Interpositives and Intermediates vs. Negatives

[Maltic]

Boogie Nights (Warner) - caps by dessie. IP scan, filmic grading and seemingly no encode issues.

Watched this and thought it was pretty doggone enjoyable, but yeah, this is going to be the most controversial UHD of the year. Unlike Punch-Drunk Love which was also an IP scan (but looks immaculately great), this film has a very blown out and intensely celluloid look, complete with tons of grain, and I could see someone (incorrectly, mind!) arguing that it's a step down from the heavily sharpened blu-ray. I didn't have much of a problem with it, although seeing it look like a crispy OCN remaster might have also been just as nice.

Why did they use an IP and not the OCN for those two?

[tenia]

I suppose it's PTA's will to get these masters from IPs.

[nicolas]

Watched this and thought it was pretty doggone enjoyable, but yeah, this is going to be the most controversial UHD of the year. Unlike Punch-Drunk Love which was also an IP scan (but looks immaculately great), this film has a very blown out and intensely celluloid look, complete with tons of grain, and I could see someone (incorrectly, mind!) arguing that it's a step down from the heavily sharpened blu-ray. I didn't have much of a problem with it, although seeing it look like a crispy OCN remaster might have also been just as nice.

Even more controversial than the Nosferatu disaster?

With Boogie Nights, I expected an IP transfer from the get-go. This just seems to be PTA’s preference for his earlier films as the IPs got his original timing baked in. As you said, a OCN remaster would’ve been a dream but it wouldn’t have been a guaranteed success in Warner’s hands due to some of their colorists’ preference for bright HDR, neutralized, magenta-leaning grades and grain management. With that in mind, I happily take the IP master and am very much looking forward to it.

[mfunk9786]

Just think this will have more global eyeballs on it than BFI's Nosferatu, and people will likely not expect this to look like a Mélusine release (despite it being extremely appropriate for it to look like one). If something as gorgeous and lovingly executed as the Eyes Wide Shut Criterion release was going viral for not looking how people wanted, this definitely has the potential to do the same.

[Fus1on]

I also don't really see how Boogie Nights would be that controversial. Eyes Wide Shut was only controversial because it looked *radically* different from every other home release of the film. People online genuinely thought it was a result of Criterion creating their own revisionist transfer, and not because they worked with the original DP to make a faithful restoration of the original version as envisioned by him and Kubrick.

And, for what it's worth as well, I actually would say the Kill Bill UHDs are the most controversial of the year by a landslide for me. At least with BFI's Nosferatu, everyone generally agreed that it was very bad. I don't think I've seen a more polarized reaction to a UHD release quite like the one Kill Bill provoked.

[rrenault]

What's with celluloid purists like Nolan and PTA insisting home video releases of their films be IP rather than OCN-sourced? My suspicion is they want their films to have that "movie" feel and not look like 'raw negatives'. I'm not sure though.

[mfunk9786]

And, for what it's worth as well, I actually would say the Kill Bill UHDs are the most controversial of the year by a landslide for me. At least with BFI's Nosferatu, everyone generally agreed that it was very bad. I don't think I've seen a more polarized reaction to a UHD release quite like the one Kill Bill provoked.

What was the controversy - people not realizing that Tarantino used a 2K DI and then finding out that he did?

[CSM126]

What's with celluloid purists like Nolan and PTA insisting home video releases of their films be IP rather than OCN-sourced? My suspicion is they want their films to have that "movie" feel and not look like 'raw negatives'. I'm not sure though.

You’re right. They like the home video presentation to look as much like a theatrical print as possible (minus the due blips and damage marks of course).

[Fus1on]

What was the controversy - people not realizing that Tarantino used a 2K DI and then finding out that he did?

It was partially that, but it was mostly the grain smear, which was present on earlier BD releases, but was only exacerbated with the upscale to 4K resolution. Most people seemed to mistake it as added sharpening/DNR from Lionsgate, when these issues were already present as a result of the way these films were handled in post-production.

Honestly, look at any forum for this release, and most of the comments are either mixed to negative, with some outliers (including this thread) that are more positive on it. I even remember Geoff D on the Blu-ray.com forums saying the UHDs were the best versions of the films, meanwhile everyone else on that thread would have you believe it was on the same level as T2 or True Lies.

[andyli]

I just think if there's one Hollywood film from the early DI era that deserves a full 4K rebuild from film negatives, it's this one. With Tarantino's clout and money, the film's prestige and fanbase, THBA can serve as a perfect opportunity to roll out a 4K version that couldn't have been done due to technical limitations back in the days, not to replace current editions though, only to supplement and entertain. If the French can do it with a comedy favorite, why cannot Hollywood with arguably one of the most popular films of the decade?

