Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

[Tommaso]

As someone who has an older French dvd release (with fansubs added) and who has seen the film more than once on TV in the 1980s and 90s, allow me to say that this colour scheme - if it's on the actual release and not just on this trailer -appears to be even more appallingly wrong than what was done to "The Tree of Wooden Clogs" in Criterion's release. Truly awful and a travesty of Rivette's and Levant's extremely careful and beautiful camerawork.

[jsteffe]

Someone who just came back from the Bologna festival told me that L'Immagine Ritrovata fixed their LUT problem in 2016, so newer restorations shouldn't be affected by the same teal/yellow push that marred their work on THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES and A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. But after seeing this Rivette trailer I remain skeptical until I see clear evidence otherwise.

[tenia]

I'd be wary of that claim for 2 reasons :
- Ritrovata's main LUT issue is their "yellow bias + milky blacks" look. Getting rid of that would get issue of, to me, only one of the current grading issues, the other being the standardised colder metallic blue look some movies have, though this look more often come from Eclair than Ritrovata.
- the 2016 cut-off about fixing their LUTs : the Bruce Lee movies were restored in 2016, like Legend of the Mountain. All 5 have the usual yellow Ritrovata look, just like their 2013 and 15 restorations (namely : Dargon Inn and A Better Tomorrow). Gli specialisti was restored in 2017, and while it isn't the blanket Ritrovata grading, you can still see it pour through some sequences (interior ones mostly). I can't find many other 2017 restorations they've performed to be sure.

This being said, if they "fixed" it, at least it'd mean they're aware of having something to improve and actively working on it, so that's positive !

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

The trailer for La Religieuse looks way too "tealy" to me. Granted it has been a few years since I saw an actual print, but that's not the way I remember It.

That looks just awful! It's bad teal on the level of Criterion's The Color of Pomegranates or Kino's Je T'aime Je T'aime.

Are these technological workflow problems or conscious decisions?

[tenia]

My understanding is that both standardised gradings are conscious decisions from the concerned laboratories.
The most popular theory is that Ritrovata have a Print Film Emulation LUT to try and get the end result to look like a theatrical projection of the films back then. In other words, they're willingly trying to emulate the look of a release print. The issue is that this doesn't seem to suit the fact they're doing this digitally from the OCN, making the end result incorrect. The other issue is that these movies now all look like they were shot with the same photography in mind, bearing more the laboratory signature than having the look of their DoP, film stock and lighting material, which seems crazy to me. I understand trying to give these movies a certain look, but surely, this shouldn't mean they all look similar in the end, no ?

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

My understanding is that both standardised gradings are conscious decisions from the concerned laboratories.
The most popular theory is that Ritrovata have a Print Film Emulation LUT to try and get the end result to look like a theatrical projection of the films back then. In other words, they're willingly trying to emulate the look of a release print. The issue is that this doesn't seem to suit the fact they're doing this digitally from the OCN, making the end result incorrect. The other issue is that these movies now all look like they were shot with the same photography in mind, bearing more the laboratory signature than having the look of their DoP, film stock and lighting material, which seems crazy to me. I understand trying to give these movies a certain look, but surely, this shouldn't mean they all look similar in the end, no ?

Makes perfect sense to me. At the labs why can't they see the problem and then fix it when the problem is so obvious to all?

When I use EpsonScan on my computer to scan in old color photographs, there is a "color restoration" option. When that box is selected it immediately turns the image icy blue and/or teal. It is so obvious to me, that I use the color restoration feature exactly zero percent of the time! Why are these lab professionals no seeing that their work is incorrect? It's quite confounding and has been going on for several years. Maybe this issue will never get fixed.

[tenia]

Without wanting to point fingers more precisely to some lab people, who remains nevertheless professionals, and should thus have reasons behind that, this might be to me the biggest question.

As I wrote many times, I'm not so much bothered byt the end result than the general standardisation of this result on so many movies that have never been said to have similar photographies. Out of any lack of references, or difficulties over doing the color corrections right (which is admittedly the most challenging part of a restoration due to the sum of possibilities), someone there should have wondered if giving the same general absolute look to all these movies was correct. And I mean, I have about 30 to 40 movies which now have the same kind of color tendencies. This is a lot.

I'm also particularly curious about how their outside references (directors, DoPs, etc) yet didn't prevent that, though James' observations on The Colour of Pomegranates and Camera Obscura's experience with them leads to me to believe they might have showed these people something that wasn't the very final result.

