Kino

[montgomery]

I posted the following comment on Kino's Facebook page:

I want to preface this by pointing out that I've been a long time supporter of Kino (I have around 130 Kino titles in my DVD collection). Kino has released movies on DVD that otherwise would likely not have been available.

So, I'm not just picking on Kino.

But, why in the world, in 2010 is Kino releasing Loren Cass, with... a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, in a non-anamorphic transfer? I was so disapointed when I popped this into the DVD player and saw a picture-boxed image with thick black bars all around it. I truly appreciate what Kino has done in the past, but I respectfully suggest this is unacceptable today by any standard.

I received the following response:

We had no choice with this, unfortunately. The filmmaker shot the film in 2005 on standard-def video and never made an anamorphic master. We would never willingly release a DVD with such low technical standards, but we had no other options -- the situation is a casualty of a (very talented) young filmmaker having no money and very little knowledge about how to prepare a film for distribution.

Is that something that is ordinarily left to the film maker?

I have no love for Kino, but I believe this. When I saw Loren Cass at Cinema Village, despite all the praise about the 16mm, it was a low-grade letterboxed digital transfer, almost certainly an SD-DVD. I was angry about it, but it probably was the only thing available. On the other hand, no review ever mentioned this and only praised the filmic look.....it was nearly impossible to tell it was even initially shot on film when I saw it. Did anyone catch a decent print of this anywhere?

[rsweeney]

Thanks for all of your concern about our release of Loren Cass. I work in the production department, and the post on Facebook regarding Loren Cass is correct, and I don't know why it was deleted. Here is a longer version of the circumstances surrounding the disc's release:

The original film-to-tape transfer was done 4 years ago as 4x3 Letterboxed, and not anamorphic. To repeat, a 16x9 anamorphic master was never made, because the filmmaker, who was working alone and with his own money, was not looking ahead to anything other than distributing the film theatrically.

The 4x3 version was loaded onto a hard drive and edited. In order to get a 16x9 anamorphic master, we would have had to re-transfer from the original negative and then re-assemble from scratch, because the filmmaker did not save his EDL (edit decision list). Basically, it would entail doing the entire post-production process all over again, which was not economically feasible for this release.

Kino talked extensively with filmmaker Chris Fuller about any other options, as we did not want to produce a DVD without an anamorphic element. But there was no way around this basic oversight in the film's transfer history. Kino considered putting a disclaimer on the DVD, but Mr. Fuller, who
was fully aware of our dilemma and approved the DVD as it is, did not want to do the disclaimer. So unfortunately, it was either release the movie this way, or not at all.

I hope this clarifies our reasoning.

Best,
Robert Sweeney

[MichaelB]

The 4x3 version was loaded onto a hard drive and edited. In order to get a 16x9 anamorphic master, we would have had to re-transfer from the original negative and then re-assemble from scratch, because the filmmaker did not save his EDL (edit decision list). Basically, it would entail doing the entire post-production process all over again, which was not economically feasible for this release.

For what it's worth, very very similar issues prevented the release of Of Time and the City as a Blu-ray. You could conceivably create a hi-def master, but you'd literally have to reassemble the film from scratch from the original archival elements. In order to keep the budget at rock bottom, Terence Davies worked with already-telecined material supplied on SD video.

[Tribe]

Kino talked extensively with filmmaker Chris Fuller about any other options, as we did not want to produce a DVD without an anamorphic element. But there was no way around this basic oversight in the film's transfer history. Kino considered putting a disclaimer on the DVD, but Mr. Fuller, who
was fully aware of our dilemma and approved the DVD as it is, did not want to do the disclaimer. So unfortunately, it was either release the movie this way, or not at all.

Thanks for the response. Ya know, if Kino would do more of this, namely, explaining why something was released in whatever condition more often...it would go a long way towards helping Kino's credibility among those who seek out classic/indie/art house fare. Likewise, those of us who prefer decent transfers (not necessarily "perfect") would be a lot more forgiving.

Again, thanks for the explanation.

[Gregory]

I agree with Tribe's sentiments and hope that Mr. Sweeney or someone else from Kino will continue to post from time to time.

The explanation about Loren Cass makes sense, but there is a broader question of why Kino has released many other widescreen films in non-anamorphic transfers in the last decade. Code Unknown jumps to mind but there are many other examples. In some cases, though not always, their counterpart releases from across the pond are anamorphic. Where there seems to be a really consistent policy in place is for releasing unenhanced transfers of 1.66:1 films, even though this ratio isn't really all that far afield from 1.78:1.

It seems the most basic question is why Kino doesn't pay for new telecine for their releases more often in cases when using an existing master would result in a lackluster release. I do understand there are financial constraints on this, especially now, but I also know that a fair number of similarly small (or smaller) arthouse labels have made room in their budget for this. One could make a case that this is an investment that could have paid off more in the long-run, but of course I'm just speaking as a layperson here.

