Blood and Black Lace

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

Moderator: yoloswegmaster

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#76 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:12 pm

AVForums:
In all honesty, no fan can afford to be without this superb 2K restoration. It looks glorious, proving once again that Arrow have really got it together in terms of providing such cult and niche films with accurate and lustrous AV quality and extremely worthwhile supplements. The inclusion of the short giallo film Yellow is especially nice. A fantastic release of a true giallo classic.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#77 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:23 am


User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#78 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:05 pm


User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#79 Post by tenia » Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:39 am

Lots of comparisons Arrow BD VS Anolis DVD : http://thelatarniaforums.yuku.com/srepl ... TJQNtLtlBc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clearly, people involved in the restoration & framing for Arrow needs to speak up now, because otherwise, the zoom in will getting discussed over and over and will start generating a lot of maybe unneeded questions.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#80 Post by EddieLarkin » Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:57 am

I've tried my best over there over the past few days, but now my very valid points are being met with insults. Fuck 'em.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#81 Post by MichaelB » Sat Apr 18, 2015 11:11 am

It's now abundantly clear that these screencaps are being very selectively picked with the clear and cynical intention of showing the Arrow restoration in the worst light possible.

Just take the two shots showing the mannequin and the mirror and watch them in motion. The camera is moving constantly throughout the shot of the mannequin, which is fully visible on screen when it reaches the right angle - and Bava similarly reveals the mirror at the point when it becomes narratively significant. You'll find that the other screengrabs are similarly deceptive, and I warmly encourage you to inspect their moving-image sources for yourself.

In other words, we have a case of galloping confirmation bias, and no amount of evidence or reasoned argument is going to sway these people. Believe me, Tim Lucas tried on his Facebook wall, but has now given up - and I don't blame him.

But for me, this is the clincher: Tim and James White had access to a scan of the full negative area. They could easily have framed the image the same way as the German DVD if they'd wanted to, and of course would have been fully aware of what they were cropping at the time that they framed their version. Do you really think that arguably the world's leading Bava scholar and one of the most conscientious film restorers in the business didn't know what they were doing?

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#82 Post by Orlac » Sat Apr 18, 2015 12:13 pm

Latarnia is full of idiots banned from other forums. We're talking about people who whined that the Sony DVD of Revenge of Frankenstein wasn't full-frame.

Todmichel, who is also currently whining about the UK BD of Night of the Big Heat being cropped from 1.66:1 (as does the stupid Beaver review), was removed from one forum for likening colorisation to the Holocaust.

doc mccoy
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:07 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#83 Post by doc mccoy » Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:10 pm

What's really disturbing about this is they want to ignore the fact that this had a 2k resto, and really want Arrow to have fucked this up. The glee and spite is palpable. You get the feeling that if Anolis got their SD master and then upscaled it onto a blu disc, these guys would be popping champagne corks and saying "Here - that's how it's done!".

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#84 Post by MichaelB » Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:15 pm

This isn't an official statement from Arrow, but it's a synthesis that I made of points made by three people who worked directly on the restoration. The sources have been Facebook discussions (Tim Lucas's friends will doubtless recognise some of the points) and private emails.

Hopefully it will address all the various points that have been made - and while people are obviously welcome to disagree, I must ask them to come up with plausible alternative explanations for every single point made below, as they're all intimately interlinked.
1. Both the original camera negative and the prints originally struck from it weren't hard-matted - in other words, the onus was on the projectionist to mask them correctly at the time of screening. There is therefore a distinct possibility that the film might have been screened in either 1.66:1 or 1.85:1, depending on which masks the projectionist had to hand (given that 1.66:1 masks weren't that common outside Europe), and that Bava would have allowed for this.

2. However, both the documented historical record and the compositional evidence of the negative itself suggest that 1.66:1 was Bava's intended ratio. As the German disc demonstrates all too clearly, if you try to create a wider image you end up skewing the compositions to the point where even the opening title is off-centre (this is by no means the only example: just the most obvious one), and the wider you go the worse it gets. Not least because you might have to start cropping the top and bottom as well, once you've run out of width.

