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

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Pretty sure during an event like that, photographers would be trying to photograph every second because you never know when something major is going to happen/

Oh, of course... doesn't mean they get the shot...

[sharkshark]

speaking of:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...to_a_clos.html

fabulous shots - love the one of Paul, naturally, but really love the one of the photogs setting up their remote cameras, the 'behind-the-scenes' nerdiness that brings me to this forum was in evidence every time I saw those behind the net, and that's absolutely a shot I'd want to include in this set.

Plus, there's another pretty amazing shot of the "kung fu" action.

Breathtaking shots, as always...

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

heh, these screencaps I know are OK.

Ah well, that's another very nice one, and it is even from the VistaVision production To Catch a Thief

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

It makes me a bit sad though that Criterion did not wait for the superior results of that 6k scan in order to put out a better product with their Blu-Ray release, but hopefully we will soon see another company rising to the occasion.

Very disappointing indeed, and that they said there was no "technical or artistic" reason to use the new restoration sounds almost absurd. Only problem is with both BFI and Criterion out, if someone else does release it there's the chance it won't be English-language friendly.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Did you catch “the kiss” at the end? I am a hopeless romantic …..

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/spai...ylist=11128107

Last evening, I found this Cliff Notes version ….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/...news/#38214060

[Eternal_Sunshine]

I have watched approx. 700 Blu-rays on a scope screen of 2,80 m width from a 1,5x seating distance.

Results:
90% = great looking disc, massive upgrade from DVD, HT nirvana
9,5% = quite nice, much better than DVD, absolutely watchable on the big screen
0,5% = crap (Patton, Gangs of New York, Gladiator; new, gorgeous GONY edition already released, new Gladiator edition apparently forthcoming)

net:
Blu-ray 1
nitpicking "enthusiasts" 0

This should end the silly discussion once and for all.
Thank you and good night.

[Mr. Cinema]

I researched this (using bluraystats.com) probably a month ago, so it's possible the figures are different, at least with Jason and the Argonauts being released.

Do you think these numbers will go up significantly within the next year?

Titles Before 1960:
Sony: 2. By Comparison, WB: 16

Titles During 1960s:
Sony: 3, By Comparison, WB: 15

Titles During 1970s:
Sony: 5, By Comparison, WB: 23

What exactly is the mindset at Sony regarding catalogs? Is it cost? Not enough sales? Not enough BD users?

I mean, WB is destroying everyone on classics. I'd like to see the rest of the studios step up their game. I promise, when Sony releases Lawrence, River Kwai, Taxi Driver, and many of their other classics, I WILL BUY THEM.

[Penton-Man]

Mr. Cinema -

1. I don’t believe that SPHE has as many marketable catalog titles as does WB, as I don't think their libraries are exactly comparable but, that’s a marketing question again.

2. It takes time to do it right for the projects which get green-lit and SPHE will not be rushed just to get it out quickly.

3 Catalog sales now are relatively *underachieving*, unless you’re talking something like Wizard of Oz, etc.

[iceman]

(Posted from mobile, please excuse spelling/formatting mistakes )

Thread cleaned and back again.

The latest issue seem to have begun with (surprise surprise) a DNR debate which derailed more and more over time, which eventually had to be locked down and cleaned. I decided to rollback quite a lot of the discussion because there were subtle remarks here and there and because of this some very good- and informative posts were unfortunately also cleaned. I really apologize for this, but I figured it was better with a clean reboot of the thread.

I'm personally not a film expert in any way and I'm neutral in the DNR/grain debate, but I have quite a lot of experience moderating the forums. I remember when 300 was released which was a very big title back then and the Blu-ray.com forums were flooded with a huge influx of members complaining about the picture because of the grain and drawing the incorrect/unrelated conclusion that Blu-ray sucks. We've also just recently had the controversy about the new release of Predator. There's been a lot of bashing of the new release (too much DNR) but the user reviews on this site actually rate the new video transfer higher than the previous release, despite all the negativity on the forums. The studios are sitting on the complete (sales, stats etc) info, but I'm guessing that the mainstream audience don't like grain, while most film buffs seem to want it intact. However, the studios, as companies, need to please the majority of people because of sales. Business wise the best transfer is the transfer which pleases the most people. Because of this my personal reflection is that bashing the studios might not be the solution, instead perhaps educating the consumers why the grain is there is the way to go. There's also the personal taste, some like grain, some don't.

