Most in agreement, and let no-one be fooled into thinking that just because CC goes through their usual routines you'll get a perfect image regardless of the shape of the source materials. I just popped in "Sawdust and Tinsel" and "Drunken Angel" for a quick check after I got them from the mailbox half an hour ago. First impressions: FAR too high contrast on the Bergman, and a so-so image with the Kuro with a lot of damage remanining (in the case of Kurosawa certainly not CC's fault but due to the available materials, of course). Not that I'd care very much, but it may serve as a reminder that CC might not necessarily blow away any MoC version of "Vampyr" even if they managed to make some improvement with their tools. There are limits to what you can do with these tools (the glorious "Threepenny" notwithstanding, I guess they had very excellent materials from FWMS here in the first place), and it is indeed to be feared that they "contrast boost the shit out of it" as Schreck likes to put it. Seeing Japanese films as handled by MoC (free of contrast manipulation, and thus appropriately 'greyish' sometimes) I really begin to wonder whether the highly contrastive image of the CC "Rashomon" or "Throne of Blood" is correct, good as it looks.
EDIT: I was somewhat fooled by the flashback sequence at the beginning of "Sawdust". Have just watched the entire film, and it looks perfect.
25 Vampyr
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Adam
- Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:29 pm
- Location: Los Angeles CA
- Contact:
No, the digital restoration is a separate step. Each company would theoretically get the same telecine master, but that shows all the dust, etc of the print or negative from which it was made. The digital restoration is then done separately by the company in question using whatever software, manpower & time they have.kekid wrote:I am not the most sophisticated guy when it comes to technical matters, but I thought this is a level playing field - same conditions apply to both Criterion and MoC. For each of the films under discussion, either both companies have digital restoration or neither does. Therefore they are competing on comparable terms for both La Notte and Vampyr. Unless we believe that for non-digitally-restored sources Criterion has teachnical superiority over MoC, I see no reason for MoC to hesitate.
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MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
- Contact:
This is absolutely correct. Much of the time the distributor doesn't actually do their own telecine, as it's much cheaper to make use of a pre-existing one (if one is available) - and there's a surprising amount that you can do to clean it up digitally.Adam wrote:No, the digital restoration is a separate step. Each company would theoretically get the same telecine master, but that shows all the dust, etc of the print or negative from which it was made. The digital restoration is then done separately by the company in question using whatever software, manpower & time they have.
For a very good example, compare the US (KimStim/Kino), French (Chalet Films) and British (BFI) releases of Jan Å vankmajer's shorts. In most cases, exactly the same PAL Digibetas were used as the primary source materials - but each distributor treated them differently:
KimStim - converted it to NTSC, no additional digital restoration;
Chalet Films - native PAL, but no additional digital restoration;
BFI - native PAL and extensive digital restoration.
If you scroll down to the bottom of this DVD Freak comparison, you can see the differences. The BFI (top) has removed an onscreen blemish on the right-hand side that's visible in the Chalet Films (middle) and KimStim (bottom), and the NTSC conversion is betrayed by visible combing in the KimStim that isn't present in the two PAL transfers.
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Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Would this be true in every case? I'm just thinking about the new restos of "Nosferatu" and "Potemkin", for instance. In both cases, there was digital restoration before a master was provided to the respective companies, which explains why the various discs around look practically identical. The case of these restored silents may be an exception of course, as FWMS or Transit aren't 'commercial' companies in the strict sense. It wouldn't stop CC to do FURTHER restoration work, anyway, but it would be interesting to see whether the fantastic look of "Threepenny" was a result of CC's restoration work or FWMS'. I strongly suspect the latter. With "Vampyr", as the resto was made in 1999 already, no digital restoration was made by Koerber, however, and as has been pointed out already, that's where the problem for MoC starts.Adam wrote:The digital restoration is then done separately by the company in question using whatever software, manpower & time they have.
