Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "Singin' In The Rain" 50th anniversary re-release

This is topic "Singin' In The Rain" 50th anniversary re-release in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=001547

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-17-2002, 05:06 AM:

FYI

I'm unsure about engagements in the rest of the country but a one week 50th anniversary re-release of Singin' In The Rain is scheduled for December 19-25 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood.

"Digitally Restored and Remastered Sound"

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-17-2002, 01:20 PM:

It has already been playing other theaters. The print I saw looked fantastic.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 12-17-2002, 05:50 PM:

It ran from Nov. 15-21 at the Film Forum in NYC.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 12-17-2002, 06:03 PM:

I ran it in Hi-Def at the Telluride Film Festival. It looked ok but it was still video.

The sound was a Dolby E track which was said to sound great. I was in the booth so I don't know.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-18-2002, 07:11 AM:

It does indeed look fantastic with rich IB-like color, minus any color speckles from 3-strip and IB printing. Two things though, and I will look more closely when/if I screen it again: I seemed to have a tiny headroom problem (actually it was footroom but that's a question of framing) while running proper 1.37 : 1 Academy so I wonder if they lost a bit with the scanning. And the other thing was I thought I could detect a faint graininess--not that this shouldn't be grainy but this was more like a fixed graininess not random film grain (which seems to be absent) so maybe I was detecting the film scanning. Was this done at 2K per line?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-18-2002, 09:15 AM:

Scanning and output can be either at 2K or 4K depending on the project:

http://www.cinesite.com/la/presrest/rest.html

Kodak Fellowship in Film Restoration

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-20-2002, 07:14 AM:

The guy who headed the restoration project mentioned elsewhere that it was done using a new technique of meticulous registration of the 3-strip Technicolor matrices via computer.

Someone else mentioned the detail was astounding compared to previous prints, so astounding that it was a little embarassing to see the wrinkles in Gene Kelly's face.

And there is precisely one of my points about new "restorations" not being true to the filmmakers' intent, but instead new works based on current fashionable desires for images. You can bet 1 billion dollars that if MGM noticed that on one of their MUSICALS that one of the stars looked wrinkly, and if one of their biggest (like Gene Kelly) showed wrinkles, they would have slapped gauze & vaseline on that lens until the image was soft enough to conceal it. And they almost CERTAINLY did.

The fad of the new "DVD look" and I'm afraid most movies that have gone through a digital stage where the color is saturated & the image is sharpened to a degree that all rounded edges disappear and all elements in the scene look flat aggravates me no end, too. It's gonna all look like the Cartoon Channel soon.

Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 12-20-2002, 08:10 AM:

The Royal Opera of Liege produced the stage adaptation of it last year and won a "Moliere" in France (awards for stage works). This year, they're playing it again for the Christmas season. I'm going to the premiere tonight. This will be the occasion to catch up again with the story because I admit I forgot the story (I saw the film only once, on TV many years ago -- I was still a kid then).

Website here

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-21-2002, 12:44 AM:

Yes I can imagine the general ease and accuracy of digitally re-registering the 3 images which may differ in shrinkage, even across the same frame. They probably use one color separation image as reference and register the others to it. I'm sure they can probably not only move the entire image and resize it slightly as needed but in all likelyhood there is probably some method whereby they can line up points in different regions of the image and the computer would stretch or squeeze intervening pixels appropriately as though it were rubbery. Then, since you don't want to do this for every single frame you roll ahead until you notice the registration has shifted a pixel or two. Correct it there and have the computer gradually move from one set of corrections to the other over the course of however many frames you advanced.

Purely conjecture but likely that is the technique used as it's not really that complicated.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 12-27-2002, 07:08 PM:

Just caught the premiere screening at the Ken Cinema in San Diego, projected the way it was done fifty years ago: with carbon arcs and changeovers. In this era of platters and xenon, seeing this great restoration projected in classic fashion was a treat.

Kudos goes to the projectionist running the show that afternoon...this print, with reel breaks in the middle of scenes (and, in the case of the R4->R5 transition, musical numbers), really tests your mastery of the nearly-lost art of the changeover. She (the projectioist was female) really rose to the challenge with near-flawless changes!