Story on the restoration of the Indiana Jones / Raiders trilogy

http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry

A good read.

Sounds like this was digitally scrubbed to be squeeky clean.

 

Don't have time to read the article at the moment, but there was a recent piece in some magazine I was reading, where it was mentioned the glass reflection clearly seen when Indy is thrown into a vault and meets up with asps, was digitally removed so you could no longer see that subtle reflection that gave away that essential partition between actor and serpents.

All I could think was: pity. And: going too far. It wasn't that big a deal.

I also keep thinking of my T2 remaster(with the metal cover, not the latest one), where the guide lines for the stuntman could still be seen when he jumped off the oil truck. Haven't read a thing about that one, but I fear somebody, finally, decided those lines would have to be CGI'd out, too.

One of the joys of film isn't just the story, actors, action: little things, subtle and not so subtle, bring their own joys. The flubs do, too: that glass reflection was special, because there was no other way, at the time, to film it without it seeming 'real'....and on the laserdisc/VHS editions, it can still be seen.

That scene, after I knew the truth(didn't see it in the theater when the movie was first released), made me smile. Still does.

Perhaps this is a lot like certain audio remasterings, where things just go too far and, upon refinement to 'perfection,' something very human and essential has been lost.


ED

 

Yes, a good story to read through. Thanks, HZ. I am still amazed at how good some of these old films appear on DVD. Even something like It's A Wonderful Life, which has been in the PD for so long, looks better than ever because someone took the time to do it right.

 

Good link HZ.

What I can't figure out is these guys obviously spent hours upon hours to give us a beautiful version of these movies, yet somehow added distracting edge enhancement on lots of scenes. Not as bad a Star Wars Ep.I, but there's no excuse for any of it!

EE probably helps it look better on a 32" TV, but on a calibrated bigscreen or projection system it sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

They're clearly releasing DVDs for the 95% of the movie-buying public..."enhancing" them to look good on the majority of $200 27" TVs out there that probably get nothing more than a tweak of the brightness control in their lifetimes. There's more of an "oooh, aaah" effect if they make the picture jump out of a cheaper TV.

Star Wars Ep. 1 didn't bother me at all...I've watched it only twice.

 

Add to that the criminal overruse of sharpness controls. Blech!

 

You know, I never put the audio restoration world and the film restoration folks in the same thought before, but you comment rings true Steve.

These people (in both industries) act like they're doing history and the general public a huge favor by doing all this digital trickery but blow the whole deal with edge-enhancement

I don't even mind that they clean up scratches, dirt, tears and erase guidewires, it's when they add the artificial sharpness it makes me wonder while I spent the time and $$ to have the "right" DVD player, the "right" HDTV (professionally calibrated) when it's not gonna look natural.

 

My sharpness control is turned all the way down after doing tests with the Video Essentials DVD. I've gotten so used to watching things this way that all of my friends TV's look wrong to me.

 

Well, aren't Lucas and Speilberg both known as some of the worst offenders in recreating history by fudging with their films? Put the two of them together and look out vaults!

 

At least Spielberg is guilty to a lesser degree. He had Universal add the original theatrical version of E.T. on the mid-priced DVD (based on public outcry more than his own charity, of course) and not just on the high-priced boxed set.

At least it's the original up to the first VHS home video release - there's something about a costume looking like a "terrorist" line during the Halloween scenes that was supposedly re-dubbed to say something else, and that was back in the late 80's.

Some are hoping beyond hope that he can convince Lucas to at least make the original Star Wars Trilogy available on DVD in the same way.

As for Indy, if I want to see the snake's reflection and less edginess, I can always pop in the widescreen laserdisc, which I'm not getting rid of just because I have the DVDs now. And, I don't recall any running "blue scratch line" along the first part of Raiders that they talk about.

Joel

 

Lots of laserdiscs are rife with EE. I don't recall how the Indy LDs looked, but there's no way they're even remotely going to compare with the DVDs. I thought the EE was very minor on them, and everything else was so good the EE became even less of an issue.

And don't look to Criterion for EE-free DVDs - I've seen signs of EE on many of their releases...

 

I agree. I just saw TOD last night and have seen all three now. EE is very minor and unless you specifically look for it, should not be an issue.

 

Wow... a lot of Macs!

 

Finally! Got the chance to read through the entire link Jeff posted. Very educational, even if you've seen the specials AMC and TCM have done concerning film restoration. Very expensive, painstaking process, to be sure.

