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

[Dennis M]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Yeah, well, when my favourite-ist cinema ever was being demolished (home to TIFF/Midnight Madness screenings for years, where I saw dozens of premieres, from Crouching Tiger to Ichi The Killer), it actually went and killed somebody:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americ...pse/index.html

Ah, the mighty Uptown. I was the last person to leave the last screening, and still even have the armrest from the seat (front row, feet up on the stage) that I called my own. I've got all this footage of people, from Atom Egoyan to Adam Sandler, talking about their love for the place, that one day, when I'm not this lazy idiot procrastinating all day on the internet, I'll do something with.

Miss the good old Uptown.

The multiplexes of today don't even come close to that movie going experience.

[sharkshark]

Hey, you.

Meanwhile, only because it's, well, my name, everybody should waste time doing this!

http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/shark-yourself/

[Penton-Man]

http://www.amianet.org/events/theree...10/program.htm
^
Major Evening Event Screenings are as follows –

Thurs. Night – 4k projection of Doctor Zhivago.

Friday Night - new digital restoration of Fantasia (1940)

Saturday Night – You’ll have to come and see for yourself which new digitally restored classic will be previewed.

P.S.
This event does not sell T-shirts.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Pick me, pick me!!!

I hear positions are extremely competitive. It might help if you had a noble outside interest which distinguished you from the rest of the pack. Do you like to ride and donate/fundraise to important causes?

If so, meet the Creative Software folks at the roll-out on Saturday, as they'll be there, as well as a Sony employee from Culver City.

The ride ends in Madison.
http://bikewig.nationalmssociety.org...E_WIG_homepage

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

It (the book the film is based on) was a work of fiction.

I wouldn’t know. I do know that if you Google “Dirty Leeds players” you get a plethora of articles dating back to something like 1964.

Seems the club has a long *tradition*.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Wow - talk about throwing away 95% of the grain structure!

It is also quite interesting to see just how much grain is visible and with how high a resolution (3k) this is scanned. I wonder if this is really the native resolution of the scanner for this format or the technique that works with an offset to create a higher resolved scan.

3k is the native optical resolution. 6k is achieved by offsetting the sensor by a half-pixel in four directions.

One nice attribute of that scanner mentioned in the demo is that vis-à-vis its double exposing feature, it provides superb color accuracy.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I hear positions are extremely competitive. It might help if you had a noble outside interest which distinguished you from the rest of the pack. Do you like to ride and donate/fundraise to important causes?

If so, meet the Creative Software folks at the roll-out on Saturday, as they'll be there, as well as a Sony employee from Culver City.

The ride ends in Madison.
http://bikewig.nationalmssociety.org...E_WIG_homepage

Probably wouldn't help that I'm 6000 miles away either
Nice touch with the sponsored cycle by the way

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I wouldn’t know. I do know that if you Google “Dirty Leeds players” you get a plethora of articles dating back to something like 1964.

Seems the club has a long *tradition*.

[PaulGo]

Sometime it's not the film content that causes problems but the display:


http://www.hdguru3d.com/index.php?op...news&Itemid=59

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

3k is the native optical resolution. 6k is achieved by offsetting the sensor by a half-pixel in four directions.

Interesting technology, so the ArriScan 6k has a 3k optical resolution.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

3k is
One nice attribute of that scanner mentioned in the demo is that vis-à-vis its double exposing feature, it provides superb color accuracy.

Yes, that is also very important and should not be forgotten with all the talk about resolution.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Saturday Night – You’ll have to come and see for yourself which new digitally restored classic will be previewed.

Well, I have a feeling that it will quite wide and also quite old and it will be in 4k, too

I would also like to hear from you about how Zhiwago looks if you can attend that screening - it is looking rather soft and mushy at times on the Blu-Ray and I wonder if the 4k version is any different in that regard.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

P.S.
This event does not sell T-shirts.

Well in that case I won't attend

[johndoyle123]

quick question

why is amazon still carrying taxi driver pre-orders i thought it was settled it was not coming out since march

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Interesting technology, so the ArriScan 6k has a 3k optical resolution.

Yes, that is also very important and should not be forgotten with all the talk about resolution.

If you can count the number of legs on a fly in the image or, the number of nose hairs that an actor has, etc., then who cares much about colors/contrast? And nobody bug me about ‘Leon’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Ghostbusters’, etc. because the making of all those Blu-ray movies was either approved or personally supervised by the Director and/or the Director of Photography. Ergo, they are all officially kosher….I’m invoking the Gladiator Color Grading Acceptance Rule…..retroactively.

As an aside, this preferential value bias for resolution over color accuracy is not exclusive to some home theater videophiles.

Also, in the film-making business, in contradistinction to colorists and some DP’s, I think the most important thing the vfx guys care about is extracting the cleanest mattes, so I believe, to a man (or woman), they would prefer material be sent to them at the highest optical resolution practical (lol, as long as they’re being paid by the hour/session and not by the project, per se) which would place the Northlight as the pie in their eyes…rather than the Arri scanner.

Scanner color accuracy and native optical resolution aside, I did get a kick out of this guy’s frustrated rant from several months ago which someone e-mailed me because the author seems so upset with digital colorists over what he sees as a disturbing new trend which he refers to as an “infection” involving original color grading choices made in the DI suite -

http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/20...ease-stop.html

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Well, I have a feeling that it will quite wide and also quite old and it will be in 4k, too

If you’re thinking about the one with that bridge on the river in South-East Asia being the Sat. evening screening ……

Nope.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Well in that case I won't attend

These won’t be passed out either in gift baskets to watch movies at home-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MythJLg8IGU

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Probably wouldn't help that I'm 6000 miles away either

http://www.digitalspy.com/digitaltv/...-fixtures.html

^ Big match coming up this Sunday.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by johndoyle123

quick question

why is amazon still carrying taxi driver pre-orders i thought it was settled it was not coming out since march

For those unaware, on a historical note, despite the fact that the title was never announced, Amazon (and/or at least one other retailer) decided to start listing preorders for ‘Taxi Driver’ since something like back in ’08 or Jan ’09.

