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

[Elvis Is Alive]

Honest question here:

Why is the theatrical presentation considered the "gold standard" to which every Blu-ray should be compared? What percentage of theaters are equipped with properly calibrated projectors and competent projectionists to show the full potential of the directors intent?

Almost all theaters in my area are subpar - terrible constrast levels, out of focus, etc. So much so that I rarely see any films theatrically. I find the visuals on my ISF'ed displays significantly better than what I my local cinema provides.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Elvis Is Alive

Honest question here:

Why is the theatrical presentation considered the "gold standard" to which every Blu-ray should be compared? What percentage of theaters are equipped with properly calibrated projectors and competent projectionists to show the full potential of the directors intent?

Almost all theaters in my area are subpar - terrible constrast levels, out of focus, etc. So much so that I rarely see any films theatrically. I find the visuals on my ISF'ed displays significantly better than what I my local cinema provides.

GREAT QUESTION. I find this ironic because many people are saying they want Aliens to look like how it did in the theater and I wonder how many people actually considered what you mention. Not to mention the fact that its been 24 years since the film was in theaters and somehow they remember the look!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Josh

I think what scares most folks is that you have directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg who will mutilate their previous films just because they have a different idea of what the film could have been. I'm not going to dispute the fact that a director can change their film in whatever way they see best, but can and should are two completely different arguements. The people who are fearful of Cameron's talk are the same people who will argue all day about whether a director should modify a completed work.

Well, given the atmosphere and debate devoted to other Blu-ray titles in the past, I think some folks are also genuinely concerned that the act of removing film grain will inevitably remove some detail because they don’t believe the marketing spiel from any vendor…..and I think that past titles are a testament to that fact, no matter which company’s tools were used – DaVinci, Lowry, Arri, etc. The real question for those folks is whether or not the trade-off will be ultimately worthwhile in their viewing experience.

But the faithfulness to original theatrical presentation debate will probably continue for as long as the film camera vs. digital camera debate has occurred on professional forums, that is, for years, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, as long as it is conducted in a healthy, adult fashion. The problem these days is that due to internal politics and affiliations, some debate on some titles and some cinematic principles is being discouraged or outright censored for personal selfish agendas.

P.S.
My sis tells me that you folks in the Northern Va. locale are having a helluva a hot and humid summer!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Quick version:
I got my B.S in Biology in 2005 and I entered into the Ph.D program in Biochemistry that same fall, but wasnt ever able to get my project off the ground and finally decided to cut my losses and take a Masters Degree at the end of 2008. I got a full ride through graduate school so I didn't lose any money. I had no publications.
I spent all of 2009 working as a research assistant in animal science working with pigs and sheep. I kind of enjoyed it, but I felt that if I was going to do research I should at least get a degree out of it.
So at the beginning of this year I decided to enter the Nutrition/Food Science field (a field dominated by women I might add) and try and get a doctorate at this time and here I am now.

Wow, they allowed you to get an M.S. without even co-authoring any paper at all? Dude, you just about got away with murder.

I still don’t exactly understand though, are you still officially enrolled as a grad student in the Dept. of Biochem at Texas A&M or some other dept. they have there for the ‘Nutrition/Food Science field’?

Re. - the research you did in animal science working with pigs and sheep….was that on a gross or microscopic anatomical level?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Elvis Is Alive

Honest question here:

Why is the theatrical presentation considered the "gold standard" to which every Blu-ray should be compared?....

lol, well it won’t be for long, if things like this continue to spread to other cities in the country….run the clip-
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/loca...r-20100817-akd

Seriously, I’ll let OliverK or one of the other members answer your question.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Wow, they allowed you to get an M.S. without even co-authoring any paper at all? Dude, you just about got away with murder.

Yeah, it was a non-thesis Masters.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I still don’t exactly understand though, are you still officially enrolled as a grad student in the Dept. of Biochem at Texas A&M or some other dept. they have there for the ‘Nutrition/Food Science field’?

Re. - the research you did in animal science working with pigs and sheep….was that on a gross or microscopic anatomical level?

No, I am not in the Department of Biochemistry anymore as a grad student. I am now in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science.

Completely different department.

In Animal Science, the main thing I did was analyze amino acids, assist in sheep hormone injections and assist in pig hysterectomys!

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I missed Andrew O.’s presentation on 65mm restoration with those split-screen 70mm prints vs. 4k counterpart images.

