L’Inferno New 4K restoration and Blu-ray Indigogo Campaign (Redwood Creek Films)

[Xephix]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/l...on-and-blu-ray

The Italian masterpiece restored for the first time in 4K

L'Inferno is a 1911 Italian silent film, loosely adapted from Inferno, the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. L'Inferno took over three years to make, and was the first full-length Italian feature film.

World’s oldest surviving feature-length film restored for the first time in 4K. Digitized from 35mm sources, this rare version of L’Inferno has a peculiarity : it’s red. Red tints were used at the beginning of the 20th century as an anti-copy system. Red colors were more difficult to shoot and couldn’t be printed on film. This never-seen-before version was a copy of the international English version used across the world after the release of the movie in 1911. Therefore, the period intertitles are in English.

The reels have been digitized using a 4K scanner and a huge work of stabilization and restoration now begins. Be part of cinema history and help us save silent classics. Preorder the limited blu-ray and become a patron.

[thuata]

I got the "Dante" perk, but I don't know what to think, I see that Redwood Creek also did the restoration work for the Häxan esoteric cut and I wasn't too impressed by it.
But I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best results possible

[UnionJackMix]

I dislike these types of claims "World’s oldest surviving feature-length film". Is it even true?
Anyway, is there a trailer or just those stills?

[thuata]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I dislike these types of claims "World’s oldest surviving feature-length film". Is it even true?
Anyway, is there a trailer or just those stills?

A trailer for what, a restoration that isn't done yet ?
It wouldn't really surprise me if the affirmation that L'inferno is the oldest surviving feature lenght film turned out to be outdated or plain wrong, but 'feature lenght" is kind of an arbitrary category anyway

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I dislike these types of claims "World’s oldest surviving feature-length film". Is it even true?
Anyway, is there a trailer or just those stills?

The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) only partially survives with the restoration relying on stills and not at its full length.

[Vanguard]

Seems like it will be a restoration of the export version, and not the domestic Italian version, which has different colored tinting throughout the film.

High hopes for this, as it is an important film that deserves the best.

[UnionJackMix]

Originally Posted by thuata

A trailer for what, a restoration that isn't done yet ?
It wouldn't really surprise me if the affirmation that L'inferno is the oldest surviving feature lenght film turned out to be outdated or plain wrong, but 'feature lenght" is kind of an arbitrary category anyway

No, a trailer for the movie itself, restored or not, or a clip.

[Vanguard]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

No, a trailer for the movie itself, restored or not, or a clip.

Their Indiegogo page has a trailer, basically promoting the campaign. Does include footage of the film. Just click the large picture directly to the left of the green campaign goal line.

[thuata]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

No, a trailer for the movie itself, restored or not, or a clip.

Well the entire movie is available pretty much everywhere in various quality, but if you prefer a proper trailer I found this collection of clips on youtube, I believe it uses the old restoration by Cineteca Bologna (keep in mind that this new project is for a different print with red color tinting.

DANTEDI': LA CINETECA DI BOLOGNA RESTAURA L'INFERNO - YouTube

[bigshot]

I got an email the other day. This will be shipping soon.

[kishiro]

Do anyone know who composed the score for this new 4K restoration ?

I've only watched this great movie once or twice. Last time was 3-4 years ago. It had a wonderful live-score by Mike Kiker (St. James & The Apostles). I believe it's actually posted on youtube

youtube

I usually prefer less modern scores for silent-movies, even though it does contain traditional organ and piano in the mix. but this was very atmospheric and moving. Hopefully this new release will have a likewise compelling score.

.

[thuata]

I got my (BD-R) copy and it looks like ass, the end.

[kishiro]

Originally Posted by thuata

I got my (BR-R) copy and it looks like ass, the end.

oh no... that's really bad news.

Can you be more specific? is it dnr'd to death ? or damaged? bad frame-interploations ?

[thuata]

Originally Posted by kishiro

oh no... that's really bad news.

Can you be more specific? is it dnr'd to death ? or damaged? bad frame-interploations ?

