't I guess. Anyone that has any credibility with me thought it looked great, which is good enough for me. Patrick you can take my comments however you want, I didn't mean anything personal at all.

For all of you guys that want to see what a bad BD transfer looks like, check out Gangs of New York. One of the worst examples of HD Video I've seen, despite very high bitrates

Makes what Warner, New Line and Fox have taken crap over look like some of the best encoding and clean up work ever done. I'll take I Am Legend, Pan's, Golden Compass and Patton all day compared to this turd.

You know thats very disappointing to hear, i was expecting a perfect transfer coming from disney. Robert H say its not so good ether, i still would like to see Martin Liebman's review though.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

.....I haven't seen 10,000 B.C. but I expect it will have a very clean shiny look that the 32" 720p crowd want, just like IAL.

Since "I Am Legend" sold upwards of 300K in the U.S. I assume the 32"
720p crowd did their part in contributing to that sales figure. As did
at least one 5 star PQ rating from a Reviewer http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1336/iamlegend.html
and 4.5 PQ rating from Users https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=670

It looks like "a very clean shiny look" is what sells and pays some
people's salary. Don't look at me. I didn't buy IAL as I hate Will
Smith movies. I am the 144" Ronco 1080p crowd and loved the digital
camera used for "The Other Boleyn Girl."

Bring on the DNR. I vote with my dollars regardless if three people
on this forum out of a 32,000 membership voiced their displeasure.
Now that we don't have Toshiba to bad mouth any more it seems
as though DNR is the new flavor of the day.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

Bring on the DNR. I vote with my dollars regardless if three people
on this forum out of a 32,000 membership voiced their displeasure.
Now that we don't have Toshiba to bad mouth any more it seems
as though DNR is the new flavor of the day.

You realise that DNR a la Patton does not look like shooting with a Genesis or RED camera, do you? Genesis/RED does not look like plastic, just very clean and noise free (mostly).

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Fog and Mist has nothing to do with this atrocity. Whoever said this was okay to release on Blu should be fired. I'm not kidding.

Well, I think the guy actually likes his job, so that’s not good.

Tell me specifically either publicly or in a PM (whichever you prefer) exactly what the problem(s) are with the Blu-ray content, and if the review/observation is professionally and respectfully composed, I’ll be sure to pass your concerns on to the mouse.

[WickyWoo]

It looks like "a very clean shiny look" is what sells and pays some
people's salary. Don't look at me. I didn't buy IAL as I hate Will
Smith movies. I am the 144" Ronco 1080p crowd and loved the digital
camera used for "The Other Boleyn Girl.

See, you're jumping to conclusions there

Logic does not dictate that the "clean and shiny look" sells movies, only that the clean and shiny look does not, in this case cause a movie to sell poorly

People bought it because they liked the movie and/or Will Smith. Those are testable, repeatable factors that have proven themselves over time to drive video sales far more than any other factor by huge margins.

IAL is so unnaturally clean. The day sequences have fairly light DNR applied to them in comparison so a lot of the high frequency detail still remains. Look at the part where he's looking for the dog in the vamp filled building and it's only lit by a flashlight. That image is 98%+ grain free. Find me any camera/stock in the world with the best lighting team possible that can do that(and yes that includes digital, not even close). Now take a look at Will Smith and you'll see he's just a brown smear on the screen. Just go through the movie looking at the night stuff, and it'll jump right out at you hardcore how smooth and strange looking everything is.

[captveg]

But don't modern films often use DNR in post before theatrical release?

For example, isn't it possible that the night scenes for IAL were given heavy DNR when they did digital color timing?

Maybe not "DNR" specifically, but some kind of digital alterations to the original film elements, especially in scenes with digital visual effects.

Hope this all makes sense.

[WickyWoo]

For example, isn't it possible that the night scenes for IAL were given heavy DNR when they did digital color timing?

Maybe not "DNR" specifically, but some kind of digital alterations to the original film elements, especially in scenes with digital visual effects.

I'm sure it was used in places

There's a difference between what's done to even out grain and such, and what's done here. This is systematic removal of as much grain as possible from the image

Grain is often used to break up the unreality of CG. IAL has piles of CG that put their budget totally wonky (would have been done better with suits),and all those creature shots are grain free. The same thing happened with Golden compass, the DNR degrades the oscar-winner FX because it no longer has the protective coating to break up the "too shiny" veneer of CG.

[captveg]

That makes sense.

Didn't they shoot the creatures in IAL with people in suits and ended up not liking it, so they redid them digitally?

I swear I heard/read that somewhere.

[WickyWoo]

Didn't they shoot the creatures in IAL with people in suits and ended up not liking it, so they redid them digitally?

I swear I heard/read that somewhere.

I don't believe so. Friend of mine spent many many overtime hours trying to get that movie finished

I often wonder how awesome the Guillermo del Toro version would have been had he accepted