The blasphemy! Now I will have to get my hand on some kind of paper he prepared for his presentation

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Elvis Is Alive

Honest question here:

Why is the theatrical presentation considered the "gold standard" to which every Blu-ray should be compared? What percentage of theaters are equipped with properly calibrated projectors and competent projectionists to show the full potential of the directors intent?

Almost all theaters in my area are subpar - terrible constrast levels, out of focus, etc. So much so that I rarely see any films theatrically. I find the visuals on my ISF'ed displays significantly better than what I my local cinema provides.

Of course the "gold standard" would be a reference cinema installation that would screen something like a director approved answer print.

An ideal scenario for sure but the idea is to reproduce the movie as close as possible to what it would have looked like in such a scenario.

This obviously precludes directors changing their opinions about the movie later on or not liking some of the special effects in their movies. Embrace the movie with all the limitations of the movie making process back in the day or at least come reasonably close to it.

That would mean no excessive grain reduction, no new color palette, no modified special effects and no ridiculous 5.1 soundtrack as a replacement for an original mono track.

[Elvis Is Alive]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Of course the "gold standard" would be a reference cinema installation that would screen something like a director approved answer print.

An ideal scenario for sure but the idea is to reproduce the movie as close as possible to what it would have looked like in such a scenario.

This obviously precludes directors changing their opinions about the movie later on or not liking some of the special effects in their movies. Embrace the movie with all the limitations of the movie making process back in the day or at least come reasonably close to it.

That would mean no excessive grain reduction, no new color palette, no modified special effects and no ridiculous 5.1 soundtrack as a replacement for an original mono track.

Fair enough. I don't quite understand why people get in an uproar trying to compare different encodes, broadcasts, storage medium, etc. of a particular motion picture when they do not have accesss to source material viewed on a reference display. It seems to be too many variables in play to make definitive judgements in most cases.

I have more important things things to worry about in my life than EE, DNR, halos, etc. I just buy movies that I want to watch. Sorry for the rant.

[Vincent Pereira]

I should dig up that issue of THE PERFECT VISION, it's a really interesting interview with Cameron and he goes into some depth as to why he was so into shooting Super-35. Basically, it came down to him liking a 'Scope shaped image, but disliking panning-and-scanning and also anamorphic lenses. He liked that he could recompose the images for 4:3 home viewing without the really awful panning-and-scanning of true anamorphic, and his experience doing model work on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK turned him off on shooting with anamorphic lenses due to the distortion, focusing issues, and the fact that they required more light due to the extra glass.

I believe GREYSTOKE was actually the first "modern" Super-35 film, John Alcott having taken it upon himself to reintroduce the format.

Vincent

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

It's interesting that in the Summer of 1986 when Aliens was released, Top Gun was also released -featuring Super 35 sourced 2.35:1 imagery and some 70mm 6-track Dolby mag blow-up prints. Not many Super 35 releases preceded it. Silverado and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes are two mid-1980s "Super Techniscope" movies that come to mind.

The Abyss demonstrated what appeared to me as a pretty noticeable improvement in Super 35 image quality. Film stocks, camera/lens systems and knowledge of using Super 35 had significantly improved. I don't know the details in how the 35mm and 70mm release prints were produced, but the show looked significantly better in 70mm.

The home video rental industry was in the early stages of its boom when Aliens was released. The 1.85:1 format had a sort of tyranny in place in the late 1980s. Between 1985 and 1990 quite a few movies with 70mm Dolby mag prints were released in 1.85:1. Anamorphic 'scope photography wasn't as common as it was in the 1970s. And even when it was used steps were often taken to make the imagery more pan and scan friendly. I have often suspected James Cameron just doesn't like the obvious look anamorphic lenses will apply to a movie image. Even if he would have considered filming Aliens with an anamorphic system there's a chance he would have got some pressure from studio executives to make a more home video friendly choice.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Quick version:

So at the beginning of this year I decided to enter the Nutrition/Food Science field (a field dominated by women I might add) and try and get a doctorate at this time and here I am now.

Quick version: Merrick is looking for chicks.

I've had a lot of down time as of late which is why my post count is up from usual.

Quick version, the chicks aren't interested in Merrick.

Merrick...you know I'm only joking

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Yeah, it was a non-thesis Masters.


No, I am not in the Department of Biochemistry anymore as a grad student. I am now in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science.

Completely different department.

In Animal Science, the main thing I did was analyze amino acids, assist in sheep hormone injections and assist in pig hysterectomys!