[nitin]

Well if the particular LUTs are applied after the restoration is otherwise complete, that would explain a lot of approvals that have been given by directors/DoPs etc to masters that have led to questionable blu ray releases.

[jsteffe]

My understanding is that both standardised gradings are conscious decisions from the concerned laboratories.
The most popular theory is that Ritrovata have a Print Film Emulation LUT to try and get the end result to look like a theatrical projection of the films back then. In other words, they're willingly trying to emulate the look of a release print. The issue is that this doesn't seem to suit the fact they're doing this digitally from the OCN, making the end result incorrect. The other issue is that these movies now all look like they were shot with the same photography in mind, bearing more the laboratory signature than having the look of their DoP, film stock and lighting material, which seems crazy to me. I understand trying to give these movies a certain look, but surely, this shouldn't mean they all look similar in the end, no ?

Tenia, that's essentially what I heard, too. In fact, if you look at the Pomegranates restoration with video scopes, the gain on the blue channel is reduced across the board and the entire channel is offset downward compared to the green and red. So it is more of a yellow push in general, but depending on the contents of specific shots green or teal may pop out.

The end result is that the look of the film (as I have seen it projected multiple times with different prints in different venues) is not successfully translated into an all digital environment. And it was only intended for screening on DCP.

In any case, I will wait to see how the Rivette actually turned out.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[senseabove]

I just saw a DCP of Backer's Falbalas with a StudioCanal intro (despite the listed source in the online program notes being Rialto...). Has there been any noise about it getting a release, since there was a string of other Becker releases from StudioCanal recently? I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

The DCP I saw needed some love—aside from jittering, dirt, scratches, and other flecks, for the second half of the movie, the frames before and after every cut jumped to the right and down respectively. I'm not the most knowledgeable about these things, but I swear the screening was originally listed as 35mm, so I wonder if the print fell through and, unable to find another, they screened the only source they could find: an unrestored DCP that StudioCanal is still working on for release?

[L.A.]

It seems the French Blu of Clouzot’s Quai des Orfèvres is no longer available(?). Some online stores still have it though like Fnac and Cultura but the shipping is quite high. Is there perhaps a third alternative that ships overseas and has decent shipping?

[domino harvey]

Why not just buy the UK Bluray?

[L.A.]

That is plan B. I would like the French one though.

[Werewolf by Night]

They are literally the same disc. When you put it in your player, you're given the option of French or English menus.

[Drucker]

Deer Hunter looks good in new edition

[domino harvey]

StudioCanal's new "restored" Producers Blu-ray gets soaked in piss-- one guess who did the resto

[tenia]

I was waiting for some post-2017 restorations to see if Ritrovata indeed fixed their gradings, as heard by a member, but clearly they didn't.
Incidentally, I quickly went through Youssef Chahine's Adieu Bonaparte yesterday, and Eclair's gradings are getting quite easy to spot too.

EDIT : my bad, it's actually Eclair, so there is still a chance Ritrovata worked on their gradings.

[Apperson]

StudioCanal's new "restored" Producers Blu-ray gets soaked in piss-- one guess who did the resto

Don't forget the hideous macro-blocking as seen on the gown in the first screencap.

[tenia]

I don't want to defend this specific point, but I'm not too bother with macro-blocking in this kind of places. Unlike in Beauty and the Beast, this is likely to be difficult to spot in motion (more like Pan's Labyrinth).

However, it still tackls the question : how can a 90 minute catalogue movie without a crapload of soundtracks or heavily spatialized tracks can end up with only a 24 Mbps despite using a BD-50 ?

[jsteffe]

StudioCanal's new "restored" Producers Blu-ray gets soaked in piss-- one guess who did the resto

Yep, it had to be either Éclair or Ritrovata, and this time it's...

[tenia]

I was thus wrong in thinking that's Ritrovata, though there isn't much to rejoice about this mistake.

[jsteffe]

I was thus wrong in thinking that's Ritrovata, though there isn't much to rejoice about this mistake.

Sadly, it means that twice as many color restorations will continue getting the super-yellow treatment.

[movielocke]

I started fords young Cassidy yesterday on filmstruck and it has a definite yellow look to it.

[Finch]

Hopefully they won't have fucked up the new Marienbad.

[hearthesilence]

Hopefully they won't have fucked up the new Marienbad.

Man would that be a massive fuck up - "we decided to present this in black and urine amber, just as Resnais no doubt would have wanted it to look."