Some years ago we also had a lot of people complaining about "black bars" and asking how to get rid of them. On this site we've done the best to educate people of why they are there and now there are much fewer asking about this.

Finally I would like to make a comment about general negativity. To my knowledge when DVD was launched people were very enthusiastic about it, while there have been a lot of complaining about Blu-ray. I think that a big part of that is an inheritage from the format war, but I'm asking everyone to please try to be a bit more enthusiastic, the vast majority of titles are very good and BD offers the viewers detail that we haven't been able to see or hear before, ultimately BD and movies are about having fun.

Thread re-opened and have fun!

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by iceman

(Posted from mobile, please excuse spelling/formatting mistakes )

Thread cleaned and back again.

The latest issue seem to have begun with (surprise surprise) a DNR debate which derailed more and more over time, which eventually had to be locked down and cleaned. I decided to rollback quite a lot of the discussion because there were subtle remarks here and there and because of this some very good- and informative posts were unfortunately also cleaned. I really apologize for this, but I figured it was better with a clean reboot of the thread.

I'm personally not a film expert in any way and I'm neutral in the DNR/grain debate, but I have quite a lot of experience moderating the forums. I remember when 300 was released which was a very big title back then and the Blu-ray.com forums were flooded with a huge influx of members complaining about the picture because of the grain and drawing the incorrect/unrelated conclusion that Blu-ray sucks. We've also just recently had the controversy about the new release of Predator. There's been a lot of bashing of the new release (too much DNR) but the user reviews on this site actually rate the new video transfer higher than the previous release, despite all the negativity on the forums. The studios are sitting on the complete (sales, stats etc) info, but I'm guessing that the mainstream audience don't like grain, while most film buffs seem to want it intact. However, the studios, as companies, need to please the majority of people because of sales. Business wise the best transfer is the transfer which pleases the most people. Because of this my personal reflection is that bashing the studios might not be the solution, instead perhaps educating the consumers why the grain is there is the way to go. There's also the personal taste, some like grain, some don't.

Some years ago we also had a lot of people complaining about "black bars" and asking how to get rid of them. On this site we've done the best to educate people of why they are there and now there are much fewer asking about this.

Finally I would like to make a comment about general negativity. To my knowledge when DVD was launched people were very enthusiastic about it, while there have been a lot of complaining about Blu-ray. I think that a big part of that is an inheritage from the format war, but I'm asking everyone to please try to be a bit more enthusiastic, the vast majority of titles are very good and BD offers the viewers detail that we haven't been able to see or hear before, ultimately BD and movies are about having fun.

Thread re-opened and have fun!

Penton's presence here is a pleasure and we are glad that he is here to share his thoughts about things!

I feel that Bill and Jeff, do their best to provide the consumer/enthusiast point of view and their voice represents one of the best ways to get feedback to the studio.

I feel that Penton does a fantastic job providing the business practical side of the view and he did a good job at making us aware that what the enthusiasts want is not always want J6P wants and there has to be a happy medium when studio budget/sales are concerned.

But I think Iceman hit the nail on the coffin that educating consumers is the best thing we can do. The black bars argument proves that it CAN be done. Grain/DNR argument might be a tougher sale, but if we can the convince the masses that is the best way to experience the films, then the studios will listen.

[Doctorossi]

Wai... wh-huh?! Where am I?

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Wai... wh-huh?! Where am I?

You're back in Kansas and the last few days were just a bad dream.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by JamesN

You're back in Kansas and the last few days were just a bad dream.

"... and you were there, Penton. And you, too, Mr. Harris!"

"There's no page like home. There's no page like home. There's no page like home."

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Penton's presence here is a pleasure and we are glad that he is here to share his thoughts about things!...

Well, this post, from another thread, will have to do you for awhile (I previously had promised OliverK this info anyway)…….
https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mo...ml#post3496726

Oliver, I’ll add this addendum to the Predator linked post above regarding the film stocks, with an s. As I think much has been said online seemingly ‘authoritatively’ about the Director’s intent and the use of the film “stock” to make Predator intentionally look gritty or grainy. Well, that’s pretty much inaccurate speculation according to someone I recently spoke with intimately involved in the production.

The DP chose the Eastman Kodak stocks he did for the simple fact of capturing “usable” images on film under relatively low lighting conditions in the jungle…’grit’ or ‘intentional’ graininess was never intended in any artistic sense for ‘atmosphere’. If anything, it was an undesirable side effect of the acquisition because it caused “murkiness” esp. in the greys and blacks of dark jungle sequences and didn’t allow the filmmakers the opportunity to cut the different stocks together in the same scene, which would have been nice to have had that flexibility. To give you an idea of the challenge, they were apparently restricted to shooting at a max. of only T2 in anything but high noon and the middle of the day.

