Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by rewak

Still wish Helter Skelter would have been picked up, by TW or anyone really. Hard to believe something that played all (or most) of the festivals to positive response and had a manga translation released didn't get touched by any of the distributors. Just shows how niche this market is i suppose.

i asked adam a few months ago for helter skelter. i think he didnt like the movie enough to release it. same for sakuran.

but i have the absolutly fine HK bluray of helter skelter with 24 bit 96hz true hd audio.. video and audio quality of that release is amazing. listeing to the german opera song in the begining is breathtaking i love that movie...

same for sakuran , there is a english subbed japanese bluray avaible for ~30$ most of the time.

so there is really no need for a EU release. fans of asian cinema should go region free anyway. the well go usa release in the U.S alone are worth it.

[rewak]

I'd asked as well before the release I get the idea of only releasing movies you like but if there's a demand for something and positive buzz surrounding it, might have been worth the investment. I have the HK Blu and the Japanese one too, the JP one has a whole host of extras (commentary, lengthy making of, deleted scenes, etc) that i would have liked to see subbed and TW seems to put the effort into doing that so that's partly why i was hoping they would pick it up. Same with the Sakuran Blu release, but i believe that's already licensed in the UK at least (it got a DVD anyway).

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by rewak

I'd asked as well before the release I get the idea of only releasing movies you like but if there's a demand for something and positive buzz surrounding it, might have been worth the investment. I have the HK Blu and the Japanese one too, the JP one has a whole host of extras (commentary, lengthy making of, deleted scenes, etc) that i would have liked to see subbed and TW seems to put the effort into doing that so that's partly why i was hoping they would pick it up. Same with the Sakuran Blu release, but i believe that's already licensed in the UK at least (it got a DVD anyway).

yes and after a bunch of people asking we attempted to look further into it, but it's handled by ASMIK ACE who are notoriously hard to work with.

Unfortunately, as with the case of many titles, it's just not easy, demand or not. I wasn't a big fan of either this nor Why Don't You Play in Hell, but would have released both if possible, but remember things can always be out of our control and both those cases were of films which were too complicated to release. Golden Slumber is another which just couldn't be released due to music rights issues.

[rewak]

Ah, well that sucks. I didn't know Asmik were so hard to work with, but i'm not totally surprised either. Shame some companies make it difficult to get their own movies out to a wider audience, Japan in general seems to have that attitude especially in the HD era. What can you do

[blooregard_q_kazoo]

Since you will present (at least) two titles at the upcoming Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, are there any titles in the festival's program that you would be interested in releasing? Like the Snow White Murder Case? Or Tamako in Moratorium? I'm having a difficult enough time just deciding which ones I want to see...

And will there be blu-rays of the two films you produced (Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats & Number 10 Blues)?

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Finished watching The Story of Yonosuke and left a review. In this review I mention a glitch of some sort (I dont even know if you'd call it that) and refer readers to this thread for a screenshot of it. Feel free to read my review and check this picture out. Perhaps someone a bit more educated in artifacts can shed some additional light on it.

Apologies for the less than perfect quality shot. It's from my mobile phone. It accurately captures the line I'm talking about though and you can see the noise I also discuss.

[Show spoiler]

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by blooregard_q_kazoo

Since you will present (at least) two titles at the upcoming Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, are there any titles in the festival's program that you would be interested in releasing? Like the Snow White Murder Case? Or Tamako in Moratorium? I'm having a difficult enough time just deciding which ones I want to see...

And will there be blu-rays of the two films you produced (Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats & Number 10 Blues)?

Not for either Snow White nor Tamako. Snow White is very expensive and just not the greatest film, instead we will focus on trying to raise money to buy World of Kanako which will probably take all our budget for the rest of the year.

For Tamako, there are some problems with the sales agent so can't release.

We have nothing to do with No. 10 Blues, not sure how you got that info

For fuku-chan, it's not coming out in Japan until November this year, which means any dvd/blu-ray won't be until around March/April 2015 at the very earliest

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

N instead we will focus on trying to raise money to buy World of Kanako which will probably take all our budget for the rest of the year.

trailer looks awesome !

[deepbreathsanddeath]

I'm not sure if the flaws I noted in my review are inherit in the source material or whether they were caused by less than stellar scanning. Considering how gorgeous the film would've looked without the noise or bizarre lines that pop up, I'm leaning more towards the latter.

I loved the movie so I'm thinking about getting the HK release for comparisons sake.

I'd appreciate some kind of response from Adam about these issues I've noted.

[rewak]

It's a glitch in the encode, you aren't the only person to have noticed it

"There were a few glitches on my review disc, horizontal lines appearing for a frame at 45.11, 49.43, 1:00.46, 1:53.47, and 2:15.55." - http://www.myreviewer.com/Blu-ray/16...Jitendar-Canth

These look and sound like a botched encode/authoring job rather than something inherent in the source material to me.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Ah thanks for the response. I figured as much. I imagine Adam will be even more annoyed about this than we. Especially if the HK release doesn't suffer these issues. He was disappointed in the lack of sales for Yonosuke after so much demand and the HK release isn't much more expensive, it comes with English subs and both discs seem to have no special features. I think I'll order the HK disc and compare.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

Ah thanks for the response. I figured as much. I imagine Adam will be even more annoyed about this than we. Especially if the HK release doesn't suffer these issues. He was disappointed in the lack of sales for Yonosuke after so much demand and the HK release isn't much more expensive, it comes with English subs and both discs seem to have no special features. I think I'll order the HK disc and compare.

