Looking forward to learning more about movie restoration and coloring!

Hey, guys.

Back in 2015, during a Michael Mann retrospective, I saw a 35mm print of Heat. I was shocked to realize how warm and colorful Dante Spinotti's original cinematography actually was, something we never had on home video. It has since then become a desaturated, bland, dull, almost steel grey monochromatic mess. Actually that's why I didn't understand at the time, in 2008, when The Dark Knight came out, those claims that Heat was a major influence to it, except for the masked bank robbery, which is very classic in heist films and not exclusive to Heat anyway. Following that, the bad Blu-ray of The Dark Knight was released with wrong color grading. But then, at the same period, in 2015, I saw both Heat 35mm print and The Dark Knight DCP (which looks about the same as the remastered UHD), and then it hit me: their cinematographies are very much alike, with warm colors, lovely blues, cyans and orangy browns, etc.





So, 10 years ago, I made my own saturation correction on the 2009 Warner Blu-ray of Heat to revive those colors. And now, I just revisited that in DaVinci Resolve, with a few separate corrections, and this is what I'm proposing to you today. It's mostly a saturation correction and a bit of contrast tweaking while at it. As I remember reading in these premises, @TheAluminumFalcon and @Setzer also attended a 35mm screening in a not-too-distant past and I'm sure it will ring a bell:






Now there's the case of these 2 shots:



These two shots, ever since the DVD era, share the same affliction, as they switch in color grading near the end of each. These are actually the clues that have convinced me that there never was a remaster, as when I saw the 35mm print, I was already very aware of that issue and made a point not to blink at those two moments to see what's what. And you know what? There is no such problem on those two shots on 35mm film. Meaning it's certainly not on the original elements that would be used to create a remaster. Since the Fox "remaster", they tweaked these two shots to soften the grading switches, but you can still see them if you pay attention. As it turns out, I was able to do just as good as Fox on the Pacino shot to make it almost unnoticeable, but I failed with the Amy Brenneman shot, so I swapped it with the UHD shot and colormatched it. I wish I didn't have to do that because the Fox "remaster" is quite a bit zoomed in, but hey, it's just one shot and I'll have to live with that.

And here's for the full overview:



I would very much like to do the same with the theatrical cut, but I don't have the skills to upscale in a satisfactory way the "detritus" shot from my PAL DVDs. If somebody still has the Alleycat project and is willing to share it with me, please contact me by PM and I'll gladly use that as basis as I remember Alleycat made that upscaled shot already.

Hey there , a big movie buff here

gabe here

Hey, guys.
Was there ever a good Blu-ray in some country that retains the original 35mm colors, unlike the US botched remaster as per usual when it comes to Mann's involvement? I remember a 720p open matte HDTV that I had some years ago, but I don't think I still have it. Is there a 1080p, whether from HDTV or some streaming platform that still has the pre-remaster colors that are very much like the print I saw circa 2014-2015 in a Mann's retrospective, whenever "Blackhat" was released?

Hello, I'm happy to be on this forum. I have lots of tips to share to help other members and also to get help myself.

Hi everyone!
I’m Tekwiz, a fan editor and passionate media restorer. I’ve been working on fan edits like feature-length cuts and fixes for shows like Doctor Who, focusing on improving pacing, video quality, and the overall viewing experience. I also do some movies too!
I’m excited to join FanRestore and look forward to sharing my projects, learning from others, and connecting with fellow fans and editors here.
Cheers,
Tekwiz

I've been a lurker on here and decided to get involved! Hello!

Hello world!

This is project is sourced from the Domesday Duplicator capture of PILA-1232 that was uploaded here by archiver44444: https://archive.org/details/bb-wip-jpn-ld-ddd
The video was decoded as NTSC. The English digital audio track is provided both at 44.1khz for authenticity and 48khz for compatibility. The Japanese analog track was decoded at 48khz.
The captions were decoded as SCC files and converted to SRT. The video was loaded into AviSynth and processed with "bifrost(interlaced=true).tfm().tdecimate()". The sides were synced and
joined in Adobe Premiere. The video was compressed with Handbrake. The audio was converted to .flac with eac3to.