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July 19, 2011:

EDGE ENHANCEMENT

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am feeling ornery and cranky as well as cranky and ornery, mostly stemming from the fact that I had less than five hours of sleep coming off a week during which I never once got eight hours of sleep. And the early morning hours were so annoying I just wanted to get back into bed and sleep some more, but I couldn’t. And now I am paying the price ($3.92). There are certain times when it’s just one annoyance after another and yesterday morning was a classic example of just such a thing. I got up to announce the new Kritzerland title. I guess because I’ve been so overtired I thought I’d prepared the eBlast but when I went to send it it wasn’t there. So, I first announced on the film score message board, then had to scurry and get the eBlast done – that took twenty minutes and then I sent it. Then I decided to deal with the amazon payments problem and that was REALLY annoying. After a solid hour I finally got someone who knew what they were doing, we fixed the problem, and all is well. They’ve actually collected all but fifty dollars of the money – and they’ll try over the next four days to collect that fifty, which was probably just the result of a credit card company being careful. Their fees are a bit higher than I thought, so I won’t clear the five thousand bucks, but it will be reasonably close. After all that, I went to the lab to view some before and after footage – footage that had had some grain removed and then been sharpened. If I liked what I saw then I’d make the decision whether we should spend a couple of hours doing it to the first fifteen minutes of the film.

It was a fascinating master class in DNR and sharpening (what people I think call edge enhancement). I rarely see those sorts of things in transfers because unlike a lot of these Blu and Ray geeks, I don’t sit with my nose pressed up against my TV screen and I don’t freeze-frame or put a shot on my computer and blow it up until I can finally see the problem. Yes, some transfers have gone very overboard in DNR and sharpening, but I still wasn’t all that expert in actually seeing it – until this demonstration. They’re working on a well-known family film and they had a scene up on the screen for me to see – it had a line down the middle – to the left was the processed image and to the right was the raw transfer image. They were doing very light grain removal on this film. But even as light as it was, you could instantly see that the right side, the raw transfer, we more detailed and sharper. The left side simply lost a little focus and clarity – nothing terrible and if they weren’t side by side you’d never have noticed it. But you could especially see it in the detail on the faces of the two actors in the scenes. Once the grain removal had been applied, it smoothed out the faces a bit. Again, they weren’t overdoing it so if they weren’t side by side I wouldn’t have noticed, I don’t think. I don’t think they were going to sharpen after the grain removal, but frequently they do to bring back some luminance, as the engineer called it. We then discussed sharp edges and halos, those things that all the geeks constantly go on about in frame grabs – and I asked him to really apply a lot of sharpening, which he did, and lo and behold and also behold and lo, there they were, halos, weird edges, and even smearing. So, yes, if you have someone trigger happy doing this stuff it can look bad – but even the halos and weird edges and smearing weren’t really all that visible when the film was in motion and I wasn’t standing right next to the TV. It was only when he blew up the frame that it could clearly be seen. So, I guess it’s up to each individual filmmaker or producer or studio or post production person how much the traffic will allow.

My decision was instantaneous – no grain removal at all, because Nudie Musical doesn’t need to lose any sharpness to compensate for its grainy first fifteen minutes. But I asked the technician to come watch the first fifteen minutes of the transfer with me – I was just giving it one more look-see to make sure I liked the cleanup that we did last Friday. The good news was I did like the cleanup. The better news was that instead of sitting inches from the TV as I’d done when I’d watched the transfer, I actually moved back to a normal viewing distance and what do you know – the grain was much less objectionable, which made me very happy. The technician thought it looked fine and he told me I was making the right decision. So, I signed off on the transfer and that was that. All the elements are being gathered together and I’ll probably pick up everything on Wednesday, as I’m having them burn a couple of DVDs for me, just so I have them. I was going to have them make a Blu and Ray for me, but that cost is so outrageous – over $500. I’ll just wait for the real deal.

After that, I came home and printed out orders, then did the four-mile jog. I had a lot of e-mails to answer and the telephonic device kept ringing, but I finally got out of here about twelve-fifteen and went and had a sandwich and no fries or onion rings. After that, I picked up no packages. I did some banking and bill paying, then came back home, did some writing, printed some more orders, and did some Kickstarter business. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I began watching a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled The Expendables, a motion picture starring Sylvester Stallone – he also wrote and directed. This is a throwback to the action pictures of the 80s – it features a lot of action stars like Stallone, Bruce Willis, a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, and on and on. First of all, Sylvester Stallone looks horrifying – he’s had so much work done and he’s so bulked up and it’s truly nauseating to even look at him. Same with Mr. Schwarzenegger, but he’s only around for one scene. I’ll just put it simply – it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, with the caveat that after forty unbearable minutes I could take no more and shut it off.

After that, I watched another action film on Blu and Ray, this one entitled The Bourne Ultimatum. I’d sort of enjoyed the first two films but for some reason had never seen the third. Even though it gets preposterous, it’s a lot better than others of this ilk, partly because the director, Paul Greengrass, is the only director who does that awful quick-cutting jerkycam stuff where I feel it’s in service of something. I still don’t like it, but he’s the only one who kind of makes it work. And Tony Gilroy is a decent writer. It’s a lot of thumping music and one action scene after another and they do all start to blend together after about the sixth one. Albert Finney has a fun small role, and I always enjoy Joan Allen and David Straithern. Transfer seemed fine to me.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get some beauty sleep before I have to be up early when CDs and helper will arrive and we have two releases to ship out, so we’re in for three or four hours, I think.

Today, we’ll be shipping out Drango and Jason Graae, not necessarily in that order. The signed copies may not go out until Wednesday morning, as the booklets may not arrive in time to ship tomorrow. We shall see. After that, I’ll do the long jog, then John Boswell comes over to pick up music and do a little work. After that, I REALLY need to rest and get to bed early and I have kept Wednesday until noon completely free of things so that I can hopefully sleep in nice and late.

The week has been filling up quickly – I have to see a show at the Gardenia, we’ll be having two rehearsals with the thirteen-year-old, and a bunch of other stuff, plus getting my haircut.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, ship CDs, do a four-mile jog, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up a package or three, have a short work session with Boswell, eat, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Of all the big roadshow pictures you’ve seen, or even Cinemascope, which was the most visually breathtaking film – where everything was so sharp and gorgeous that you just felt as if you were IN the film? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream with no DNR or edge enhancement.

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