Don McAlpine shot the film with 35mm Kodak 5247 and 5294, depending on the lighting conditions available, with or without the aid of artificial light illumination. The ’94 (400T) was used for really low lit conditions (like those night sequences in the ravine at the end which apparently were only getting 7 or 8 footcandles down there, with only 4 or 5 footcandles after the smoke starting flowing during the action) and the ’47 (125T) stock was used for the set-ups involving wide clearances which had more natural light and as well, could be more easily illuminated with artificial light, when justified. You see, once you add artificial light in the deep jungle, all it accomplishes is lighting the foreground to such an excessive degree that it looks obvious and fake to audiences. Lighting considerations were where the real photographic ‘artistry”, if you will, of the captured imagery took place, not in any consideration of grain being used for a ‘gritty’ look.

Well, that’s more specific background on the original production, which by the way, was shot in two stages, the first in the spring of 1986 and the second in the late winter of 1987. Most of the actors had been killed off by the end of the first shoot so the second on-location shoot consisted primarily of capturing the climactic mano-o-mano between “Dutch” and the Predator and some additional pick-up shots involving scenes already captured from the first shoot….in order to develop and expand. Merrick, the heck if I’m getting involved in the discussion of the Blu-ray 1st version vs. 2nd version debate, as I’ll leave that up to other more energetic folk.

To give you an idea of other productions which have employed Kodak ’47 as the camera negative of choice, think Alien and the exteriors of Gremlins. Alien, of which, Ridley S. himself operated the principal camera (also doing much of the hand-held work since he was no physical slouch and quite the fit one ) whereas the DP of record, operated the second camera ……ah, a story for yet another day, like for instance, much of the Alien crew getting dizzy due to the random, out-of-sync strobe effect employed during the alien sequence in the escape craft.

Anyway, I guess I should end with a tie-in to film grain, as I know how much some of you folks enjoy talking, reading and thinking about grain, esp. given the challenging low-lit conditions of the aforementioned three films above. Well, if film stocks are underexposed, one is only exposing the biggest of the grains, while the rest are unexposed and washed away during the photochemical processing in the optical workflow at the lab, thusly leaving only the bigger ones which are much more apparent to audiences. Whenever there is a Blu-ray movie forthcoming of a low-lit motion picture, esp. one using Kodak color negative like 5247 before the high-speed Kodak color negative stock became available, I’m always hopeful , despite the temptation, that it will not be DNRed. But, as my momma always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get, unless it’s your momma handing out the box."

Momma said.

[Joseph Goodman]

With regards to the potentially "waxy" look of heavily noise-processed film-sourced images, could a more natural appearing noise-reduced image be produced by doing the intial noise reduction at a highly over-sampled image size? My reasoning behind asking this is that the knock against scanning resolutions over 4k-equivalent pixel density (beyond the huge file sizes & expense) is that at those resolutions (6k, 8k, etc.), you aren't really resolving any extra recorded detail from the film, you're simply getting a clearer picture of the gaps between the grain... in other words, noise. It seems to me that if the goal is to remove noise, wouldn't better results (i.e. not filtering out actual detail along with the noise) be achieved with more a more clearly resolved "noise" structure?

[blueshadow | Kosty]

Welcome back all.

[sharkshark]

ah. Welcome back.

Excellent timing:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201..._-_part_i.html

[frank_t]

Originally Posted by blueshadow

Welcome back all.

yep. all is right with the [blu ray] world again.

glad both guys are back and posting. weird to feel a connection with people i've never met and will probably never meet. guess the internet serves a purpose of some kind after all.

--

cheers! and please keep posting all that technical garb. really do enjoy it !

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, this post, from another thread, will have to do you for awhile (I previously had promised OliverK this info anyway)…….
https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mo...ml#post3496726

Oliver, I’ll add this addendum to the Predator linked post above regarding the film stocks, with an s. As I think much has been said online seemingly ‘authoritatively’ about the Director’s intent and the use of the film “stock” to make Predator intentionally look gritty or grainy. Well, that’s pretty much inaccurate speculation according to someone I recently spoke with intimately involved in the production.

