The Cooler (101 Films) Black Label 006 - 2003 - William H. Macy, Maria Bello

[bluemax65]

As the director and co-writer of THE COOLER, I haven’t yet seen 101’s Blu Ray, but if DVDBeaver’s screen captures are anything to go by, I can assure you this is NOT how our film looks. We shot THE COOLER on Super 35mm, applying a bleach bypass process to the IP. James Whitaker was the cinematographer and he shot the hell out of the film. The theatrical prints are stunning with extreme highlights, strong blacks and solid colors. The film in no way looks like the screen captures that I’m seeing on DVD Beaver’s site. Not even the so-so version playing right now on HBO in HD (in the U.S.) looks this way. The film was chemically color timed and no digital intermediate was done. Digital intermediates were still in their infancy and I wasn’t happy with the DI test results from a few of the early providers (Technicolor, etc.). The HD master was done back in early 2003 – supervised by James Whitaker and myself. We were never thrilled with the results because our bleach bypass process was baked into the IP and not the negative. We used the neg for the HD master and tried to approximate the bleach bypass look as best we could. But since this wasn’t a DI suite, the approximated look had its limitations. That being said, the HD master was always acceptable looking with rich colors, deep blacks and a fair amount of contrast. It NEVER looked the way these image captures do. I commend 101 for going to great lengths to make a superb retrospective documentary on the film (which in of itself is probably worth taking a shot on the disc), but hearing that the transfer is likely substandard 1080i and 25fps is hugely troubling to me and clearly unacceptable. I’m discussing with 101’s Phillip Escott what our options are. As the filmmaker I simply cannot endorse this presentation if DVD Beaver’s screen captures are accurate – which is a huge shame since I collaborated closely with Phillip on the extras. Since I don’t have the 101 disc in hand yet, I can’t condemn the image and sound until I witness it for myself – but I’m not optimistic given the negative feedback on this board. If it's as bad as I'm reading here, I hope 101 does the right thing and recalls the disc. Lionsgate holds the U.S. distribution rights and, as far as I know, have shown no interest in a domestic Blu Ray release. If and when they do take an interest in the film, I'm hoping they spend the money to go back to the film's neg and allow us to do a new 4K transfer. I'll check back in here when I've personally viewed the disc. If you want to see what THE COOLER should look like, image quality wise and closer to the theatrical presentation, jump over to my Facebook page where I have posted some production stills: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

Best - Wayne Kramer