The extras issue is due to the Japanese company not allowing licensing for the extras to anywhere. Actually the extras are only even on the Japanese blu-ray and NOT on the Japanese DVD. Would have love extras, but that was out of our hands

The encode seems to have been a problem with the company who do our encoding and due to the fact that I wasn't in the UK to check it over. I assumed everything would have been OK due to them always doing the encoding for all our releases, but it seems that lately quality has dipped with that and Boomerang Family, so we will start looking elsewhere for encoding as they've screwed up a lot recently and left us in this position. Really sorry as such things hurt us a lot more than everyone else as we rely so much on trying to bring a certain quality to keep with our name and things out of our control can hurt us in these ways.

[darry]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

The extras issue is due to the Japanese company not allowing licensing for the extras to anywhere. Actually the extras are only even on the Japanese blu-ray and NOT on the Japanese DVD. Would have love extras, but that was out of our hands

The encode seems to have been a problem with the company who do our encoding and due to the fact that I wasn't in the UK to check it over. I assumed everything would have been OK due to them always doing the encoding for all our releases, but it seems that lately quality has dipped with that and Boomerang Family, so we will start looking elsewhere for encoding as they've screwed up a lot recently and left us in this position. Really sorry as such things hurt us a lot more than everyone else as we rely so much on trying to bring a certain quality to keep with our name and things out of our control can hurt us in these ways.

What's wrong with Boomerang Family?

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

The extras issue is due to the Japanese company not allowing licensing for the extras to anywhere. Actually the extras are only even on the Japanese blu-ray and NOT on the Japanese DVD. Would have love extras, but that was out of our hands

The encode seems to have been a problem with the company who do our encoding and due to the fact that I wasn't in the UK to check it over. I assumed everything would have been OK due to them always doing the encoding for all our releases, but it seems that lately quality has dipped with that and Boomerang Family, so we will start looking elsewhere for encoding as they've screwed up a lot recently and left us in this position. Really sorry as such things hurt us a lot more than everyone else as we rely so much on trying to bring a certain quality to keep with our name and things out of our control can hurt us in these ways.

Oh I don't really consider the lack of extras an issue. I was merely pointing out that the HK release also has no extras, it has English subs and may be free of the harsh noise and encoding glitches and is a pretty affordable disc and therefore may be the best option for those wanting to own it.

I imagine Yonosuke will probably end up like Vulgaria and drop under £8 in the near future because of these issues to ensure sales. I'm an avid supporter of Third Window Films and write positive stuff online to help continue awareness. It was disappointing to have harsh noise and encoding issues present through a 160 minute long film. There's a gorgeous transfer there under those problems though, I must reassure people of that.

I imagine it's more disappointing for you though, Adam as it's probably not financially possible to redo the transfer for a replacement program and this screw up on your encoders part could probably lose you some money.

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by darry

What's wrong with Boomerang Family?

some scenes did look like they suffer from some kind of "black" crush in the night shots.. i noticed some ugly locking "block" building in some scenes.
but since its DVD i thought that might be the reason.

ive got the HK bluray of yonosuke and didnt notice such "glitches" or encoding errors.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by darry

What's wrong with Boomerang Family?

apparently it's a bit dark and nobody has complained, but a couple reviews said it's not the best in the world. Not sure if it's because those reviewers were especially picky though

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

some scenes did look like they suffer from some kind of "black" crush in the night shots.. i noticed some ugly locking "block" building in some scenes.
but since its DVD i thought that might be the reason.

ive got the HK bluray of yonosuke and didnt notice such "glitches" or encoding errors.

What about digital noise? I only noticed 3 glitches and they didn't detract much from the experience. Noise was the main issue. Is it on the HK disc or is the image clean like Woodsman and the Rain from TWF for example?

[thirdwindowfilms]

Online shop restocked with DVDs of 'See You Tomorrow, Everyone', 'How to Use Guys with Secret Tips', 'The Land of Hope' and more

Open until May 12th

http://shop.thirdwindowfilms.com

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

What about digital noise? I only noticed 3 glitches and they didn't detract much from the experience. Noise was the main issue. Is it on the HK disc or is the image clean like Woodsman and the Rain from TWF for example?

i didnt notice noise (only want to mention that people often confuse grain with noise and the other way around)

i will take a look at it again after i received the new lamp for my projector (has already 2800 hours on it, and the video quality isnt awesome anymore to judge a release)

but i was fine with the boomerang family DVD ! sure it did not look awesome but it was ok for a DVD (even on my 108 inch screen)


but the lack of bonus features for releases like yonsosuke and lesson of evil.. to bad
i liked the bonus features for "for loves sake" alot.. really interessting and well done.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

I know people often mistake the two. The movie was almost certainly shot digitally and what I saw was definitely noise, not grain. I'm a grain supporter.

There's no special features for Lesson of Evil? I thought there was going to be a 2 hour doc? I must've missed where it was mentioned that this isn't happening anymore. That's really saddening.