Escape from New York US release! - Page 11

Ghostbusters was remastered for DVD in 2005, and that DVD had severely blown-out contrasts and oversaturated colors. Just because the movie was remastered a few years ago doesn't necessarily mean that the remaster was correct or can be used as a reference.

The 2004 SE and 2000 flipper disc transfers were identical. I can still remember how ripped off I felt...

I finally had the chance to check out this disc for myself on my Panny PT-AE1000 projector, and it plays much better (in terms of brightness) than the screencaps may indicate.

According to the waveform monitor built into the projector, the whites of the opening titles and any kind of helicopter lights/jeep headlights are all maxed out correctly at 100 IRE, so there's no problem with the white levels. The blacks have full detail but are brought down very low, as everyone can tell by looking at the caps.... however, the fact that the whites are correct means that a simple "brightness" boost doesn't work; this brings the whites too high.

My personal solution is to raise brightness on my particular projector by 3, and then lower contrast by 2. This brings the shadow detail up to a level my eyes are used to (for this film) and yet keeps the whites at the 100 IRE line.

The transfer looks pretty freakin' good; I'm satisfied.

Mr. D, thanks for this rather in-depth theory. It certainly makes much more sense than someone scanning the negative properly and then dropping the gamma and color saturation intentionally... I just can't picture anyone, professional colorist or not, looking at the black-hole shots that have been uploaded to DVDBeaver or Blu-ray.com and saying "That looks fine, we're done here".

Josh Z, I'll not argue that Escape looks fine from where you stand. Neither the DVD nor the HDTV transfers are perfect, and in terms of resolution, grain structure and color timing, the Blu-ray is indeed the best the film has ever looked. Still, without the bonus features from the 2004 SE DVD, the only thing this package offers is an audio and video presentation. If I feel like the latter is compromised, then what the heck am I paying MGM for?

I wonder why those screen caps here are so dark. I did not see any black crush while watching it the other night. Maybe screen caps are not a good way to judge a disc.

There isn't any screenshot that shows the US BD having "black crush".

What you probably are referring to is the darkened hue or whatever, and as many people have already said, it's not that big of a deal.

"Black crush" is a lingo that is reserved for something else, and we all know what that is.

Pretty much my impressions as well right down to the score.
On the one hand I'm thrilled to see a catalog title that I like get a good, unmolested release like this that is such a huge improvement over previous releases-and yet I have to admit that the PQ is just not very exciting in and of itself.

Never felt the film was inappropriately dark, or that any of the shadows were crushed.

The scene with Brain in the library threw me from the screencaps posted.
For one thing, that shot came out much brighter on my gear. In the cap, I couldn't figure out why the scene looked so dim, since Harry Dean Stanton is casting a crisply defined shadow onto the maps. That is indicative of a higher key light, yet it looks murky and dim. As it played out, it's morning or early afternoon and you do get a better sense on the actual Bd of daylight brightening up that set. Not as bright maybe as the boosted DVD cap, but appropriate.

I received my copy yesterday and watched it last night in a darkened room.

Remember, I'm the geezer who posted earlier that I had seen this movie theatrically on its first release, and remember it being very, very dark. I also watched the HDNet version earlier this year.

While the HDNet version was reminiscent of my memories of the theatre, the BD version was definitely the way I remember it. Take it how you will - perhaps my memory is flawed, and/or perhaps the theatre was not projecting it correctly - but BD is closest to how I remember seeing it.

The BD looks and sounds gorgeous. It reveals Cundey's beautiful cinematography, and the bass in the audio (those signature Carpenter synth drones!) was richer than I could have imagined, or than I remembered.

After thoroughly enjoying the experience, I was on a Carpenter kick, so I put in Starman. When I first bought it on its release, I thought it looked pretty good, and it still does. But comparing the Super 35 look of Starman (and with a different cinematographer) to the lovely anamorphic velvet of EFNY, it was a bit of a letdown.

Doug

Starman wasn't shot anamorphic?

Yes, it was. I'm pretty sure that all of Carpenter's films are shot with Panavision anamorphic lenses.

This kind of dark film shows my gamma-adjusted CRT projector to great advantage. I find the image quite pleasing (I love inky blacks). I don't have a reference for knowing how accurate it is, but nothing looks "wrong" to me.

