Dos and Don’ts of 4K Releases (MMM#25)
Greetings all,
Madeline here, back with the 25th entry in The Movie Minute. For this entry’s subject, let’s focus on something I’m quite passionate about: 4K restorations for home video!
Quite a few Movie Minutes ago, we focused on the importance of physical media and how it plays a crucial role in the filmmaking space, even with the rise of streaming. While DVDs and Blu-rays, as well as 4K Blu-rays can be found at different places, what’s also important is the quality of the restoration. There are many things that go into making sure that when a movie is released for home video or restored for 4K presentation, that it be done right in a way that preserves the quality of the piece as well as the creators’ intention.
The first thing is when possible, the restoration should be sourced from the original elements. For movies that are shot on film stock, this usually means the original camera negatives, while the equivalent for digitally shot films would be the original camera files (R3D, RAW, DNG, etc). However, there may be situations where this is not feasible due to them being lost or damaged beyond repair. In those cases, the restoration might be sourced from the master of a previous version (i.e. Blu-ray).
The second thing is to make sure you have the right people and expertise to perform the restoration. There are many companies and labs that specialize in film restorations, and many of the best ones are usually supervised by the director and/or the director of photography (DP), which helps preserve the creators’ vision especially when it comes to details such as color grading. On the other hand, there are also some signs that may need a closer look to tell that the restoration is underdone or even overdone. In the case of the former, the restoration might be a mere upscale of a previous master. In the case of the latter, excessive digital noise reduction (DNR) to smooth out film grain has been controversial, as while some casual movie watchers might not notice the difference, others can see it as unnecessary or even making the film look worse than what the creators intended.
On a separate note, factors such as quality assurance and restoration are worth extra consideration when choosing a marketing and/or video production company to work with for the long term. While other companies don’t like to hand over RAW/archival footage, we don’t mind because we know how much we either add to or alter the footage in order to tell the stories we do – which is our true currency at Poor Bear Stories.
To wind things down, how a restoration or transfer of a film is done matters greatly. In order to have it presented in the best way possible, it must be done with care, preserving the creators’ vision, and ensuring not to overdo or underdo it.
And that’s all for this entry in The Movie Minute. Wishing you all the best, and see y’all in 2! -Madeline
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