The 88 Films Thread

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

An interesting post regarding the transfer of 88's Spasmo (and Italian genre films and related restoration in general) over at Blu-ray.com:

We’ve worked on some of the titles discussed here for German label X-rated so maybe I can add my few cents. There are a lot of assumptions in this thread which, after a while, seem to become fact plus misinformation about the whole issue in general.

Solamente Nero and Spasmo are LVR scans with color correction done there. Dust busting, scratch removal etc. wasn’t, we’ve done that. (Btw, we’ve also worked on most of the new Spencer Hill BD releases by 3L in Germany, also done stuff for Koch, Ascot, Turbine, many others.
La Casa Con La Scala Nel Buio wasn’t done at LVR at all.
We’ve supplied SPASMO back to the producer in two versions, one with slight noise concealment, one without (I don't know which label uses what, we've never dealt with them directly) - so their clients can pick and choose. Why? Because these transfers are not for BD alone, in fact if it was for BD alone very few films would get transfers at all because it just isn’t worth it from an economic point of view for rights holders. Most tv stations would reject transfers with such heavy noise/grain because of lower transmission bitrates so it has to be dealt with. Like it or not. You will also find a lot of consumer TVs from certain manufacturers and some panel generations seriously struggling with a noise/grain component like that which results in smearing and clouding.

Are these transfers problematic - partially, yes. There is just no easy answer to it. I am sorry to say but people here tend to have a very naive idea of the situation. Film is essentially dead in Italy, very few companies have any interest to invest in new technology in that field because there is not a big market for it anymore. Cinecitta closed it’s lab quite a while ago. When Technicolor in Rome closed doors in 2013 it created huge problems, lots of producers and library holders where faced with hundreds of negatives, internegatives and interpositives that needed to go somewhere. And you cannot simply put them in any warehouse or your attic - it needs to go somewhere appropriate for film. Air conditioned, precautions for fire, insurrance issues, a place where people work who deal with film and which preferably can also scan the stuff because that’s the point of having those negatives stored in the first place.
But it also needs a place that has staff that knows how to deal with OLD film, knows how to clean it, repair it, prep it for scanning. And it has to be a place that can handle 2-perf because a lot of those films are.
Guess what, it’s a tough call to find such a place these days. There are only a handful in all of Italy today. In France you have L’Eclair that are well equipped to handle such tasks, in the US it is fairly easy - in Italy not so much.
So once you have a contract with a lab to store your negatives and positives, it’s not a question of simply taking it out and giving it somewhere else for scanning (IF you have another place of which you KNOW can handle the material AND give good results). You can’t simply go “trial and error”, it all costs a lot of money. Again, there are insurance issues which are massive for the transport alone (unless you don’t care what happens to your property but believe it or not most companies and producers actually do). As a foreign licensee to ask for a negative to be sent abroad to a lab of your choice, unknown to the rights holder, is not only costly but very likely to not be meet with much enthusiasm - and as much as I would prefer different, more modern scanner technology used at times, I do understand the producer’s position.
Unless you’ve worked with a company for many years and they know and trust you and want to make you happy, you are very likely to have to live with whatever lab the negative is located at.

Spasmo is a 2-perf negative, so half 35mm resolution which boosts the grain and noise when doing a transfer on certain equipment, also the neg wasn’t in pretty bad condition.
If this had been done with a DFT Scanity, yes, it would have looked better. A maxed out Scanity is half a million Euro. I am not even aware of a single Italian lab that has such equipment.

The idea that “there is lots of money to be made” from such genre releases is silly. A lot of these releases from smaller labels are labours of love, some investing a lot of privat time without pay to make any kind of return on the investment. We, too, have put in a lot of non-pay work, especially in Spasmo, to clean damage a different scanner would have dealt with. It can be frustrating at times to read some of these comments here, especially since nobody here has seen the condition of the negative to begin with.
Most of the costly 2k and 4K transfer and restoration jobs in Italy can only be done via state subsidising. Todo Modo was done that way just recently. Came out on DVD only in Italy - nowhere else to be seen so far. Antonioni, Fellini, you can get financial help there. No subsidising for Spasmo I am afraid.
So, again, I, too, wish the quality of some of those scans was better to begin with as it makes restoration work a lot easier. But simply pointing fingers are labels and rights holders thinking they just don’t want to spent a few Euros more to make it all fantastic means not understanding the scope of the issue. It’s a lot more than just a few Euro and a lot more that comes into play beyond that.
As things stand, the situation is likely to get even worse in years to come as the market is declining and more labs are closing their fllm departments.

