[No Longer Available] Dawn of the Dead (35 Project #3)

[PDB]

Have you seen the 4K remaster of Argento's cut? Just wondered what you thought of the colours. A lot of the mall scenes look very green which apparently is the way florescent lights resolve on film, suggesting this could well be accurate to the original colours.

Haven’t watched it yet. I believe I started this before that came out.

If you look back to the beginning of this thread I had this very green and blue looking per the sources but people said they didn’t like the green so I changed it around and lessened the green but kept the blue the same.

Trying to please my audience lol

[Turisu]

Are there screenshots out yet?

Comparison screens are here:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=11199&d2=9469&c=3827

Haven’t watched it yet. I believe I started this before that came out.

If you look back to the beginning of this thread I had this very green and blue looking per the sources but no one liked the green so I changed it around and lessened the green but kept the blue the same.

Trying to please my audience lol

Yeh, I guess that's the problem when nobody knows exactly how a film originally looked; everybody has their own idea of how it "should" look.

Looking back in the thread, you mentioned that the green is present in the LD release which is further evidence that it's probably correct. They obviously primarily used the existing mall lighting for a lot of those shots and didn't have the tech or perhaps the budget to correct the green cast in post. this is further supported by the fact that the green cast disappears where natural or non-florescent lighting is present (such as cap 11 from the link above). On the whole I do like the colours of the 4K Argento cut. They look very similar to your regrade up until we get to the mall.

I'm more than happy with the released version but if there is to be another then my 2-cents would be to bring back the green and perhaps take a look at the 4K generally. I might grab it myself even if just to see how the Stephen/Roger photo looks.

[bronan]

Oh sorry, I thought you were referring to the new French release that is using the same new interpositive scan that the upcoming Second Sight release will use. I've only seen a couple shots but it def looks green too. According to the blu-ray thread its only 5.1 English sound and no HDR, but wipes the floor with the previous Italian 4K release.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Dawn-of-t...ay/231697/

[LucasGodzilla]

I'd just kind of want to add in on the whole "fluorescents translating into a greenish hue on film" thing by pointing out that (and agreeing with what Turisu had to say) this is probably why all subsequent home media releases seemed to vary since they probably tried to fix this issue in some way. This is most evident to me when looking at the Arrow / Anchor Bay Theatrical master and the newer Italian master. As you may see, one has a strange magenta gue on the light whilst which is likely why there's a colder look throughout in the mall (almost reminiscent to me of how it went with the Herald LD of Evil Dead) and in the other one, the colors tried to neutralize the green cast, pushing the colors to sport a somewhat uncomfortably warm look sometimes.

Although I don't know where I stand on the whole issue of what master is the most accurate color-representation of original prints, I can certainly say that I like this color grade the most out of all the ones I have seen previously (both official and unofficial) though I will admit that I am one of the minority folks who prefer it with green cast since it helps add to the 70s time-period sort of look the Japanese trailer sported (but I'm not complaining, it's still quite fantastic work).

Side-note, since y'all are mentioning about the color grading on the upcoming release, awhile back some pics were teased over Twitter and uh...

https://twitter.com/SecondSightFilm/stat...3763808257

Well, from what I can tell, it seems to be going flat out neutral and green-cast corrected and whatnot. But still, I'm refraining from judging anything about the master until I can get my hands on it whenever it comes out

[deleted user]

About the fluorescent light ... I believe in the days of film photography, people used filters when taking pictures under fluorescent light that would compensate for the green cast, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2bTJ_5oKzQ

They're called FLD filters. Though in all fairness, I have no idea if they were used in this case and for how long they have existed.

[LucasGodzilla]

About the fluorescent light ... I believe in the days of film photography, people used filters when taking pictures under fluorescent light that would compensate for the green cast, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2bTJ_5oKzQ

They're called FLD filters. Though in all fairness, I have no idea if they were used in this case and for how long they have existed.

I would agree with you but like you said, since the movie was in the 70s, I am unsure if that sort of filter even existed. Plus, if you looked at the master for the Cannes Cut, well...

[deleted user]

Ah, interesting. The face in this shot still appears to have natural colors, so they maybe had a normal light source pointed from the front? In that case it would be pretty hard to "correct" this short of rotoscoping the actress and giving her a separate or no correction. Maybe they just decided to go for that green look on purpose while still keeping skin colors looking good in the foreground.

[zoidberg]

Another great project, thanks PDB! Keep 'em coming.

Some interesting theories on here regarding fluorescent light. I think the idea that fluorescents are this wild uncontrollable thing and DPs can't control them is an interesting take, in this podcast Jost Vacano describes shooting Robocop almost exclusively with fluorescent tubes (Kino Flos and on location lighting). Problems can arise for sure when differing light sources are used within a scene, and similarly certain desirable 'looks' can be obtained as well.

Considering the length of a typical film shoot and the need to watch dailies, Romero/Gornick would have been aware of how the film was looking, making adjustments etc.

[X5gb]

4k French framing is wrong, to much of the soundtrack area to the right is shown with the usual discrepancies that can come from that including crew members visible.

Hopefully the UK Second Sight which is from the OCN rather than the interpositive will fix that.

[LucasGodzilla]

Considering the length of a typical film shoot and the need to watch dailies, Romero/Gornick would have been aware of how the film was looking, making adjustments etc.

One thing that I recall being discussed during a documentary on the movie was that the movie had a "very loose lighting style" and that they were unable to properly light certain scenes as elegantly–for a lack of better terms–as other movies due to simply the sheer scale of the mall, the low budget, and time constraints.

(45:46)

I am sure that Gornick made adjustments and whatnot but I doubt he was able to fully accommodate this issue at the time, thus making me wonder if the reason why the new Second Sight master looks like how it is from the teaser shots on Twitter as a sort of revisionist sort of deal for him personally.