3. Although he favoured hard-matted 1.85:1 for later films, Blood and Black Lace predates this, and there's no contemporary evidence that he primarily intended the film to be shown in 1.85:1, and quite a bit that suggests that he didn't - not least the absence of a hard matte on the prints. Also, contemporary advertising for the film doesn't trumpet the fact that it's "panoramic" or "widescreen" - unlike other Bava films from the period that unquestionably were framed at 1.85:1.

4. In order to achieve the intended 1.66:1 framing, as much image area was retained as possible for all four sides to avoid encroaching frame lines or leakage from the join/sprocket areas. All four sides of the image have to be accounted for during this process - you can't alter the shape just because you'd like to allow for more image.

5. And to illustrate the importance of point (4), the German disc has transferred the entire print area without any masking at all. The fact that such masking should have been applied during projection/telecine is demonstrated by visible light leakage and frame lines at the edges, which would certainly have been masked during cinema projection. There are also instances where a different element was used and incorrectly zoomed out in an attempt to fill the equally incorrect 1.78:1 ratio - which is why there are certain sections in the film where the Arrow disc shows more information than the German one. Which is why the German disc is not a reliable reference.
And this statement was made by Tim Lucas earlier this afternoon:
It is the intended ratio. The company worked with the original camera negative, so there was no margin for error. Because it was a soft-matted 1.66:1 the frame was also available to be shown unmatted, which would expose more dead space in the composition, but this made the screen compositions more lax. The Arrow disc is gorgeous. It has my complete approval.
And that really should be the final word on the matter, although sadly I'm not naïve enough to suppose that it will be.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#85 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:46 am

This never would have been an issue if it wern't for the German disc - the old US disc is the same ratio as the BD.

I can't help but feel it's a tad too tight, but I've always looked to Brooke and White for precision and honesty (and good manners, something the reps for Kino, Olive, Twilight Time and Code Red sorely need) so I fully accept their explanations.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#86 Post by MichaelB » Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:00 am

Credit where it's due: Tim Lucas has been by far the most dogged and patient advocate for Arrow's restoration.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#87 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:48 am

True, it's just I habitually look to him for great commentaries! ;)

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#88 Post by tenia » Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:22 am

I had a closer look at Latarnia, and it's indeed obvious now most of the comparative caps are not all matching frames (2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, so that's 8 out of 16, 50% of the total). I know the difficulty to do so, I had to do matching frames for Arrow's 1964 The Killers and the 2 ratios. It's not easy to be sure it's matching frames, but it's feasible providing you simply take your time to do it. For B&BL, a movie with a constantly moving camera, that makes it difficult to give them a lot of weight.

The point should be moot at the very second we can see it's not matching frames.

I'm very curious about factual material being shown by Tim or James. What if the zoom in is actually the correct way to display the movie ? Some would have a hard time understanding this. But meanwhile, some seems to assume that More is Right so the Anolis DVD is right and the Arrow is wrong-because-less-info-in-the-frame. When Tim says that there are "people who are not disposed to listen", to be fair, it does seem true. When one says "I still would like to read if the presentation was zoomed in", I think it's clear about the way he sees both releases and I don't think anybody could convince him otherwise.

So far, I see plenty of sophism (especially misunderstanding the arguments given with the whole discussion being "foolish and petty". Soon, I'll guess we'll hit the Godwin point.) but I still wish to see source material being displayed.

But hey, there was this 1.85 35mm exploitation print hard matte by a French distributor that didn't give a damn about the OAR, so that's that ! Because obviously, French distibutors in the 60s were very conscious of the OARs of Italian gialli... (about as much as were in the 70s French distributors of Shaw Brothers movies, eh).

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#89 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:01 am

Source material would only determine the correct AR, but as I've repeated ad nauseam over there, the width of the image does not change between standard ARs. The same missing information from the sides of the Arrow transfer would still be gone whether the presentation AR was 1.37:1, 1.66:1, 1.75:1, 1.85:1 or 2.00:1. As Michael explained, "as much image area was retained as possible for all four sides to avoid encroaching frame lines or leakage from the join/sprocket areas". The laserdisc transfer and German transfer that they all love so much sure enough show "visible light leakage and frame lines at the edges, which would certainly have been masked during cinema projection". This is how they would like to see this film presented, all because some people who didn't know what they were doing in 1993 (and 2003) got it completely wrong.

