Arpeggi

And grab a dictionary and learn the word Ulterior.

baracine

You should also take into account that Harris's statements on HTF only make the question murkier. Dig this little ditty ( http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...2&postcount=22 )

It is both pessimistic as to the future of film transfer and enigmatic, which is my way of saying that it doesn't make much sense.

How can one make sense of these two sentences side by side, for instance?

And, once again, he doesn't address the instances of colour manipulation that were only possible in the digital domain and therefore had nothing whatsoever to do with the answer print, which is a solely photo-chemical medium.

Seems to me the guy is just obfuscating and confusing the issue. My translation: "Listen, they did the best they could to replicate the answer print with the technology we have now that we didn't have then and that is still imperfect. The way the film looked in theatres doesn't matter, the previous video versions don't matter, your screen caps don't matter, your personal preferences don't matter. The only things that matter are this new transfer and the way I see it on my personal viewing equipment which is so far superior to yours. The rest of you are all wrong."

Sounds more and more like...
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KEBwP68FqVM"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KEBwP68FqVM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
http://lady_deathtouch.tripod.com/ga...pid/index.html

I asked "Should I buy the new Dracula tansfer?" and the answer was:

Supermallet

I think it's actually Francis Ford Coppola who's got "alterer" motives.

Rusty James

Yes. Anyone who has anything negative to say about anything even remotely related to Blu-ray is obviously part of a conspiracy.

indiansbsa

I just caught this film on my 32" 1080p Sharp Aquos and thought it looked great. Better than I have ever seen it before. Not missing the blue and orange tints that Zoetrope said Coppola hated in certain places of the film that weren't actually on the preferred source print. I never did understand why Lucy had blue light on her in a dark crypt...glad they found the master source print for this release and fixed the defect (yeah, I think it was a defect of the previous releases). The only things I miss are the gothic subtitles (Zoetrobe didn't address why THESE were gone, did they?)

As far as the image looking like a DVD, I strongly disagree. I think its definitely blu ray quality, if not high definition reference material because of the film as it was shot.

baracine

Actually, as Davy Mack has already suggested, you should get this book, by Coppola and scriptwriter James V. Hart, which is still in print 15 years later: It reproduces the entire script, has more than a thousand illustrations of the storyboards, the XIXth century symbolist paintings that inspired the art direction, the costumes and the colour scheme (orange and blue - which unfortunately have all but disappeared from the new transfer), and hundreds of on-set production stills showing what the lighting set-up was actually like for each and every scene of the film.

And, guess what, the scene of Lucy in the crypt was actually bathed in blue light, the preferred way to make her all-white wedding dress stand out while also suggesting moonlight pouring in the crypt.



The book also features a complete history of Dracula, the historical character, the fictional character and the film star and about fifty different articles on various aspects of the production, including the special effects.



http://www.amazon.com/Bram-Stokers-D...1707838&sr=1-1

chanster

baracine - mind scanning a few shots from the crypt scene. thx.

Rusty James

Coppola wanted them gone. Haven't you heard? This disc looks EXACTLY the way he wanted the movie to look.

baracine

See http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showpost.ph...3&postcount=30 for a comparison between the Blu-Ray and the Superbit.





Guess which is which, kids!

Once again, the answer print may have been an indication of the amount of shadow to use or the saturation, but it couldn't have suggested the draining of one of the film's insignia colours.

But then, you can't expect a pimply computer nerd who has never spent a single hour outdoors to actually read a book about art or the director's intentions, can you?

Supermallet

Nor can you blindly assume that the color changes were made by a "pimply computer nerd" acting on his own. It is entirely possible that Coppola did in fact want the film to look this way for this edition. And some of us actually like the color changes, although I know it pains you to hear it.

baracine

No bride wears grey. And the book makes it amply clear that Coppola was involved in every aspect of the artistic process and discussed the colour schemes at length with the costume designer and the DP. This scene was shot in blue light (1) to suggest moonlight and (2) because blue was the conventional way of suggesting moonlight in tinted silent films - just as orange was for daylight.

The more I research this mess, the more I come to the conclusion that none of this colour fiasco has anything to do with Coppola's intentions.

Supermallet

But you don't know that for sure. It is quite possible that Coppola DID want to remove the colors, even though he wanted them in when the film was first made. Coppola has changed his films before, why should Dracula be immune? We get it, you don't like the changes. But the fact is that right now the party line is that these are in line with Coppola's intentions. Until Coppola comes out and says "Whoops, no, I never wanted to drain the colors," then all you can do is speculate. It is bothersome that we seem to be getting the line of "Every other version ever put together was wrong," but that won't stop people from enjoying their laserdiscs or DVDs.

baracine

Coppola is a brilliant artist who makes excruciatingly bad business decisions. Until Spielberg recently saved his ass, he had totally lost control of the film elements of The Godfather (to Paramount), which were turning to dust. Isn't it conceivable that in this Blue-Ray/HD transfer done by Sony, he was simply negligent in not seeing that his original colour scheme - the one that won Oscars - was respected? Where did this "Coppola wanted it that way" legend get started anyway? In a "let's cut our losses" memo from the desk of some Zoetrope executive?

Also please remember that the "Moonlit Lucy enters the crypt carrying a child in front of her three suitors and an interloping Von Helsing" scene is an exact narrative parallel of the "Moonlit Dracula enters his three wives' bedchamber carrying a child in front of an interloping Harker" scene, which was also shot in blue backlight. Unfortunately, the pimply nerd who did the "colour correction" didn't notice that and decided to make one scene green (for Dracula - although green is Mina's colour in the grand scheme of things) and the other scene a ghastly grey (in the "Bride Wore Grey" scene - grey being no one's colour). Ask yourself if this really makes sense to you or if this wasn't the work of an uninformed, uneducated, scurvy-infested, nose-picking Yahoo?