I guess the real challenge is this: how far does one go with 'restoring' anything? Whether it's film, sound, or the Sistine Chapel, it's just about impossible to get the experts to agree on what is right or wrong....mainly because nobody really knows! Since nobody who witnessed the Chapel's art being shown for the first time is alive today, we can't even begin to be sure how accurate the restoration is, regardless of what the restorers would have us believe. And so it is with cinema: we can usually guess in the ballpark as to how a certain film should look, but unless we saw a clean print, under optimum conditions, the day of release, can we know for sure how it should look? And as we all know, viewing a film on TV is hardly the same experience as a big screen, no matter what restoration is involved.


Furthermore, with the Indy films, we're not dealing with the same degree of inherent grain one would find on older film stock, so....is the image too clean even before such things as glass reflectiions, dirt on the negative, and lines through frames, are dealt with? Who knows for sure?

The issue of EE is a different thing entirely, but if it is being used--even by Criterion on some of their old laserdisc transfers--the question then becomes, is it really that necessary? I think we'd all agree that dirt, fade, scratches and tears on film stock are more important as problems than inherent film grain or even the sharpness of the image itself. If a film has degraded to where fade is obvious, logically, it would make sense to sharpen it a little, to regain some of what was lost. Bug again, how far do you go, and how far is too far?


Steve correctly hinted at the similiarities between restoring film and what is currently, too often, being done to remaster sound. I suppose the real question for people doing his kind of work is, just because you have the ability to make something squeaky clean and 'perfect,' should it have to be perfect, and should that be the goal when remastering anything? A real conundrum, a dilemma with no pat solution....although if anyone has one, we'd all be willing to listen!


ED

 

You can cheat your eyes, but not your hearing. Restoring movies is a completely different thing in comparison against remastering (IMO).

 

A good point, Claus, but I think what I was getting at was the attitudes behind visual cinematic restoration and modern audio restoration are disturbingly similar: that is, clean it all up to within an inch of its life(so to speak)which, oddly enough, may result in the opposite from what was intended: to render what we remember to be somehow unnatural, too refined, too many flaws taken away in the name of someone's arbitrary view of what is 'perfect.' This is also true of movie soundtracks, come to think of it: some older films now sound 'too clean,' since we're used to hearing some inherent noise on older soundtracks, that noise being part of the movie experience. Similarly, certain audio anomalies--think "Day Tripper" or Aaron Neville's "Over You"--have inherent board noise(or a board mistake)that can be fixed through restoration but, then, do we have a better remastering for removing what are, in the end, mild flaws?


Gotta admit, the Indian Jones films look pretty darn good but then, I never remembered them looking bad on laserdisc(glad I kept those!), so what was the point in removing the glass reflection? Dirt, tears, speckling, fading, and other celluloid nasties, one can understand wanting to remove; I'm just not sure about the necessity of the rest of it, including remixing the multi-channel audio tracks, or cleaning up the sound on what's going to be a tinny mono track anyway. If I want to fatten up the sound of CITY LIGHTS--a virtually impossible task anyway--I can do that myself without somebody's else's help, just as I can reduce a little EE by adjusting my TV. Again, the question is: how much is too much fiddling? Steve, over the years, has proven, with audio restoration and mastering, he knows where to draw the line, as do some others out there; but, as we also know to our chagrin, others do not, and use the upgraded tools of the trade to make things worse, not better. Restoration for DVD video and audio seem to be moving in that same, depressing direction....


ED

 

@Ed

movie restorations are digital tricks... nothing else! When I watch a movie... sometimes I can't tell if it's real or a trick. Our eyes can follow the pics... that's a physical sequence. For example... Matrix's motorcycle stunt (Reloaded)... a very good stunt, but not good enough! Impossible to ride a bike without a crash! So I did know this is a trick when I saw the movie the first time.
Movie restoration is the same for me... but restoration of very old records from the 30's, 40's is not possible without loss of quality (IMO). Nearly all digital music restoration studios use NR (or whatever...) and that's (probably) the only way.

 

Thanks for posting that Jeff. It's amazing what can be done in the realm of film restoration, and they did do a great job with the Indiana Jones movies without making them look "artificially clean". The best case of them over doing it was the 2001 release of "Lawrence Of Arabia" on DVD. Not only were the colors slightly off, but they actually removed the film grain during the telecine transfer. Fortunately the superbit DVD corrects all this and looks and also sounds fantastic.

 

Misused when I related it to audio or video?

 

I think one of the worst offenders of very bad "audio restoration" on a DVD (that I can recall) is 'Paths of Glory.' That soundtrack was so manipulated in removing hiss, etc. that everything sounds harsh and badly digitized (how else can I explain it). This is a title I hope Criterion one day can release on DVD.

 

Thanks, Jeff. Fascinating article.