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Tom you should know better than anyone else that simply because a film is early German doesn't mean the FWMS/Transit had a hand in it. 3Groschen was a Bundesarchiv project and was licensed by CC from United Film Enterprises, and the copyright belongs to Praesans Film AG. The stiftung had no hand in it.
This thread is (and I'm just sorry, but it is) getting really depressing, in that it illustrates the challenge faced by distributors of rare and vintage material, versus the demands placed on them by their audiences.. Quick to condemn & criticize and say GIMME GIMME GIMME, and yet completely devoid of the energy to muster up the empathy to understand what the challenges faced by the companies who take the brave steps to get this maginal material out there actually are.
For pages the details of What's Involved have been extrapolated repeatedly by a few people versus the demands of MY TEMPER IS HOT GIMME MY VAMPYR. It's been spelled out over and over again, and still folks don't understand... what's most depressing is this is one of the more tuned-in of forums that is out there dedicated to this material .
Yeah I know-- "cue violins". But I took flak for trying to get people to Stop and Think about why Nick is asking you guys this question, about what would make this release different than the rest in the MoC catalog, and here we are weeks and weeks later, pages in the thread and folks still don't get it. I thought Mikes great post was the deal-closer after I thought my step-by-step thing would put to bed all possible confusion.
There are two places, two domains that film restoration takes place.
1) In the lab, where-- after creating a fine grain master or composite negative by scouring the archives to create a complete cut of a film with the finest quality footage of every scene-- the reels themselves are worked on photochemically to, within the photochemical processes of celluloid, re-expose the film onto new & sensitive film stock, washing the sources carefully, so that a sense of continuity exists in the new optimal print of the film between the variances inherent in the pieces of the composite... trying to make it look like they all came from the same camera, trying to clean it up, wash off speckles dust, mend tears, etc.
The original pieces of the composite (made of delicate very old pieces of vintage film, which is archived and usually not touched once duped) are duped to create the fine grain or interneg which is the source of new theatrical prints, etc. BUT either the archival composite or the new dupe neg/fine grain are transferred (telecine) to digital beta videotape.
2) This videotape, which is used for dvd and television will not be devoid of damage and other artifacts. There is only so much that the photochemical process can do, and it cannot "erase" all the dust and scratches, or decomposition, and it cannot hide tears, splices, it can't remove scratches and crackle on the soundtrack etc. This is the reason why you go to the cinema and see a classic that looks fantastic on dvd, and yet the projection shows damage you didn't see on your disc... it's because you are watching the reels themselves, not the digibeta (though w digital projection, as well as, as in Rules of the Game for ex, reels can be struck from a digitally cleaned up digibeta... but this is not the rule w most vintage films).
With digital restoration tools, computer programs can do a hell of a lot: go in and erase every scratch, stabilize the image judder, stabilize contrast flickering, boost the contrast for a "newer" looking image, sharpen the edges for a crisper looking image, obliterate decomposition damage by taking image data from preceding images, and on and on for splices, reel marks, as well as digital tools for the audio. The end result of this is the "digitally restored" beta. SOmetimes a company like the FW Murnau Stiftung does both (on a select number of profitable titles to be sure), and dvd companies-- as in NOS-- simply have to encode the fully--chemically and digitally-- restored digibeta they get sent. But this is very expensive and is usually ventured on after contracts have already been signed for theatrical and home vid distribution. No company will just Go Ahead And Do Everything with no promise of external revenue. In that sense something as expensive as NOS is in essence really a collaborative enterprise between FWMS, Transit, Kino, MoC and whoever else signed a deal beforehand... basically giving the Stiftung the "insurance" to go ahead and be as lavish as possible on both the photochemical AND the digital end... AND commission the new score. RARE TERRITORY especially on silents.