But you are right about one thing, though: I bitch because I care.

Supermallet

I forgot. You know more than everyone, including the post production supervisor of the film in question.

indiansbsa

BSD is one of my top 10 favorite films for its style and imagery. That said, it has always been toward the bottom of that list because it was just not scary or even unsettling in its previous incarnations- at all. I think this was partly to do with its bright colors. These bright colors destroyed in my opinion *ALL* sense of ominousness and made this film something other than the dark gothic nightmare Coppola clearly wanted to create. As such, I think many of the fans of this film would have no problems believing this darker version delivers/was Coppola's true intent for the film.

baracine

I obviously don't know everything. I have no idea what you're talking about, for one thing. You actually had me searching the web for a statement by Dracula's post-production supervisor about this transfer, until I remembered that Coppola supervises the post-production of all his films. But if it counts for anything, I have read and re-read this 172-page, 186,000-word book written by Coppola and his screenwriter about this film, and I think if it was his intention to make a "scary" black and white film and betray his art director's and his costume designer's intentions and colour scheme in post-production, he would have mentioned it.

baracine

Oh, this transfer is scary all right!

But Coppola's intention was not to make a scary film. In his own words:

Maybe it's about Sony executives. Who knows?

pro-bassoonist

No it isn't!

I don't understand why you keep bringing the same points over and over...and over again. Here and in the main forum.

Supermallet spelled out quite well the reasons why your speculation isn't credible enough. If you don't grasp the nature of his statement allow me to clarify it for you...because you use speculations to prove pre-existent speculations. It is that simple! What if Sony did this, what if Coppola wanted that, Harris sings in tune with those who pay him, etc....You don't know, and you have zero chance in proving any of your claims. That's what Supermallet's post tells you.

Fact of the matter is: currently this is the transfer representing Coppola's vision and there is an official record confirming it. Everything else you keep bringing up to this discussion is speculations fueled by what you believe this film should or shouldn't look.

Pro-B

chanster

I rather take baracine's commentary and analysis over Sony and Sony's designated forum posters who spout carefully worded statements.

Supermallet

If baracine's commentary is what you're after, chanster, let me see if I can dig up his threads on The Mummy Returns and E.T. They're classics.

Edit: I found the one on The Mummy Returns for you. http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=330024

baracine

The way I see it: It's Coppola's book written when the film came out in 1992 vs. the word of a Sony executive about the recent mishandled transfer.

Burnt Thru

when looking at the images displayed in posts 206 and 209 it is clear that the new transfer is the more acurate in colour with regard to lucy's dress. the photographic still taken onset shows her to be wearing a white/grey wedding dress with blue tinged smoke behind her. the dvd version has changed her dress into a baby blue affair and looks entirely different.

personally i quite enjoy the cartoony look of dracula as it has so far been represented on home video. though it will be interesting to see this new transfer. i wonder if it will alter the tone of the film considerably.

btw, robert harris is pretty respected in the field of film restoration. unless you think he's making all of his comentary up then he has explained the great lengths gone to with this release to accurately match the orriginal look. either he's lying or this is indeed the way this picture is intended to look. personally i doubt he's lying. it seems more likely that a few people are dissapointed that the version of the film they've grown used to seeing is not the one orriginally intended.

baracine

If you mean the production still from the book I posted, no, I'm sorry, the dress is white. Wedding dresses usually are. They don't look like burned toast. And wedding dresses that look like burned toast don't win Oscars. The book goes on at great length on the subject. This production still is excepted from this book which also carries a picture of "blue moonlit Lucy" on its back cover.

Here are two other stills from the same batch:

Yes, I wonder.

This will be my last entry on the subject as I can't keep repeating the same arguments every time someone chimes in with the old ones: Robert Harris is respected in his profession. His commentary was solely about the fact that the DVD authors referred to the film's answer print for shadow and saturation levels. He didn't volunteer any information about the obvious digital-domain colour manipulations that were made. Furthermore, Harris had nothing to do with the film and he wasn't at all involved in its HD transfer. He just volunteered general comments to the effect that people in the profession and on the production side know more than the consumer and that the consumer should accept whatever product he is handed without question.

"For the bounty we are about to receive, we thank you, Lord..." Amen.
http://soundmoneytips.com/article/20...sgiving-turkey

indiansbsa

So Green is not Drac's color. Hmm. How about this. Red represents Dracula alone, green represents Dracula with Mina. Outside of the green in the "you have never loved" scene, see the green mist later in the movie, the green light on Dracula while hanging from the Abbey when the vampire hunters came for him, just to name a few places to spot the new green motif with Dracula. Seems perfectly plausible to me that these color changes were made and/or restored from the master print for a damn good reason.

Shannon Nutt

But that's not the argument we're getting...what we are getting are statements that the movie has been changed back to the way it ORIGINALLY appeared in theaters and anyone who disputes that this new version is the way the original theatrical prints looked is simply "remembering wrong".

To which I reply:


BTW, god bless Roger Ebert...here's a look at the original review of DRACULA, along with some clips from the original film - note the blue-lit bride sequence and how Ebert gives the movie thumbs-up because of its visual look:

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/bue...subsec=dracula