[nicolas]

I just think if there's one Hollywood film from the early DI era that deserves a full 4K rebuild from film negatives, it's this one. With Tarantino's clout and money, the film's prestige and fanbase, THBA can serve as a perfect opportunity to roll out a 4K version that couldn't have been done due to technical limitations back in the days, not to replace current editions though, only to supplement and entertain. If the French can do it with a comedy favorite, why cannot Hollywood with arguably one of the most popular films of the decade?

Tarantino owns the films now, so he’d have to pay for the rebuild in the first place. He licensed the films to Lionsgate in the US and either him or LG didn’t want to spend the amount it costs. Jackie Brown is the same situation but that film has a cut negative and is much cheaper to restore.

Another reason is that Tarantino doesn’t care about Blu-ray, let alone 4K disc releases.

[andyli]

Yeah to the last sentence, but the 70mm showing would be better served.

As for Jackie Brown, it might have some sequence using DI as a post-production tool but I doubt a film in 1997 was finished in DI.

[nicolas]

Yeah to the last sentence, but the 70mm showing would be better served.

As for Jackie Brown, it might have some sequence using DI as a post-production tool but I doubt a film in 1997 was finished in DI.

If there are any VFX in the film, they’d have been printed to film and inserted into the cut negative without any DI.

[MichaelB]

Indeed. Or rather, the digital intermediate would have been on an individual-shot basis, with 35mm the ultimate medium.

Digital intermediates weren't used for entire feature-length films until O Brother, Where Art Thou? some three years after Jackie Brown—which is quite a handy cut-off date, as it means that if the film's a twentieth-century one, it will overwhelmingly have been photochemically based (with the occasional rendered-to-film digital insert in the case of 1990s films).

[Altair]

What's with celluloid purists like Nolan and PTA insisting home video releases of their films be IP rather than OCN-sourced? My suspicion is they want their films to have that "movie" feel and not look like 'raw negatives'. I'm not sure though.

You’re right. They like the home video presentation to look as much like a theatrical print as possible (minus the due blips and damage marks of course).

Isn't this what ideally all home video releases should look like? A digital recreation of the theatrical release? I'm actually heartened that 4k discs seem to be getting closer to that appearance.

[Zot!]

What's with celluloid purists like Nolan and PTA insisting home video releases of their films be IP rather than OCN-sourced? My suspicion is they want their films to have that "movie" feel and not look like 'raw negatives'. I'm not sure though.

You’re right. They like the home video presentation to look as much like a theatrical print as possible (minus the due blips and damage marks of course).

Isn't this what ideally all home video releases should look like? A digital recreation of the theatrical release? I'm actually heartened that 4k discs seem to be getting closer to that appearance.

Well and as somebody already said, if you go back to the OCN, you are losing the photochemical color grading and any other photochemical effects, which means you would have to try to recreate it digitally at cost and what's worse, compromise the original mojo. You can theoretically save one generation of transfer, but that generation is what made it to the screening prints at the time, thus it would not be best practice for anything that has a decent IP. For films that don't have a clean IP doing a digital rescue from the OCN is of course a wonderful possibility when done with care...which is to say - try to create what the IP looked like in the first place.

It's not just talk either, I saw the 70mm OBAA made from the VistaVision IP, and that print looked SO good on a huge screen....I'm sure it will also look great on a UHD.

[mfunk9786]

Wouldn't want Tarantino to touch a thing, nor would I want anyone else who used a 2K DI to go back and tinker. Ultimately, that is what it is and some films will upscale better than others that have unusual filmic looks. I still think that Kill Bill and Boogie Nights are great looking movies in their own right, just like there are great looking movies shot on early DV. It just is what it is.

[Altair]

Wouldn't want Tarantino to touch a thing, nor would I want anyone else who used a 2K DI to go back and tinker. Ultimately, that is what it is and some films will upscale better than others that have unusual filmic looks. I still think that Kill Bill and Boogie Nights are great looking movies in their own right, just like there are great looking movies shot on early DV. It just is what it is.

I agree - I'm a little baffled by these cries to go back and 'rebuild' a film so that it can be shown in 4k. If it was finished at 2k, then that is the film. We shouldn't be fetishising pixels at the expense of what the film was; the limitations are often part of its beauty. And no 'rebuild' will ever be immaculately faithful; something, somwhere, will be changed.

[andyli]

Wouldn't want Tarantino to touch a thing, nor would I want anyone else who used a 2K DI to go back and tinker. Ultimately, that is what it is and some films will upscale better than others that have unusual filmic looks. I still think that Kill Bill and Boogie Nights are great looking movies in their own right, just like there are great looking movies shot on early DV. It just is what it is.

I agree with this sentiment in principle. I only suggested that as a side project/curiosity if they have money to burn. Perhaps I misused the word 'deserve'.

And Altair - It's hardly a cry. A handful of experiments with rebuild do not really threaten or hurt the up-scaling model, which is the current standard anyway.