Criterion is one of the few non-studio dvd co's that prepares a budget for their own telecine (but they don't do their own photochemical resto) AND extensive digital manipulation on every title (though there are exceptions like the MK2 Pickpocket where they probably didn't do a thing aside from encoding the digibeta... in this case very similar to what MoC does most of the time, i e encoding a digital master thats a result of a transfer of photochemically restored reels, that has also been digitally restored before they even received it). Yet the hallmark of their operation is keeping their ears to the ground for photochemical restorations-- film restorations (in the truest sense of the word Film)-- of titles they would like to release. Hearing that Toho, or a German archive, etc, is physically restoring a key title in the lab will see them usually either (after acquiring distrib rights) 1) requisitioning the resulting film reels, or 2) going to Germany or Japan etc.... and supervising a transfer of those restored reels to vid. Then they take that resulting tape home to NYC and do their digital work on it.
For whatever reasons, the digital beta that Nick says he has on Vampyr has been photochemically restored (nine years ago at that), and has had no digital work done on it. This goes I'd guess for video and audio. You cant say with certainty that his master will look or sound as good as MK2's because 1) they're not from the same master, and 2) MK2 probably did some work on their master. He has a raw master of untouched telecine-- that seems to be the gist of it. He's potentially (probably, I cant speak for him) worried because, despite the aching of twenty or thirty devoted customers here, the snarky world of the dvd reviewer, once a gleaming CC comes out looking as good as 3Penny comes out, will slaughter his release to pieces in the world of the side-by side. And Nick & Doug et al have fought very hard (especially post- those early Solaris transfers) to acquire their reputation for quality, balancing very filmic looking transfers with a reasonable amount of digital cleanup for a very pleasing result.
This thread is (and I'm just sorry, but it is) getting really depressing, in that it illustrates the challenge faced by distributors of rare and vintage material, versus the demands placed on them by their audiences.. Quick to condemn & criticize and say GIMME GIMME GIMME, and yet completely devoid of the energy to muster up the empathy to understand what the challenges faced by the companies who take the brave steps to get this maginal material out there actually are.
For pages the details of What's Involved have been extrapolated repeatedly by a few people versus the demands of MY TEMPER IS HOT GIMME MY VAMPYR. It's been spelled out over and over again, and still folks don't understand... what's most depressing is this is one of the more tuned-in of forums that is out there dedicated to this material .
Yeah I know-- "cue violins". But I took flak for trying to get people to Stop and Think about why Nick is asking you guys this question, about what would make this release different than the rest in the MoC catalog, and here we are weeks and weeks later, pages in the thread and folks still don't get it. I thought Mikes great post was the deal-closer after I thought my step-by-step thing would put to bed all possible confusion.
There are two places, two domains that film restoration takes place.
1) In the lab, where-- after creating a fine grain master or composite negative by scouring the archives to create a complete cut of a film with the finest quality footage of every scene-- the reels themselves are worked on photochemically to, within the photochemical processes of celluloid, re-expose the film onto new & sensitive film stock, washing the sources carefully, so that a sense of continuity exists in the new optimal print of the film between the variances inherent in the pieces of the composite... trying to make it look like they all came from the same camera, trying to clean it up, wash off speckles dust, mend tears, etc.
The original pieces of the composite (made of delicate very old pieces of vintage film, which is archived and usually not touched once duped) are duped to create the fine grain or interneg which is the source of new theatrical prints, etc. BUT either the archival composite or the new dupe neg/fine grain are transferred (telecine) to digital beta videotape.
2) This videotape, which is used for dvd and television will not be devoid of damage and other artifacts. There is only so much that the photochemical process can do, and it cannot "erase" all the dust and scratches, or decomposition, and it cannot hide tears, splices, it can't remove scratches and crackle on the soundtrack etc. This is the reason why you go to the cinema and see a classic that looks fantastic on dvd, and yet the projection shows damage you didn't see on your disc... it's because you are watching the reels themselves, not the digibeta (though w digital projection, as well as, as in Rules of the Game for ex, reels can be struck from a digitally cleaned up digibeta... but this is not the rule w most vintage films).