[peerpee]

If Kino were working from a non-anamorphic Digibeta, it's possible to fake the anamorphic DVD encode. I've done this once, with excellent results, on an MoC disc - and I advised another British label on how to do this for one of their releases and the results were sweet -- (both films had wider aspect ratios than LOREN CASS).

[Tommaso]

Interesting; if I have seen that disc, I haven't noticed for sure. But apart from avoiding customer complaints, there couldn't have been any improvement in actual picture quality over a non-anamorphic transfer in such a faked anamorphic image, or am I wrong there?

[peerpee]

It's mildly complicated to explain, I could do it with diagrams a bit more easily. I'd say that, everything considered, you don't gain any resolution improvements -- but what you do gain is i.) correct subtitle placement for 16x9 (most important for films not in English) and ii.) obvious benefits from not having to use your TV to zoom in on the non-anamorphic image to fill the screen (which is usually a pointless exercise anyway if you're relying on subtitles which are badly placed for 4x3 letterbox display).

[Tommaso]

Yes, a good point with the subs, though I don't care about zooming in the case of letterboxed discs; although of course I prefer anamorphic transfers, zooming in at least lets you avoid overscan if you can do it seamlessly. You did a great job with the placement of the subs on your non-anamorphic "Nuits rouges" disc, by the way. Thanks for that!

[ivy jo hunter]

Fallen Angels blu-ray is coming March 16 per Amazon.

So it looks like Fallen Angels will be out soonishly, but why not the more critically and probably higher money maker Happy Together? Could that perchance mean that someone who picked up Chunking Express is going to release it? Does anybody know?

Fallen Angels blu-ray is coming March 16 per Amazon.

So it looks like Fallen Angels will be out soonishly, but why not the more critically and probably higher money maker Happy Together? Could that perchance mean that someone who picked up Chunking Express is going to release it? Does anybody know?

I just got an email from "Michael" over at Kino in my a response to my question, when is the blu-ray of "Happy Together" coming out? I was expecting something different from this:

"Happy Together preorder date is 5/4/10."

[Cinephrenic]

It's up on Blu-ray.com.

[What A Disgrace]

According to Classicflix, Battleship Potemkin is coming to Blu-ray on April 20.

[Jonathan S]

According to Classicflix, Battleship Potemkin is coming to Blu-ray on April 20.

That will be interesting technically, as I believe it will be the first proper Blu-ray release to address the problems of transferring a silent running less than 24fps.

[jbaart]

According to Classicflix, Battleship Potemkin is coming to Blu-ray on April 20.

That will be interesting technically, as I believe it will be the first proper Blu-ray release to address the problems of transferring a silent running less than 24fps.

There's a swedish Blu-ray of the film but I'm not sure how they handled it. Also, MoC said they have solved the problem somewhere on this forum.

[Jonathan S]

Also, MoC said they have solved the problem somewhere on this forum.

Well, not quite - when I asked less than a fortnight ago,

We've been doing lots of tests. It's looking promising.

Has anyone seen the Swedish release?

[perkizitore]

The Swedish release is only 9GB, so pass. It has better contrast and enhanced sharpness than the current Kino release, but it's nothing spectacular.

[jbaart]

Also, MoC said they have solved the problem somewhere on this forum.

Well, not quite - when I asked less than a fortnight ago,

We've been doing lots of tests. It's looking promising.

Has anyone seen the Swedish release?

You're right, my memory tricked me there, my apologies.

[Jonathan S]

The Swedish release is only 9GB, so pass. It has better contrast and enhanced sharpness than the current Kino release, but it's nothing spectacular.

Thanks. Is there any evidence from the disc that the Swedes have not really solved the frame rate issue? That's what really interests me, more than this particular film. This issue was such a bugbear for decades in projecting (at non-specialist venues) and televising non-24fps silents that I'd hate to make even the tiniest retrograde step towards the jerky or blurred motion compromises of yesteryear in order to have them on Blu-ray. Not that many DVDs are perfect in this regard, the problem sometimes even being compounded by NTSC/PAL conversion issues.

[perkizitore]

Sorry, i don't own the disc myself, i just have seen screengrabs and i made the assumptions above using my rather limited technical knowledge.

[onedimension]

Has anyone seen Suzuki's 'Taisho' trilogy? It sounds great, but it also sounds like the films could use improved transfers, like Kino did with The General, Fallen Angels..

[nsps]

What's Potemkin's framerate? 18?

As I mentioned in the Mabuse box thread, it seems like 20fps should be easy to do in 60p without worrying about interlacing, but obviously other framerates are trickier.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

...but keep in mind that 60p requires going down to 1280x720. Blu-ray doesn't support 1080p60.

[aox]

Has there been any word if Come and See will get a Blu treatment any time soon?

[Ashirg]

I doubt unless Ruscico starts releasing blu-rays.

[nsps]

...but keep in mind that 60p requires going down to 1280x720. Blu-ray doesn't support 1080p60.

Oh—didn't realize that. Actually, looking at the specs not sure it does 60p at all—I thought it did for HD video productions and all that.