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Author Topic: Interesting topic on film grain
Stuart Fyvie
Film Handler

Posts: 90
From: Amersham
Registered: Jun 2003


 - posted June 26, 2008 03:08 AM      Profile for Stuart Fyvie   Email Stuart Fyvie   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Check out this discussion over at the 'digital
bits' regarding film grain.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris062408.html

Stuart

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Steven J Kirk
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 873
From: Southern England
Registered: Apr 2008


 - posted June 26, 2008 12:29 PM      Profile for Steven J Kirk   Email Steven J Kirk   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
That's very interesting. A lot is not a suprise, unfortunately. As I see more blu-ray myself I shall be thinking about this issue.

--------------------
VistaVision
Motion Picture High-Fidelity

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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006


 - posted June 26, 2008 12:35 PM      Profile for Claus Harding   Email Claus Harding   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
A good insightful piece on a troubling development.

This is a classic case of how an argument can be completely stood on its head because the people doing the criticizing have no background in that which they criticize.

To think that the very thing that makes Blu-Ray superior is being undermined by a generation of TV and Game-raised kids is quite galling, not to mention the terrible injustice it does to the great film works.

As Gordon Willis put it so well: "The film has already been made."
Restoration certainly has its place, and can be very useful, but in this context, the tools are in the wrong hands.

The way they are mauling the films reminds me of how in many instances older audio recordings have been quite compromised as noise has been removed (tape hiss and such.) And why? because "people today" want silence, like a digital recording.

You couple this attitude with a certain smugness about how "all that old stuff sounds/looks so much better", implying that the works were not well made in the first place, and what you end up with is a classic case of:
The operation was successful, but the patient died.

One hopes there will be enough of a backlash that this trend can be stopped before too many of the great films are irrevocably released in 'improved' form.

Best,
Claus.

--------------------
"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)

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Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005


 - posted June 26, 2008 07:19 PM      Profile for Osi Osgood   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I heartfully agree.

What amazes me is how a number of executives out there, who should know better , (well we ARE talking about executives),
are actually cow towing (I know that's not how it's spelled) to know it all brainiacs who really know little or nothing about film.

... and yet, even with a beautiful print of "My Name is Nobody" on disc, I still would rather watch it on my Super 8 scope print, scratches, grain and all!

LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!

--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "

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Bill Brandenstein
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1632
From: California
Registered: Aug 2007


 - posted June 27, 2008 04:53 PM      Profile for Bill Brandenstein   Email Bill Brandenstein   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
While I share your concern about "authenticity," please bear in mind that digital noise reduction, when done correctly, uses wonderful mathematical algorithms that work to isolate random noise elements from the non-random elements. In other words, the picture sharpness and integrity remains untouched in the hands of the right engineer with the right tools. But when focus blurring or temporal smoothing (where subsequent frames are analyzed and averaged) or any other unsophisticated method gets used, the integrity of the original picture is lost.

Having seen the original Star Wars in 1977 both in 35mm and 70mm, and then the re-releases in the 1990s, it is obvious to me that a great deal of grain reduction was used for the latter. For that matter, I remember seeing occasional dinner-plate-sized grain in an old VHS pan-and-scan version of the original version. None of that in the reissue. And I would argue, for all of George Lucas's dangerous tendency towards technological "early adoption," that it didn't hurt the filmish look or feel of the original Star Wars. Feel free to disagree. But he also must have used really great technology.

On the other hand, in recent years I got to see a "restored" version of "Roman Holiday" on the big screen, and didn't realize it had been restored until partway through. By then I was noticing a sizable increase in grain on "high motion" areas of the image. This is invariably the artifact of the temporal smoothing approach, which obviously can't smooth the image when the motion is too great for the averaging process.

Well, consider me a moderate. I don't have a problem with film grain or tape hiss being modestly reduced if it's impossible to perceive that it's been tampered with. And ultimately, that's the problem with the Patton disc: it's VERY perceivable. Whether the image has soft focus, or faces have a waxy look, that's just unacceptable.

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