Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (DCP release)

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-30-2012, 04:57 AM:

Most classics released on DCP look spectacular, but I recently saw a bad one. Unfortunately I'm talking about Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

ALL of the highlights were blown out, the source material wasn't anything to write home about, the transfer wasn't that great, the sound mix was a disaster, but what absolutely killed it was the awful, awful, awful compression artifacts!

Clearly they just blew up the blu-ray (which must look bad too, although I've never seen it). VERY disappointing!!! If this is how Paramount is going to start issuing DCPs, we should all avoid that studio's rep films because it looked like shit.

Note it was authored in January, so this is a new addition to their rep library and probably an indication of their attitude toward future DCP releases of rep titles.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 03-30-2012, 01:44 PM:

That is disgraceful!
Kinda what I expect from Paramount after I heard they only restored The Godfather at Spielberg's insistence!

Posted by Tom Mundell (Member # 4555) on 03-30-2012, 01:54 PM:

What was wrong with the sound mix? Did they attempt to remix the sound and didn't do a good job, or was it a problem with their source?

Posted by Lincoln Spector (Member # 6835) on 03-30-2012, 02:32 PM:

<That is disgraceful!
Kinda what I expect from Paramount after I heard they only restored The Godfather at Spielberg's insistence! >
What did Spielberg have to do with The Godfather?

I heard that Paramount did an excellent DCP of Ten Commandments, although I haven't seen it. The Blu-ray is excellent.

Lincoln

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-30-2012, 04:39 PM:

Wonder if it due from the original 1986 release where Paramount used that stock that looks like what M-G-M used (Metrocolor) as their print stock.

I remember, in that original release, that some of the fotography wasn't up to snuff in places..somewhat grainy.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 03-30-2012, 04:49 PM:

Spielberg had more clout with Paramount than his friend Francis!
So he intervened!
Otherwise Spielberg has nothing to do with The Godfather.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 03-30-2012, 06:21 PM:

We showed a 35mm print last year. It looked and sounded great!

AJG

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-30-2012, 07:05 PM:

The 35mm prints, even 1986 originals, are VASTLY superior to the awful excuse for a DCP Paramount is sending out.

The sound mix sounded like it had been re-EQ'd...possibly for "home cinema".

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 03-30-2012, 07:27 PM:

I wonder who at the studio is responsible for these issues? That is, who do we complain to?

It's shameful to create a subpar product when the technology is there to make it great, or at least, good.

AJG

Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 03-31-2012, 12:40 AM:

quote: Lincoln Spector
I heard that Paramount did an excellent DCP of Ten Commandments, although I haven't seen it. The Blu-ray is excellent.

They had to do that. It was either that or get a plague of frogs in the editing room.

Oh c'mon... that was funny...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2012, 02:36 AM:

I haven't seen the Blu-ray of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but I do know that it is a pot luck deal when buying/renting older movies on Blu-ray. Some have great video transfers, with imagery acquired using precise film scanners and digital intermediate techniques. Others are cribbed from older, wobbly telecine transfers made for DVD release. Such Blu-ray discs have soft video quality, muted colors, unsteady images and even a fair amount of dirt and debris.

Another factor: many movies have multiple video masters laying around in storage. I can certainly see a classic comedy like this getting a good treatment on Blu-ray yet have a simple mistake made in grabbing an older telecine master (with lossy DD 5.1 audio) to use as a source for making a DCP.

The vast majority of people, even people working in the movie industry, have VERY LITTLE knowledge about technical stuff involving video, graphics, audio formats, etc. Many people making decisions are of the bookkeeping type. It's very easy for one of those people to see a video master laying around and not know that it is an old master that probably should have been discarded or marked as old.

I deal with this crap all the time, even with logos from major companies. A few days ago a customer gave me what was supposed to pass as official Boost Mobile artwork: PDFs with all the artwork converted to pixels. Shit basically. I had to go over the customer's head and get the correct vector-based art from the corporate marketing department. Most people who design signs, billboards, etc. don't give enough of a shit to bother with such details.

We've seen numerous Blu-ray releases botched with various mistakes. The opening of West Side Story was goofed up and a 2nd pressing and disc exchange had to be made.

It's all in the details.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-31-2012, 03:09 AM:

Yeah but who do you complain to when a DCP is botched? You think they'll actually rescan and/or re-encode?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2012, 12:15 PM:

Odds are against it. A DCP of an old movie will only play in a few theaters at a time. How many people who see it will be reputable critics who can, with authority, spot flaws in the video transfer? Not many. Those who do likely don't dedicate themselves to writing reviews about DCPs on Internet web sites.

Without all the various video review sites and forums a lot of botched Blu-ray discs we've seen over the past few years never would have been corrected. DCPs don't get the same benefit because they can't be held to the same level of scrutiny.

Studios will have to take it upon themselves to fix this problem, if they give a tinker's damn about it. It should be as simple a procedure as outputting several encodes when a catalog movie is carefully scanned and digitally restored. I'm sure they already do this to a certain extent (encodes for Blu-ray, DVD, HD cable/satellite, Internet streaming, etc.). They just need to be sure to add DCP JPEG2000 to the list. And then they have to do a better job keeping track of the assets afterward.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 03-31-2012, 01:36 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Yeah but who do you complain to

Complain to Technicolor Labs they handle Paramount's digital transfers. Remember Paramount Blu-rays are made in Mexico.

The EK prints of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" that Paramount opened in LA looked Great.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-31-2012, 01:42 PM:

quote: Lincoln Spector
I heard that Paramount did an excellent DCP of Ten Commandments

Wonder what original they used - prob a IB printing negative - to make it look good.

For us who have seen/ran the IB-Technicolor release of this feature, one can only say that was the sharpest and brightest flat lens picture on the screen that anyone could have ever seen.

If Paramount ever did a DCP of this feature, I would hope the would use the original 8 perf VistaVision negatives since the resolution would easily fit well above 4k - almost to infinity.

This feature would look fantastic in IMAX using 15/70 film.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-07-2012, 10:10 PM:

quote: Bill Gabel
Remember Paramount Blu-rays are made in Mexico.

that's racist... [Wink]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-07-2012, 10:36 PM:

Not really ... almost all DVD and BR's are made there and it's printed on the 'cellowrap.

Most Fords and Chryslers are made there as well.

Almost nothing is made stateside anymore - cheaper to be made elsewhere.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-07-2012, 10:47 PM:

so we are equating something that is cheaper and outsourced is somehow worse off - hmmm (I'm figuring out who to point the finger at here) "welcome to the 21st century - where everyone is a cheap bastard"