With digital restoration tools, computer programs can do a hell of a lot: go in and erase every scratch, stabilize the image judder, stabilize contrast flickering, boost the contrast for a "newer" looking image, sharpen the edges for a crisper looking image, obliterate decomposition damage by taking image data from preceding images, and on and on for splices, reel marks, as well as digital tools for the audio. The end result of this is the "digitally restored" beta. SOmetimes a company like the FW Murnau Stiftung does both (on a select number of profitable titles to be sure), and dvd companies-- as in NOS-- simply have to encode the fully--chemically and digitally-- restored digibeta they get sent. But this is very expensive and is usually ventured on after contracts have already been signed for theatrical and home vid distribution. No company will just Go Ahead And Do Everything with no promise of external revenue. In that sense something as expensive as NOS is in essence really a collaborative enterprise between FWMS, Transit, Kino, MoC and whoever else signed a deal beforehand... basically giving the Stiftung the "insurance" to go ahead and be as lavish as possible on both the photochemical AND the digital end... AND commission the new score. RARE TERRITORY especially on silents.
Criterion is one of the few non-studio dvd co's that prepares a budget for their own telecine (but they don't do their own photochemical resto) AND extensive digital manipulation on every title (though there are exceptions like the MK2 Pickpocket where they probably didn't do a thing aside from encoding the digibeta... in this case very similar to what MoC does most of the time, i e encoding a digital master thats a result of a transfer of photochemically restored reels, that has also been digitally restored before they even received it). Yet the hallmark of their operation is keeping their ears to the ground for photochemical restorations-- film restorations (in the truest sense of the word Film)-- of titles they would like to release. Hearing that Toho, or a German archive, etc, is physically restoring a key title in the lab will see them usually either (after acquiring distrib rights) 1) requisitioning the resulting film reels, or 2) going to Germany or Japan etc.... and supervising a transfer of those restored reels to vid. Then they take that resulting tape home to NYC and do their digital work on it.
For whatever reasons, the digital beta that Nick says he has on Vampyr has been photochemically restored (nine years ago at that), and has had no digital work done on it. This goes I'd guess for video and audio. You cant say with certainty that his master will look or sound as good as MK2's because 1) they're not from the same master, and 2) MK2 probably did some work on their master. He has a raw master of untouched telecine-- that seems to be the gist of it. He's potentially (probably, I cant speak for him) worried because, despite the aching of twenty or thirty devoted customers here, the snarky world of the dvd reviewer, once a gleaming CC comes out looking as good as 3Penny comes out, will slaughter his release to pieces in the world of the side-by side. And Nick & Doug et al have fought very hard (especially post- those early Solaris transfers) to acquire their reputation for quality, balancing very filmic looking transfers with a reasonable amount of digital cleanup for a very pleasing result.
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MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
- Contact:
Indeed not, and I know of a few projects that are currently in limbo because the question of who's going to pay for the new HD telecine upfront has yet to be settled. Often, we end up in a catch-22 whereby people don't want to commit funds until they see exactly what they're getting - but HD transfers are too expensive to do on spec.HerrSchreck wrote:But this is very expensive and is usually ventured on after contracts have already been signed for theatrical and home vid distribution. No company will just Go Ahead And Do Everything with no promise of external revenue.
But we're also increasingly seeing distributors joining forces to fund ambitious but potentially uncommercial projects - although the BFI was responsible for the actual transfer and restoration of the Quay Brothers titles last year, distribution deals with ED Distribution (France) and Zeitgeist (the US) provided a crucial part of the funding. And this also explains why the resulting DVDs are all but identical, as most of the source masters were HD, so PAL/NTSC issues didn't apply.
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Absolutely, and you'd know as well as anyone from firsthand, to be sure.
With HD, the issue of the photochemical-to-transfer side is becoming a "chicken or the egg" type thing, it seems at times.