The DP chose the Eastman Kodak stocks he did for the simple fact of capturing “usable” images on film under relatively low lighting conditions in the jungle…’grit’ or ‘intentional’ graininess was never intended in any artistic sense for ‘atmosphere’. If anything, it was an undesirable side effect of the acquisition because it caused “murkiness” esp. in the greys and blacks of dark jungle sequences and didn’t allow the filmmakers the opportunity to cut the different stocks together in the same scene, which would have been nice to have had that flexibility. To give you an idea of the challenge, they were apparently restricted to shooting at a max. of only T2 in anything but high noon and the middle of the day.

Don McAlpine shot the film with 35mm Kodak 5247 and 5294, depending on the lighting conditions available, with or without the aid of artificial light illumination. The ’94 (400T) was used for really low lit conditions (like those night sequences in the ravine at the end which apparently were only getting 7 or 8 footcandles down there, with only 4 or 5 footcandles after the smoke starting flowing during the action) and the ’47 (125T) stock was used for the set-ups involving wide clearances which had more natural light and as well, could be more easily illuminated with artificial light, when justified. You see, once you add artificial light in the deep jungle, all it accomplishes is lighting the foreground to such an excessive degree that it looks obvious and fake to audiences. Lighting considerations were where the real photographic ‘artistry”, if you will, of the captured imagery took place, not in any consideration of grain being used for a ‘gritty’ look.

Well, that’s more specific background on the original production, which by the way, was shot in two stages, the first in the spring of 1986 and the second in the late winter of 1987. Most of the actors had been killed off by the end of the first shoot so the second on-location shoot consisted primarily of capturing the climactic mano-o-mano between “Dutch” and the Predator and some additional pick-up shots involving scenes already captured from the first shoot….in order to develop and expand. Merrick, the heck if I’m getting involved in the discussion of the Blu-ray 1st version vs. 2nd version debate, as I’ll leave that up to other more energetic folk.

To give you an idea of other productions which have employed Kodak ’47 as the camera negative of choice, think Alien and the exteriors of Gremlins. Alien, of which, Ridley S. himself operated the principal camera (also doing much of the hand-held work since he was no physical slouch and quite the fit one ) whereas the DP of record, operated the second camera ……ah, a story for yet another day, like for instance, much of the Alien crew getting dizzy due to the random, out-of-sync strobe effect employed during the alien sequence in the escape craft.

Anyway, I guess I should end with a tie-in to film grain, as I know how much some of you folks enjoy talking, reading and thinking about grain, esp. given the challenging low-lit conditions of the aforementioned three films above. Well, if film stocks are underexposed, one is only exposing the biggest of the grains, while the rest are unexposed and washed away during the photochemical processing in the optical workflow at the lab, thusly leaving only the bigger ones which are much more apparent to audiences. Whenever there is a Blu-ray movie forthcoming of a low-lit motion picture, esp. one using Kodak color negative like 5247 before the high-speed Kodak color negative stock became available, I’m always hopeful , despite the temptation, that it will not be DNRed. But, as my momma always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get, unless it’s your momma handing out the box."

Momma said.

Welcome Back!

And thanks, that is very interesting. It also goes to show that many things might not be intended by the director but nonetheless they finally make the film what it is - Predator with less grain and in scope would have been a different movie and maybe the director would even have liked some different actors for some roles - so where do we draw a line?

Therefore I think it is best to strive for the look that comes reasonably close to a good premiere print that the director would have approved within the limits of the production at the time. This would prevent varying amounts of revisionism later on (think about the new aspect ratio of Apocalypse Now and the stuff that Lucas changed for the Star Wars movies, or the completely different looking version of The French Connection).

In the case of Predator I think that we at least have a version that rather accurately reflects the movie like it was (the first version) so I am still happy with that one. With some other movies we are not (yet) that lucky. Can't win them all I guess but it is worth trying

[sharkshark]

Ok, everybody's still gun shy, I get it...

Still, this is some nerdy fun - 3D -and- WorldCup related (hey, maybe even BD related if you squint hard enough):

http://hd.engadget.com/2010/07/17/ja...-world-cup-20/

Oh, and let's have a little applause for Ciriterion to those philiacs for classic cinema that congregate here - Seven Samurai isn't much of a surprise, but still welcome news. But it's Paths of Glory on BD that I, frankly, never thought I'd get to see.

Hell, maybe the insane proposition of the likes of Lolita and Lyndon (!!!!) on BD just must make it out in my lifetime...