It's extremely damaged and unstable, which wouldn't bother me if the picture wasn't so blurry, there's almost no detail to make out which makes the end result look like a low resolution scan, in fact if you told me it was a 720p presentation I would believe you
I believe that some of this lack of detail has to be caused by the original material in some way because it's so extreme, but even the intertitles are blurry so it's clear to me that something went wrong with the picture treatment

[Show spoiler]

Took those caps from my computer, I can assure you it doensn't look any sharper on my TV

[The Coconut God]

Originally Posted by thuata

It's extremely damaged and unstable, which wouldn't bother me if the picture wasn't so blurry, there's almost no detail to make out which makes the end result look like a low resolution scan, in fact if you told me it was a 720p presentation I would believe you
I believe that some of this lack of detail has to be caused by the original material in some way because it's so extreme, but even the intertitles are blurry so it's clear to me that something went wrong with the picture treatment

[Show spoiler]

Took those caps from my computer, I can assure you it doensn't look any sharper on my TV

That looks beyond terrible.

Blurry and damaged I'd be fine with, the scan will only look as good as the source, and this one is very old, after all. But there's nothing there indicative of a 4K scan, maybe a 4K upscale of a YouTube upload... Atrocious posterization, pixelation, whatever those horizontal digital artifacts are called... and no grain whatsoever, no sharpness on the damage at least. This is what a good scan of a blurry source should look like.

This will be the first and last time I got fooled by one of these independent campaigns if this is really what it looks like...

[kishiro]

Originally Posted by thuata

It's extremely damaged and unstable, which wouldn't bother me if the picture wasn't so blurry, there's almost no detail to make out which makes the end result look like a low resolution scan, in fact if you told me it was a 720p presentation I would believe you
I believe that some of this lack of detail has to be caused by the original material in some way because it's so extreme, but even the intertitles are blurry so it's clear to me that something went wrong with the picture treatment
Took those caps from my computer, I can assure you it doensn't look any sharper on my TV

Thanks for the info and screencaps Thuata.
It looks like the film-scanner was misaligned/out of focus making everything blurry. If this even is a film-scan.. I see there's a bunch of vertical lines all over. It looks something like interlacing-artifacts. It makes no sense that they should be there if this indeed is a film-scan.. Unless it's scanner-noise. I remember Coppola's 'One From the Heart' BD release was riddled with weird scanner-noise-lines.

This is really sad. It's one thing if it's a Grapevine Video release for 13 dollars from unkonow public domain sources. But when you do a fundraiser to make a 4K scan/restoration, I would like the result to *at least* resmble film with film-grain and not riddled with vertical-line artifact. damn..


Was the new score by Harry Hallouche at least good?

[gap]

Ah crap. That's €80 pissed away. At least I'll have a poster ��

[thuata]

Originally Posted by kishiro

Thanks for the info and screencaps Thuata.
It looks like the film-scanner was misaligned/out of focus making everything blurry. If this even is a film-scan.. I see there's a bunch of vertical lines all over. It looks something like interlacing-artifacts. It makes no sense that they should be there if this indeed is a film-scan.. Unless it's scanner-noise. I remember Coppola's 'One From the Heart' BD release was riddled with weird scanner-noise-lines.

This is really sad. It's one thing if it's a Grapevine Video release for 13 dollars from unkonow public domain sources. But when you do a fundraiser to make a 4K scan/restoration, I would like the result to *at least* resmble film with film-grain and not riddled with vertical-line artifact. damn..


Was the new score by Harry Hallouche at least good?

Sorry, I haven't sat down to watch the film with sound yet, so I can't comment on the music.
Here are some more caps showing the kind of bluriness I'm talking about

[The Coconut God]

Originally Posted by thuata

Here are some more caps showing the kind of bluriness I'm talking about

Ironically, these are a little better. Still scrubbed of grain and artificially sharpened (at least the second one), but there's less visible interpolation.

Either way, a far cry from what was advertised.

[Vanguard]

They emailed out a Vimeo link to backers. 1080P only. I do not have a disc in-hand to compare. Only flipped through it.

Definitely a raw scan of a print without any restoration. Extreme amounts of damage, flickering and no stabilization whatsoever. The whole thing looks out of focus too. As for digital manipulation, hard to tell what is from their "restoration" or Vimeo, as obviously a Vimeo video will have serious compression applied.
EDIT: The amount of damage ranges from absolute catastrophe, to very expected of a film this age. Other areas are more in focus, others look smeared with Vaseline.

From the music I heard, its actually really nice!

If the Vimeo upload is anything to go by, the results are more suited to a cheapo public domain release, like Kishiro said. I will admit I was beginning to ignore the video problems and get sucked into the quite frankly, incredible sets and look of the film.

How marvelous it would be to see a full blown, professional restoration.