Dvd companies are waiting to hear of photochemical resto's of films they've been wanting to get out on disc for ages.... and studios/rights-holders of these marginal titles are waiting to hear that a dvd company is interested in distributing a title before taking the step to embark on a physical photochem resto on the reels. Who's going to take the first step-- or more properly.. who is responsible for the lab restoration project: the primary rightsholder, or the dvd company?
Thus my statement that in essence these restos that result in an HD tape (particularly one which has had the exceptional step of having the digital cleanup performed by the same entity that performed the photochem restoration and telecine) of restored reels are really a collaborative project, paid for by the insurance money of those home video distribution deals. (And theatrical of course.) So in a lot of cases you'll probably find that "disc co's waiting with an ear to the ground to hear of resto's", in the hd age, morphs... to disc co's picking up the phone and potentially starting a project moving by expressing an interest in getting it out. Probably as much as anything, home vid co's, either thru commiseration or by accident, simultaneously (or reasonably so) expressing interest in a title will be the thing to get a primary rights-holder up off their ass to start work on a title.
With HD, the issue of the photochemical-to-transfer side is becoming a "chicken or the egg" type thing, it seems at times.
Dvd companies are waiting to hear of photochemical resto's of films they've been wanting to get out on disc for ages.... and studios/rights-holders of these marginal titles are waiting to hear that a dvd company is interested in distributing a title before taking the step to embark on a physical photochem resto on the reels. Who's going to take the first step-- or more properly.. who is responsible for the lab restoration project: the primary rightsholder, or the dvd company?
Thus my statement that in essence these restos that result in an HD tape (particularly one which has had the exceptional step of having the digital cleanup performed by the same entity that performed the photochem restoration and telecine) of restored reels are really a collaborative project, paid for by the insurance money of those home video distribution deals. (And theatrical of course.) So in a lot of cases you'll probably find that "disc co's waiting with an ear to the ground to hear of resto's", in the hd age, morphs... to disc co's picking up the phone and potentially starting a project moving by expressing an interest in getting it out. Probably as much as anything, home vid co's, either thru commiseration or by accident, simultaneously (or reasonably so) expressing interest in a title will be the thing to get a primary rights-holder up off their ass to start work on a title.
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bollibasher
- Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:38 am
I fully accept all the difficulties facing MoC re: this. It's a shame there isn't a way for film restoration to be funded in part by film lovers - for example, if i knew Vampyr was a possibility for photochemical and digital restoration I would happily pay £20 towards the cause and I'd like to think quite a lot of other people would too. Of course you'd come against difficulties because there would be no guarantee of return. But say the BFI or FMWS etc set up a joint 'Resto' website with a few select titles that they thought people might be interested in seeing but which have no funding, maybe people would respond. I dunno, just a thought.
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blindside8zao
- Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:31 pm
- Location: Greensboro, NC
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rwaits
- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:24 pm
Who is that??blindside8zao wrote:One of my favorite singer/songwriters does something like that for some of his past few albums. Fans prepay before the disc is even recorded, contributing money to the actual production of the CD.
I continue to check the MoC page every few days in hopes that Vampyr will once again appear in the catalog. Such a great shame as this is the release I had been waiting on since MoC's inception. What the hell is going on with this anyway? Is it still in some sort of limbo, or just not happening at all?
...and man, that cover art was killer...
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denti alligator
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
- Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
YEAH MOMMA!
(Let my playing The Company Man behind this convo fool nobody into thinking I don't desperately need this title!).
I would actually prefer a straight hd telecine of the film elements, with all the clicks and pops and ice cream splatters. As I've been saying for years, I personally see these little "seasonings" as the fermentation that distinguishes a good old wine from a jug of Fred Sanford muscatel, and damn the reactions to the present screen cap system.