Sure you weren't doing this?

[MerrickG]

Denon,

If you keep this up Im gonna tell everyone your real name.

ANother reason for going back to school is because the jobs market still isnt great right now.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Denon,

If you keep this up Im gonna tell everyone your real name.

ANother reason for going back to school is because the jobs market still isnt great right now.

Hey...I have no problem with you going to school to get an "education" and to learn some job skills

I agree with the job market. I'm a hiring manager and whenever I run into kids graduating from college, I tell them to go and get a masters degree because the job market stinks.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Gotcha.

But no, it’s not quite the same with Munchausen and the wire removal thing. I don’t think that you understand. The wires were less apparent on the theatrical release prints than they would have been on the Blu-ray incarnation (if nothing had been done to rectify the situation) because digitally scanning an earlier generation film source and transferring to Blu-ray can bring out some things more (or make them more apparent) than what audiences saw with the typical release print.

No, I understood, if I expressed it badly. I'm saying that Cameron's comments may be equivalent - if he really didn't want grain at the time, but it was a "mistake" to be corrected (like, say, matte lines that were never clean, or wires that should have been buried), then this de-noising isn't just the whim of a director rethinking his work, but a correction of a wrong.

But, yeah, was teasing about you agreeing.

Meanwhile, speaking of James C, I dove THIS this evening... Visibility was crappo, but it was a gorgeous day, few waves, and the water temp a balmy 67 degrees.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by merrick97

GREAT QUESTION. I find this ironic because many people are saying they want Aliens to look like how it did in the theater and I wonder how many people actually considered what you mention. Not to mention the fact that its been 24 years since the film was in theaters and somehow they remember the look!

I think most want what's on the neg. The issue, however, is that what's on the neg inevitably has to be futzed with, be it timing, scanning procedures, post production, etc. There's no binary, in-and-out process from "insert film stock here" to magic BD production. Along the way, that's where things get funky, as decision after decision gets made.

Of course, you know this, I'm just saying it out loud

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

The truly comical thing that I find about the whole situation is that the fanboys of each particular movie (whenever this sort of issue comes up) rally their forces en masse and defend the Blu-ray product as if they’re getting a percentage of the sale on each disc.

yeah, for a while I thought a bunch of people were getting royalties on the patents for either of the formats. Its all... comical.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

That would mean no excessive grain reduction, no new color palette, no modified special effects and no ridiculous 5.1 soundtrack as a replacement for an original mono track.

...or, even better rule of thumb that takes into account director's authority over their own work balanced with the (debatably existing) rights of the audience to have access to the original version of the film, do a fancy version every 10 years, if you like, as long as the version originally played theatrically is preserved.

[Bobby Henderson]

Most people want the "authentic version that played in theaters."

I've discussed some points on this recently. How the movie looked in theaters is a very faulty barometer on how a movie should be prepared for release on Blu-ray. As others have pointed out many theaters, even ones equipped with digital projection and digital 3D, can goof up presentation quality. One's impression of how a certain movie looked in theaters may be a very flawed impression. That makes the comparison of how the movie looked on screen quite invalid.

The original camera negative (or digital video camera data files) aren't valid as examples of the final finished product. They haven't gone through the color timing and/or digital intermediate stage yet. The original negatives or video files are by far the best source image for harvesting a master for Blu-ray release. But those elements represent only the very beginning of the post production process. They haven't been creatively altered yet. The film elements haven't been dirtied up, bleach bypassed, etc. The video files from electronic cameras haven't been gamma squeezed to get rid of the 6 o'clock news/soap opera look.

The definitive thing that serves as the "gold standard" for how a movie should look on Blu-ray is the very first element that is produced at the very point when a movie is finished in post production. Newer movies are easy in that the finished digital intermediate is the real master. Older movies need the original camera negative or 2nd gen interpositives/internegatives as well as the finished color timed print.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, given the atmosphere and debate devoted to other Blu-ray titles in the past, I think some folks are also genuinely concerned that the act of removing film grain will inevitably remove some detail because they don’t believe the marketing spiel from any vendor…..and I think that past titles are a testament to that fact, no matter which company’s tools were used – DaVinci, Lowry, Arri, etc. The real question for those folks is whether or not the trade-off will be ultimately worthwhile in their viewing experience.

And there are also folks who think that grain was there when the movie was made so it should stay in the picture - even if it could be removed without removing some OTHER detail with it (I also do consider grain part of the detail in an image).