Just so that there is no confusion and to continue this very transparent process of how this release of The Beyond has worked I asked Fran for the lowdown on the opening sequence and how it was corrected:
"The HD master we have is in black and white, in order for the colour to truly reflect the original colour scheme means going back to the negative and doing a scan and colour grading with the original DoP and then digitising that scan in an HD master and then authoring the disc from that master. We can only use the supplied material – an HD master, if we were to do a restoration from other film elements, such as a 35mm print the quality would never be good as original film elements – i.e. the negative or a positive. A 35mm print may also have missing frames and damage far worse to what condition the negative is in. We cannot access the negative as we do not have the original licensor’s permission to do this.
We were officially told by the licensor that the negative is in black and white but I am not sure I believe that given that the DoP has said that it was shot in colour and then graded to look like an old photo so what we had to do was try our very best to replicate Sergio Salvati’s intentions."
This release has certainly proved to be very tricky but people can from all the information over the past few months make a clear choice as to whether it is for them but one thing that is a constant issue with older films is what materials are supplied and what can be done with them and the best possible efforts have been made.
|