To me, if 1 company goes in and extensively digitally messes with their subject matter, it indicates casual attitude towards the sanctity of that subject matter... if 2 company restrains themselves and preserves it's natural state while doing all they can aid the spectator's viewing of the subject, they are the more respectful of it's sanctity.
Increasingly, the 2 company seems to be MoC.
(Let my playing The Company Man behind this convo fool nobody into thinking I don't desperately need this title!).
I would actually prefer a straight hd telecine of the film elements, with all the clicks and pops and ice cream splatters. As I've been saying for years, I personally see these little "seasonings" as the fermentation that distinguishes a good old wine from a jug of Fred Sanford muscatel, and damn the reactions to the present screen cap system.
To me, if 1 company goes in and extensively digitally messes with their subject matter, it indicates casual attitude towards the sanctity of that subject matter... if 2 company restrains themselves and preserves it's natural state while doing all they can aid the spectator's viewing of the subject, they are the more respectful of it's sanctity.
Increasingly, the 2 company seems to be MoC.
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peerpee
- not perpee
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:41 pm
This is the key point. This film was shot through smoke and gauze to -- it seems -- obscure the imagery to some extent.
Removing damage from the film restoration of VAMPYR is incredibly difficult if you want to maintain other aspects of the image's texture. It's Brakhage-like in places.
Herrschreck, you're going to get the full 'Decasia' version from MoC (ie. same as the MK2, but in 1.19:1). I like your "seasonings" approach to the problem.
Removing damage from the film restoration of VAMPYR is incredibly difficult if you want to maintain other aspects of the image's texture. It's Brakhage-like in places.
Herrschreck, you're going to get the full 'Decasia' version from MoC (ie. same as the MK2, but in 1.19:1). I like your "seasonings" approach to the problem.
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SoyCuba
- Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:30 pm
- Location: Finland
I agree with this, especially concerning VAMPYR as I've also heard what Nick said that the imagery seems to be intentionally obscured. I would say that the most important thing in a DVD transfer quality is that it looks natural and film-like. A transfer that looks old but natural (no digital image problems) can look absolutely beautiful.HerrSchreck wrote:I would actually prefer a straight hd telecine of the film elements, with all the clicks and pops and ice cream splatters.
Thanks to MoC for bringing this out! I'll surely pre-order this one.
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Well yes there was a point during early shooting where Dreyer & Mate discovered there was a light leak between the lens and the camera proper. But Dreyer liked the effect so much (the man really was trying to shoot the moody netherworld between dreams and waking life, and somewhat contribute to the impressionist movement that was so incredibly vibrant in France over the preceding years... Epstein, Kirsanoff and his bud Gremillon, Marcel L'Herbier, etc) that he instructed Mate to do all he could to maintain the effect (i e not repair the unit).
The combination of music and image (and one of the coolest tracking shots in history) here in this Dance of the Shadows sequence is about as good as it gets.
The combination of music and image (and one of the coolest tracking shots in history) here in this Dance of the Shadows sequence is about as good as it gets.
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Neonatica
- Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:30 am
).. Will certainly pick this one up-
Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Oh man, it's 12 o'clock in the morning over here but I still feel like opening a big bottle of champagne! HOORAY! Forget CC and their release schedule, MoC is the real thing!
Many, many thanks, Nick, for finally being convinced that this film is worth to be released with whatever little print damage still remains, and getting this out to us.
Many, many thanks, Nick, for finally being convinced that this film is worth to be released with whatever little print damage still remains, and getting this out to us.
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Awesome Welles
- Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:02 am
- Location: London
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Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
I'm assuming you've already got this covered, but please do include a note on all the technical oddities of the film (and its elements) and your approach to digital restoration in the DVD booklet. I think it would be an opportunity to educate folks about the "mutability" of film images.peerpee wrote:Herrschreck, you're going to get the full 'Decasia' version from MoC (ie. same as the MK2, but in 1.19:1). I like your "seasonings" approach to the problem.
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HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
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Ledos
- Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:05 am