As to why they haven’t pulled the pre-order page?......well, best to ask Amazon but, technically it is not inaccurate as no street date is listed on the pre-order placeholder and you can be pretty much rest assured that eventually the title will make its appearance on Blu-ray. Unless there were to be a formal announcement of a release date for the theatrical version of a possible sequel, there is no big rush in getting it out by a certain time. Be patient, as it will come in due course.

[Penton-Man]

And speaking of films directed by Marty S. - regarding Shutter Island does anyone now know why –

Teddy has a band aid (with evidence of an underlying scab/healing wound) on his forehead from the get-go and throughout much of the motion picture?

Please use a spoiler if you choose to answer.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

And speaking of films directed by Marty S. - regarding Shutter Island does anyone now know why –

Teddy has a band aid (with evidence of an underlying scab/healing wound) on his forehead from the get-go and throughout much of the motion picture?

Please use a spoiler if you choose to answer.

Uh, isn't that discussed in the film? It's been a while since I saw it (theatrically), but IIRC:

[Show spoiler]
They talk about Leo getting into a fight when he got called "Laeddis" by Noyce

Or does this have something to do with grading?

[Ralph P.]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

lol, as I had to check your handle because at first I thought I was reading yet another advertisement/endorsement for AVS by Todd Smith on the LOTR thread, at the same time giving a tip of the hat to Ken Brown to make it kosher to the management here. Somebody track Todd’s past posts and tell me how many of them he gives a link to, or a tip of the hat to *science*. Hey Todd, if you like it so much….then stay there!

Cinema Squid, I realize what you are saying, for instance, I’m even aware that Ralph has a law enforcement background, unless I’m confusing reviewers. I don’t think you understood what I meant by “their ‘official reviewers’ by proxy”. Please, with no disrespect to Ralph, who seems like a very nice guy but, in reality, with regards to widespread readership by regular members there, as well as visitors passing by –

*screenshot scientists* are to AVS what Vladimir Putin is to Russia
whereas,
poor Ralph is to AVS what Dmitry Medvedev is to Russia...in terms of real influence and power

….or at least was, as of a couple years ago, as I haven’t kept up with world politics as much as I would have liked to.

And I don’t appreciate your comment regarding Ken, as I feel it indirectly belittles by exclusion all of Blu-ray.com’s other fine reviewers, not to mention fellow members like Kris Deering, Dave Vaughn, Bill Hunt, etc. who also do fine “official” Blu-ray reviews and read this thread.

With all due respect to Ken who also seems like a nice fellow, I would not rate him significantly higher in terms of his reviewer skills than any of our other Blu-ray.com reviewers, although some would like to think so. I believe they are all on relatively the same plane working with the same tools to do their reviews. They don’t have access to real source evidence and they make judgments the best they can, which when you get down to the nitty-gritty and remove all the canned fluff are ultimately guesses or presumptions regarding the more complicated or esoteric stuff…..sometimes they’re correct, sometimes they’re way off base. None have worked in the filmmaking business (that I know of). None are familiar, to the best of my knowledge, with the production of HD masters other than on a very superficial basis, none have compressed/authored even one Blu-ray feature film, etc. All of which strongly factor into the ultimate appearance of Blu-ray movies and why viewers are seeing what they're seeing in their home theaters. This first-hand experience is invaluable….just ask 2themax, if he ever gives up his day job and becomes a Blu-ray reviewer.

Their true value is that they generally have seen a lot more Blu-ray product than the typical member, which gives them valuable experience, they can sure as heck write better than the typical member and they are as objective as possible while at the same time publically putting their butts on the line with their work. They’re all guys who are often more maligned rather than praised and they are to be commended for doing a pretty thankless job. But, at the end of the day, they are all playing on pretty much the same field, including Raph and Ken. I think their individual strengths and weaknesses pretty much balance out at the end when a mainstream member reads one of their reviews and then goes ahead and decides to rent or buy based upon that review.

Personally, I found it appalling that Ken wouldn’t be motivated to investigate the principal photography of The DaVinci Code (which was readily available on the web) and had a direct effect on the ‘look’ of the Blu-ray product….something I think other reviewers would have done as a matter of basic protocol. Likewise, I think it’s appalling that a reviewer which you seem to respect so much (Ralph) didn’t even know what the term ‘sepia tone’ meant up until a couple years ago……something which I think Ken and other reviewers would readily know and appreciate the significance of in their past experience with reviewing many DVDs and/or Blu-rays. So, no, I don’t think Raph and Ken are ‘playing at a higher level’ than others, as noted above, who are all good and bring something slightly different to the table.

Short of finding a part-time Blu-ray reviewer that handles film on a daily basis (RAH) or knows the inherent deficiencies of certain vendors software and how they translate into the appearance of your Blu-ray imagery (Torsten Kaiser) or somebody who works day in and day out with something like a Thomson VDC in the SMPTE Rec 709 color space, you want to give accolades to some ‘alpha dog’ Blu-ray reviewer? You find me the guy who gives the FIRST real-time Blu-ray review of a Blu-ray movie before any other real-time reviews or *screenshot* comparisons are posted on the web, and he consistently gets it ‘right’ the vast majority of the time…there is your alpha dog.

Greetings,

Great post Penton-man. I can appreciate your well thought out reponse and find your candor refreshing. I also agree with your comments regarding the other writers mentioned.

Best regards,

[sharkshark]

woah... wasn't that a post from April?!

Fancy...