[Boo Radley]

Shit.... half the problem nowadays is people believing that films made in the '70's and '80's should look as good as the latest blockbuster out of Hollywood. Most of these old films just brought out on Blu Ray never looked this good on their original cinema runs!

An example is Enter the Dragon. I saw it back in the '70's at a drive - in, numerous cinemas, then VHS, DVD and now Blu Ray. I have read of people complaining it is still not perfect but in my experiences of watching it many, many times, it is far, far better than it could have ever hoped to look 40 years ago.

Jeez, people need to get a grip, a bit of film grain or compression and there is squealing that it doesn't reach their high standards of what they consider a Blu Ray to be. Really? Guess they are into the wrong hobby then!

And this bashing of 88 because they drop the price trying to attract more sales really needs to stop too. You don't agree with how much they charge, fine, don't buy the bloody thing, hang around for a few months and pick it up then. We should be on our fricken knees thanking them for putting out the stuff we want to see, not bitching that we might save a couple of quid.

And breathe......

[Blinkant]

Very interesting post.

As I stated in an earlier post, I’m sure these releases are going to be the best we get in the near future, unless some millionaire decides to invest into some new equipment in Italy or 88 Films can talk the rights holders into allowing the film out of the country for scanning in London.

I can only hope (and the screen grabs are looking good) that Zombi Holocaust is a good transfer and does good business for 88 Films. It might encourage the other right holders to lend the film to the 88 guys if it makes them a bit more money in the long run.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

An interesting post regarding the transfer of 88's Spasmo (and Italian genre films and related restoration in general) over at Blu-ray.com:

It puts everything in perspective and makes you realise what 88 Films and all the other distributors are up against when they work on a first HD release (or brand-new HD release) of an obscure title.

[demonknight]

When does "Anthropophagus" in HD ship from 88 Films? I ordered the disc early March, guess I'm just getting a little impatient. It's also my first time ordering from 88 Films directly.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by demonknight

When does "Anthropophagus" in HD ship from 88 Films? I ordered the disc early March, guess I'm just getting a little impatient. It's also my first time ordering from 88 Films directly.

It's provisionally slated for release on June 22nd.

[Antropophagus]

OK people, this will be my last rant on my problem with 88 Films. They told me they would cancel my order and refund me but they haven't done it yet. Emailed them a couple of times again and as usual no replies, since they were too busy with posting some info on some cocktail to Twitter. Enough is enough, I'm going to open a PayPal dispute. Only I don't know what option to choose. PayPal offers me these two options:


Item dispute: I did not receive an item I purchased or the item I received is significantly not as described.


Unauthorized transaction: I did not authorize a recent transaction.

Could any experienced PayPal user help me out please?

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Antropophagus

OK people, this will be my last rant on my problem with 88 Films. They told me they would cancel my order and refund me but they haven't done it yet. Emailed them a couple of times again and as usual no replies, since they were too busy with posting some info on some cocktail to Twitter. Enough is enough, I'm going to open a PayPal dispute. Only I don't know what option to choose. PayPal offers me these two options:


Item dispute: I did not receive an item I purchased or the item I received is significantly not as described.


Unauthorized transaction: I did not authorize a recent transaction.

Could any experienced PayPal user help me out please?

I would suggest e-mailing paypal directly and querying the issue. Cite uk consumer law and advise you have cancelled under distance selling regs (the ones I mentioned before.) Reiterate that failiure to honour cancellation is a potential criminal offence.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Antropophagus

OK people, this will be my last rant on my problem with 88 Films. They told me they would cancel my order and refund me but they haven't done it yet. Emailed them a couple of times again and as usual no replies, since they were too busy with posting some info on some cocktail to Twitter. Enough is enough, I'm going to open a PayPal dispute. Only I don't know what option to choose. PayPal offers me these two options:


Item dispute: I did not receive an item I purchased or the item I received is significantly not as described.


Unauthorized transaction: I did not authorize a recent transaction.

Could any experienced PayPal user help me out please?

This might not be easy, particularly because money is involved, but try and wait a few days first. You saw how long it took for them to respond to your initial e-mail and if, as seems, they are very busy with negotiating for future releases as well as dealing with Twitter and Facebook, it might take them a while to go through their e-mails.

If they haven't responded and reimbursed you in a week, the first option (did not receive an item) would seem to be the most applicable.

[Blinkant]

Agreed. It might take a few days for the funds to be refunded. If they are not there by Monday, I would look into raising it with PayPal.