The Arrow version more closely replicates how one would have seen the film in 1964 under proper projection. This may help. Note the "Flat Widescreen" section and the differences between how a print looks, and how much of it is actually shown in projection. The people at Latarnia have not a single leg to stand on, and at this point this is simply about them wanting desperately to be right.

Is there a term for people who refuse to alter their original position on a matter despite overwhelming evidence that counters their arguments?

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#90 Post by tenia » Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:10 am

EddieLarkin wrote:Is there a term for people who refuse to alter their original position on a matter despite overwhelming evidence that counters their arguments?
Backfire effect : When people with opposing views interpret new information in a biased way, their views can move even further apart. This is called "attitude polarization". The "backfire effect" is a name for the finding that, given evidence against their beliefs, people can reject the evidence and believe even more strongly.

If one prove that it's the DVD which has too much info in the frame ("zoomed out", I guess), they wouldn't know what to do with the info.

It's the type of bias that affects heated discussions such as guns control in the USA, for instance.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#91 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:15 am

Thanks. It is demonstrable that the DVD shows too much info (the ton of caps everywhere show many instances of frame edges, as does the single cap from the laserdisc), and thus they already have their proof that the DVD is "zoomed out". Naturally, this is something they have so far refused to even acknowledge.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#92 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:18 pm

It's interesting looking at some of the old non-anamorphic DVDs of non-scope HK movies from Megastar and comparing them to the "HD" transfers done more recently. The DVDs show more picture but also showed the curved edge of the image, material clearlly to be matted.

My last point on Latarnia: Mirek has a grudge against Arrow regular Calum Waddel.

doc mccoy
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:07 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#93 Post by doc mccoy » Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:32 pm

Orlac wrote:My last point on Latarnia: Mirek has a grudge against Arrow regular Calum Waddel.
That's quite ironic.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#94 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:11 pm

I dunno, Mirek is a former liner notes man.

OT: but is there consensus beyond Latarnia that the colour timing on the BDs of Whip & the Body is incorrect?

rwaits
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:24 pm

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#95 Post by rwaits » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:13 pm

At this point, I think Lucas deserves the benefit of the doubt in cases like this.

Also OT: Is there a list of Bava titles that Arrow holds the rights for? Is Diabolik a possibility?

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#96 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:23 pm

For some reason, I imagine MoC doing that, as they seem to do more Paramount titles.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#97 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:26 pm

I'd like to see Arrow tackle Planet of the Vampires, Hatchet for a Honeymoon and 5 Dolls For A August Moon but ONLY if they can get the Italian versions. Otherwise, I might as well stick with the Kinos.

I'm assuming a dual-language Kill Baby Kill will come from Arrow, and maybe also Shock?

The anomoly is Bay of Blood. I'd love to see a reissue with the Italian version in HD - it plays so much better in that language.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#98 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:46 pm

Orlac wrote:I dunno, Mirek is a former liner notes man.
I assume it's "ironic" because Calum seemingly has a big problem with Arrow now too. Mirek has more in common with him than he probably realises.
Orlac wrote:OT: but is there consensus beyond Latarnia that the colour timing on the BDs of Whip & the Body is incorrect?
I don't know if it's "right" (just like 99% of any other forum poster who has ever commented on it), but I think it looks better than the DVD colours. The level of darkness is perhaps the bigger issue (though even then I'd say it's far from a write off).

Werewolf by Night

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#99 Post by Werewolf by Night » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:50 pm

I can't believe there is any amount of controversy over this release of Blood and Black Lace. I watched it last night and it looks perfect. I felt as if I were seeing the film for the first time. The camera is almost always moving though space and panning in this film, so taking a single screen capture out of context and saying it looks "crowded" or "off-center" is both specious and ridiculous.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Blood and Black Lace

#100 Post by Orlac » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:26 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:
Orlac wrote:I dunno, Mirek is a former liner notes man.
I assume it's "ironic" because Calum seemingly has a big problem with Arrow now too. Mirek has more in common with him than he probably realises.
Orlac wrote:OT: but is there consensus beyond Latarnia that the colour timing on the BDs of Whip & the Body is incorrect?
I don't know if it's "right" (just like 99% of any other forum poster who has ever commented on it), but I think it looks better than the DVD colours. The level of darkness is perhaps the bigger issue (though even then I'd say it's far from a write off).
Oh, what happened between Calum and Arrow?

Post Reply