[nicolas]

I agree - I'm a little baffled by these cries to go back and 'rebuild' a film so that it can be shown in 4k. If it was finished at 2k, then that is the film. We shouldn't be fetishising pixels at the expense of what the film was; the limitations are often part of its beauty. And no 'rebuild' will ever be immaculately faithful; something, somwhere, will be changed.

If that’s the sentiment, you’re rejecting any kind of restoration as each new transfer is a risk of undermining a film’s “limitations” and what it previously was or how you’ve seen it back in the day, none of which is 100% fixated anyway. The vast majority of color grades happen without reference materials, so the colorist effectively decides the aesthetics of the film when it’s being adapted to a new format or medium. Old telecines are not representative of the films’ analogue origins, neither are most HD transfers but only in recent years with proper scanners, restoration and grading technology, we are much, much closer to what you’re describing. It’s still not exactly the same and will likely never be.

On an ethical standpoint, rebuilding a DI should be considered a much smaller issue as a color film from the 70s as there is a steadfast basis to work from and therefore less room for error or guesswork. I don’t see the issue at all. Why does this have to be a matter of “fetishizing pixels”?

[tenia]

There are 2 issues for me with this :
- using IPs instead of OCNs was the norm for the HD masters of the DVD era. It didn't prevent a crap ton of issues, including color grading issues. Most of these masters are considered vastly obsolete now because they're all magenta, and often sharpened to death and/or DNRed. The point being : the source is one thing, but switching back from OCNs to IPs wouldn't prevent debatable decisions to be taken.
- multiple projects have taken the opportunity of getting back to the OCNs to redo : fades, dissolves, opticals, composite shots, opening credits (for this last one, I'll only consider compositing digitally the original text with the textless picture, not redoing digitally the credits' text, as this often creates small differences)... How many of these cases were ranted against as not being "the movie" anymore ? How many restorations don't have generational losses at each fades because they were recreated digitally from the negatives' scans, and how many of these were welcomed by "they should have kept the lesser fades" ? I can't think of any. On the other hand, have people ranted against Mission Cléopatre and Le pacte des loups' huge projects of going back to the OCNs and pretty much re-doing all of their post-productions instead of simply upscaling what was digitally post-produced ? I don't recall this being the consensus either.

I don't mind the discussion, it's a very interesting one, and the one about IP vs OCN is one I already had multiple times. But this remains to be consistant with the reception given to each case, and the fact is that currently, nobody is yelling against redoing digitally things because the OCNs were scanned and we can avoid the generational losses, but it's rather the opposite.

[Zot!]

I agree - I'm a little baffled by these cries to go back and 'rebuild' a film so that it can be shown in 4k. If it was finished at 2k, then that is the film. We shouldn't be fetishising pixels at the expense of what the film was; the limitations are often part of its beauty. And no 'rebuild' will ever be immaculately faithful; something, somwhere, will be changed.

For 2k DI's I think most people are just having a bit of frustration that filmmaking had moved into "planned obsolescence" mode, after basically keeping the same workflow for a century. It's still a stupid thing where they jumped the gun before it was truly good enough to support a 35mm production without compromise. It doesn't help that it was an era where they were still making "modern auteur classics" that seem to still hold sway like Wes Anderson, Tarantino, Haneke, that people associate with classicism. But I agree it's best to just accept it and make do.

As combative as I am about many technical considerations, I am basically happy about the current state of most transfers... as Tenia has mentioned they are lightyears away from the DVD era I don't think we would even have 4K UHD as a format if not for the home theater geeks, so we have to play along. I am pragmatic and am happy to view OCN restorations, IP's, whatever....my bugaboos (which I assume are typical), pretty much fall into, 1.crap encodes 2. willfully or through negligence straying from the original intent (the WKW model) 2. artificial enhancements (excessive sharpening, DNR, etc...)

[andyli]

To be fair, this happens to almost all technological advances in the film industry: the sound revolution, anamorphic widescreen, etc. People seem to fall for convenience over quality every fucking time and give too much credit to anything newly invented without checking properly.

[MichaelB]

Another practical reason for using an IP instead of the OCN is that there may be physical issues with the OCN.

Take Jan Švankmajer’s Alice, where we had access to both, and naturally favoured the OCN, but it became very clear very quickly that the cement splices were extremely brittle and fragile—and, given Švankmajer’s editing style, there were a lot of them!

So we went for the IP instead, which was much safer, and which also had the original grading baked in, which helped keep the budget down, too. And the resulting Blu-ray received pretty much universal praise, so clearly nobody minded.

[tenia]

The industry used to rely on IP for restorations/remasters in the past. It has however progressively switched to OCN, I suppose technology allowed to handle them more safely than they could have been. It might be that now, Alice's OCN would be used, even despite the countless splices.