Oops. IMDB confirms it. I stand corrected. Especially in contrast to EFNY, it didn't have that characteristic I associate with anamorphic lenses - slight curvature at the sides of the frame. Am I wrong in associating that with anamorphic?

Doug

The most overt clue that STARMAN is anamorphic is the glowing light form of the Starman as he first approaches Jenny's house over the lake. See the horizontal glare from the light ball that stretches from one end of the screen to the other? Blame/bless that on anamorphic lenses. Had it been Super35, the ball of light would have simply been a standard circular shape only (though in more recent years, those types of tell-tale camera effects are being added digitally in post, which murks up the "how was this filmed?" water substantially).

EFNY is his only film in where it's the most obvious he is using anamorphic lenses due to the abnormalities (which this film has the most of) aside from the fact of the frames looking all wide and anamorphic themselves. Abnormalities meaning just about every frame having light bending or detail blurring around the edges due to the low light conditions and the budget (and probably experience too).

Just about all of his other films you see these "abnormalities" more seldomly. However, anamorphic lenses are the fine case of having much greater "pros" than "cons". First, they simply just show you more of the setting/surrounding by how they bend the light (creating wider frames). Secondly, they simply make the movie look more on a "grander" scale rather then just using a standard 16:9 lens which is more amateurish IMO (what any camcorder will do). Third, and perhaps most importantly, they make empty sets look very full, which helps if you are a small budget (which John Carpenter is always).

If I was a filmmaker, I would put anamorphic lenses on a pedestal and jack it to them and forget about everything else. I would use nothing else, and John Carpenter has used nothing else either for his movies ever since AOP13 (don't think Dark Star used them). Anamorphic lenses are apart of his signature, along with his atmospheric soundtracks, creativity in script and in effects (no CGI), and suspense. If you like everything that I just said in the previous sentence, give Village of the Damned a try because it needs more love from people. It's his last old-school type film before he became ultra-lazy with EFLA, Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars.

The detail of the film looks much better than the screenshots suggests and yes the transfer is very solid. The black levels on the other hand are definitly a screw up. No way in hell was the film this dark in theaters! No Way in hell! My point is beyond easy to prove. If your display is properly calibrated when you push up the brightness level or better yet if your bluray player has a gamma correction and it is pushed up you will gain no extra picture information. You will just wash out the picture.

This is not the case at all with Escape from New York, turning the gamma control up reveals a plethora of visual information. Meaning the gamma settings on the bluray weren't set properly. The original camera negative can't film what it can't see. Meaning what the camera didn't capture due to lack of light won't show up on a disc of the film. A properly calibrated dispaly and bluray disc will capture all of the visual information and pushing the brightness or gamma correction up will simply wash out the picture. The gamma settings on the dvd are far superior and really the standard to set the bluray. Use the dvd and toggle back and forth to get and equal gamma level. It was +3 on my BDP-05FD. This is by far the darkest bluray I own.

Supposedly, the 2003 S.E. was taken form the original camera negative. I am surprised that being done in 2003 the new master was not in HD. Go to chapter 7 at 16:44 and increase the gamma correction and you will see what I mean about extra visual information literally coming to light. Again the camera can't capture what it can't see and if the bluray was mastered properly the picture would simply wash out. Pay particular attention to the budweiser sign.

That along with the lack of special features which MGM owns the rights to is pretty inexcusable for a bluray disc. I can't recommend it even though I love the movie. For those that own the 2003 S.E. you can make your own S.E. bluray by ditching the dvd copy putting the special features disc in the case instead and be ready to pump up the gamma correction on your bluray player and your set.

This doesn't mean anything. The whites will numerically be fine on video ( the waveform on the panny is not really a good tool to estimate this) Its the visual result of mapping way too much headroom into the visible video range that is the problem. You can create a transfer that looks like hell and still have it pass muster in terms of being "legal" or putting the peaks on a scope in the right place , doesn't tell you anything about the visual quality of the transfer.

The fact you still find it necessary to play with the picture controls says it all as far as I'm concerned.

I totally disagree thats its his most obvious "anamorphic" film , Starman, Christine even Big Trouble all look archetypically scope.

