Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Lawrence and Fathom

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-03-2012, 10:47 AM:

Lawrence of Arabia 50th Anniversary presentation by Fathom is tomorrow night (Oct 4). According to Variety, it was scanned at 8k and reduced to 4k. My question is, does Fathom send out DCP's of this, or is it a satellite presentation. If DCPs, 4k? If satellite, what resolution?

and if you are interested, from the article:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118060183?refCatId=13

quote:
Among those Sony showed the film to in the last few weeks were cinematographers Stephen Burum ("The Untouchables," "Rumblefish") and John Toll ("The Thin Red Line," "Legends of the Fall"), who praised the effort -- with reservations.

"They left in the grain," said Burum, "so it had the texture of film. What I thought was really interesting is that after all these years of people going on and on about digital, they finally have gotten to level that's almost as good as 70mm. That means when they go to the next stage they're finally going to have a system that's going to be much better."

Toll said he had "mixed feelings" but that "the idea of ('Lawrence') having another life is fantastic." The two-time Oscar winner said he's seen the film projected about 15 times and felt some aspects of the restoration, especially the desert vistas, benefitted in ways that were dramatic.

"You can see a scene with Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in the foreground and two or three hundred guys on camels in the background and you can actually see them all and you can actually see expressions on their faces," explained Toll.

But the d.p. felt the more intimate moments didn't fare as well. "Where you're not looking at a frame loaded with detail, you don't care about detail," he explained. "So it does sort of sanitize it in a way that I think is not an advantage. If it's not so highly resolved it makes it more sympathetic somehow."

The abbreviated theatrical rollout to be projected digitally, presented by NCM Fathom Events and SPE, will be accompanied by a filmed intro by Scorsese and Sharif.

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 10-03-2012, 12:05 PM:

Yep, Fathom sent out hard drives earlier this week, splitting the movie in to two parts with the intermission as its own separate file. Five files in total, including a half-hour pre-show and a fifteen minute behind the scenes look at the making of the movie.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 10-03-2012, 12:08 PM:

That's great news. I was worried about it being a broadcast, like Casablanca, which looked awful.

AJG

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-03-2012, 04:08 PM:

technically it's two showings tomorrow and with the clarification that it's being shown in the largest auditorium at AMC Mazza - I am major excited - going to watch this, take a nap, dinner and then go to the 'Nightmare Before Christmas'/'Frankenweenie' double feature at Tysons at 10:30pm .... hoozah!

I actually was surprised at the recent Fathom screening of 'The Birds' which while a taped satellite feed - looked really really good. Normally any feature getting the Fathom treatment gets me wanting to reach for a bucket to puke in.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-03-2012, 05:31 PM:

quote:
"So it does sort of sanitize it in a way that I think is not an advantage. If it's not so highly resolved it makes it more sympathetic somehow."

More "vague enough to sound profound, nonspecific enough that I can get away with it" baloney. Any minute now, he'll start going on about "organic, shimmering film grain". [Roll Eyes]

Anyway, I saw the 4k DCP of Lawrence without the NCM stuff just this last Sunday, in a beautiful projection. Looked really damned great, and this is from someone who has seen the same movie in 70mm many times (the last time with several seconds of on-screen sprocket marks). Since the negative is said to be long past a photo-chemical/wet-gate style restoration of this quality, this is probably the best that the film will be seen from now on, unless an 8K projection system appears. It is MORE than adequate.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-04-2012, 05:11 PM:

hat's off to Sony/Fathom to by far the best DCP presentation of a classic film I've seen to date - the 4K resolution was utterly startling and while it's not true 70mm, but damn, the wonderfully saturated colors, the clarity and sharpness knocked this out of the ball park - wow, wow, and wow!

Posted by Jeff Kane (Member # 6372) on 10-07-2012, 03:59 PM:

Lucky you. The Cinemark Century 16 down here ran it in one of their smaller auditoriums. IT WAS OUT OF FOCUS! Truly, we might as well have been watching a DVD. That blurry. Went to complain during the 'making-of' documentary and was told "Sorry, nobody around that can fix it". It was also way obvious that the theater was EQ'ed for modern tizz-boom soundtracks... major midbass bloat that did the score no favors. But for all that? Still loved it.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 10-07-2012, 10:40 PM:

I saw it locally at a Cinemark. It looked and sounded good, but I'd equate it to a good 35mm presentation, despite being billed as "4K". The 70mm I saw at the Aero in Santa Monica was much much better.

AJG