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Topic: Schindler's List coming to DVD

Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-09-2003 12:35 PM

It was just announced from MCA that "Schindler's List" will be released on DVD on March 9th. 2004. It will be available in an Widescreen and Full Screen Versions and a Special Collector's Box Edition.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-09-2003 12:47 PM

Any idea why it has taken so long? It was available on Laserdisc years ago.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 12-09-2003 01:45 PM

Fool screen edition??? Why not put out a colorized version while they're at it??

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Rich Ferrando
Film Handler

Posts: 64
From: Royal Oak, MI
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 12-09-2003 04:39 PM

Full-screen editions will probably remain until everybody in the world has 16:9 televisions, unfortunately. Since "Schindler's" was shot 1.33 and cropped on projection, you're "technically" getting more image, but... who cares??!!! I want to see it the way it was in theatres! The way it's SUPPOSED to be!

Kind of like how there's no Widescreen DVD releases of "The Sting" or "The Secret of NIMH." Fullscreen DVD, yes. Widescreen, no - and no plans to release them either.

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 12-09-2003 10:05 PM

It was filmed 1.85 not 1.33

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-10-2003 01:19 AM

I wonder if the DVD will feature a DTS track, or perhaps even be retooled to have a EX 5.1 or ES 6.1 discrete track. The question is raised since "E.T." got the DD-EX treatment. The movie broke a long running string of Best Picture Oscar winners featuring a Dolby-branded audio track on the film print (the release print had DTS timecode and the "DTS Stereo" optical track.

Anyone remember those ads from Dolby that ran in magazines like Premiere that listed Best Picture or Best Sound winners starting with "Star Wars"?

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-10-2003 03:50 AM

I don't know about the actual prints, but on the trailer there were two (I think) scenes which were hard-matted, but the others were all printed full frame. I don't know why, not digital, as far as I know.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-10-2003 11:11 AM

quote:
Since "Schindler's" was shot 1.33 and cropped on projection, you're "technically" getting more image...

Unless they started with the already cropped 1:1.85 frame and then panned and scanned that to Academy, in which case you're technically getting one hell of a lot less (relative to the camera aperture).

quote:
...but the others were all printed full frame. I don't know why, not digital, as far as I know.

Studio cameras don't have aperture plates in them like projectors do and will therefore expose a full-height frame. Release prints are generally made from an internegative by continuous contact printing, which cannot apply a hard matte. Unless a previous generation (e.g. cut camera neg to interpos, or interpos to interneg) was step printed, the full height frame would survive being printed through all four generations from o-neg to release print, leaving the projector's aperture plate as the last line of defence against showing part of the frame which the cinematographer doesn't want the audience to see.

Personally I think they should step contact print from camera neg to interpos with a mask of the correct ratio, as that would eliminate any possibility of a projection cock-up. Given that the source and destination film stocks are still being placed in physical contact with each other, I can't see that this would have any adverse effect on image quality, but there must be some reason why this isn't normally done.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-10-2003 11:49 AM

Leo wrote:

quote:
Personally I think they should step contact print from camera neg to interpos with a mask of the correct ratio, as that would eliminate any possibility of a projection cock-up.

A hard matte would normally be added at the master positive to duplicate negative printing stage by using a pin-registered step (optical or contact) printer with the appropriate aperture. Step printing the camera negative would result in CLEAR framelines in the final print. Standard SMPTE 195 recommends that a full frame aperture be used in the camera, and the hard matte be introduced during duplication (Annex A.4 and A.5).

Optimum steadiness and sharpness requires printing the short pitch (BH-1866) camera negative onto long pitch (DH-1870) intermediate film on a continuous contact printer to make the master positive. The long pitch master positive would then be printed on a pin-registered step printer to make a short pitch (BH-1866) duplicate negative. The short pitch duplicate negative can then be printed to long pitch (KS-1870) print film on a high speed continuous contact printer to make the release prints. Printing short pitch originals to short pitch raw stock on a continuous contact printer results in printer slippage and possible unsteadiness and loss of sharpness.

If "digital intermediate" is used, the full length duplicate negatives would be made on short pitch (BH-1866) stock.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-10-2003 01:53 PM

quote:
Step printing the camera negative would result in CLEAR framelines in the final print.

Which is why I'd introduce the matte at that stage. If the wrong plate and/or lens was used in projection, the blaring white light above and below the picture would alert even the most technophobic customer to the fact that something was wrong, and thereby shame the theatre into getting it right.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 12-10-2003 03:27 PM

The black-and-white scenes were shot hard-matted. Only the color footage at the beginning and end was shot 'full frame'.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-10-2003 04:15 PM

I did run the film, just one show, but I don't remember if the print was hard matted. The trailer, at least the print of it that I had was all black and white, on Agfa black and white stock, and all but two, or possibly three, shots were full frame. Those few shots were very tightly hard-matted, with the image extending only slightly beyond a 1.85 aperture. That was what seemed odd to me, that a few shots should be hard-matted, when the rest were not.

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Rich Ferrando
Film Handler

Posts: 64
From: Royal Oak, MI
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 12-11-2003 12:58 AM

Perhaps they mixed-and-matched the two, because several years ago I witnessed a comparison of a few scenes between the widescreen and full-frame VHS versions of the film (from someone who was complaining about the widescreen version just being a "cropped" copy of the full-frame version) and the widescreen version was cropped in those scenes. If I'm not mistaken one of the comparisons was with the scene where Ralph Fiennes is being driven down the street in a convertible with the top down in the winter. The full-frame version was definitely not panned and scanned in that case.

I could be remembering this wrong - it has been several years - but I'm fairly sure that this is the case, at least in the few portions being compared. Is it possible that the VHS transfers were made from a print prior to being hard-matted, or that the transfer was a mish-mash of full frame and hard matte?

quote:
That was what seemed odd to me, that a few shots should be hard-matted, when the rest were not.

We had a similar situation recently with a trailer for "The Cooler." We were playing it in front of "Elephant," which was 1.33, and most of the trailer was hard matted, but about 1/4 of it (including the MPAA Green Preview header) was full-frame. My only guess to the reason for this was that they hard-matted certain portions to cover up something, like a visible boom in the shot, just for situations where the trailer might be projected with a 1.33 or 1.66 lens - but didn't matte the whole thing because of time constraints maybe? I don't know what the situation was that garnered only matting part of it, but it was very weird to see that matting pop on and off during the trailer.

Incidentally, the Landmark "Cooler Sweepstakes" trailer was fully hard-matted. Very weird.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-11-2003 04:21 AM

huh. we also played the cooler trailer in front of elephant, but i don't remember that happening. i guess i never sat through the whole thing on that print. between that and the landmark promo version i'm getting pretty sick of it.

carl

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Tao Yue
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 209
From: Princeton, NJ
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-11-2003 10:53 AM

Leo wrote:

quote:
Which is why I'd introduce the matte at that stage. If the wrong plate and/or lens was used in projection, the blaring white light above and below the picture would alert even the most technophobic customer to the fact that something was wrong, and thereby shame the theatre into getting it right.

What would that do to, say, 1.75 hard mattes? Wouldn't be able to run with 1.66 plates anymore, since the clear framelines will show through even on masking. Very annoying for dark scenes, and sometimes you don't have the luxury of cutting a new plate before the show.

Clear framelines on intended-aspect-ratio hard mattes reduce the freedom to improvise in unusual or nonideal situations. In-camera mattes don't have clear framelines anyway (unless you step-print those to get a clear frameline?).

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