Anamorphic lenses usually result in softer images because of aberration internal flaring and the fact the lenses tend to be a couple of stops slower than spherical ones. This results in relatively shallow depth of field for the same light levels ( by virtue of having to open up the slower lens). This is mainly why they appear soft not because the lenses themselves are soft per se. Give them enough light and the images should appear quite sharp.

Anamorphic shoots use pretty much the entire academy film frame to generate the image (1828x1556 2k) , Super35 (spherical) uses a crop across the fullap film frame (2048x155 2k) and may or may not expose the entire fullap frame during shooting.

Dean Cundey is about as far away from an "amateur" as you can get.

Some Super35 films shoot 3 perf (2048x1156 at 2k) to save film stock. This is becoming more common from what I've seen.

Spherical lenses are not 16:9 as and of themselves , they are 1:1 (square pixel if you want to think of it digitally). Anamorphic is 2:1. Spherical lenses used in professional film production are as far away from a camcorder lens as the international space station is from a garden shed.

Given the disadvantage of shooting anamorphic for the somewhat limited improvement if film area usage given the possibility of resolution limitations I see hardly any films shot scope these days (I've worked on only about 3 scope films out of around 100 in my career so far).

I for one would not use anamorphic over Super35 unless I wanted a specific "look". I don't regard anamorphic lenses as being inherently superior to Super35 just "different". Scope lenses are also very heavy in practical terms.

I think that neither disc are right but the MGM wins by default by not being an upscale

so...regarding PQ the HDTV version is still best?

I would lean on the HDTV version as well. I got the bluray at Fry's for $13.50, but I can't recommend it. Now a recall with fixed gamma correction and all the special features from the 2003 S.E. and I would be extremely happy.

Would seem so. Off to HDB...

To you, perhaps. It seems a clear win for the US BD to me.

Yes the advantage of spherical usually is more + then the lesser area of the film is -. But I have got the impression that Anamorphic has taken back some marketshare recently. That more filmmakers ask for the look that anamorphic gives you. 45-50% of the movies I actually got around to watch in theater have been shoot in anamorphic (5-10% was shoot on digital camera). Maybe I just got lucky, but maybe some filmmakers starting to go retro.


Yes but for old school films anamorphic softness is beutiful. Or maybe its just me that is starting to get old?

As I've said, it's his most obvious when you look at the abnormalities as It clearly has the most. Why I had to repeat myself...

Well I guess you are mistaken then and maybe not as familiar with scope photography as I am.

Hey, I've proved you wrong several times in this thread, and I can prove you wrong again. First it was with the UK BD not being an upscale, then it was the US BD being an upscale. Now it's this. I think you are just arguing for the sake of arguing because you obviously did not read my post clearly enough. I never said that EFNY looks "more anamorphic" than any other of his movies. What I did state (or clearly imply), is that EFNY clearly shows the most abnormalities out of any other movie that he has done.

Find me another Carpenter movie in which literally every frame is bleeding with blurriness and light bending abnormalities due to the anamorphic lenses.

Not that I don't mind it because I still love anamorphic lenses, but you have yet to state any other movie by him that has as much issues with anamorphic lenses other than EFNY. As far as the anamorphic "scope" is concerned, like I've said, all Carpenter movies look and are shot the same.

With a correct color scheme, no black crush, and zero EE, the Blu-ray definitely inches out the HDNet Broadcast. All I did was turn up my brightness and gamma by two and poof! the MGMs BD problem is completely fixed. I can't take the HDNet image and remove the slight sharpening and fix it's muted colors. The BD looks absolutely beautiful IMO, but once I bump up the brightness/gamma, it looks perfect. It's a shame this happened, but It's easily fixable with a simple five second tweak to the TV. I can't do the same thing with other releases. As a fan of the film I want the best image. The MGM BD far and away produces that...with a 5 second tweak.

+ the DTS-HD-MA audio. HDNet has what, a stereo lossy track?

EFNY has a demo-worthy Carpenter track. I'll go ahead and say it.

I always forget to mention the audio for some reason. But yes, definitely worth it if you're a Carpenter fan. It's a nice upgrade.

anyone able to post screenshots with 'fixed' brightness to compare to the capture?