How Criterion Collection Brings Movies Back From the Dead
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- Опубликовано: 25 фев 2015
- There are few names that represent a commitment to the distribution of classic films like the Criterion Collection. Since the 1980s, they have remastered and released hundreds of movies on Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-Ray. We recently visited the Criterion headquarters in New York to get a first-hand look at the meticulous restoration process that brings cinematic gems back to life.
Read more here: gizmodo.com/how-criterion-coll...
Video by Michael Hession and Nicholas Stango
We come from the future.
gizmodo.com
As a young person I'm glad I can experience classic films thanks to Criterion. What a fantastic label.
Indeed, they've build up a fantastic resume. You can't be a serious film fan and not know of Criterion tremendous hard work for the film industry, and for providing; home cinema lovers a vast library of restored movies and thensome!
You look 50.......
MGSBigBoss77 - Unless you say just watch the forgotten movies like a bootleg that aren’t constantly revoked by their copyright or you just don’t collect physical media anymore over just streaming & digitally tenting.
@@Ajourneyofknowing criterion collection has such high quality remasters...plus all the bonus features in the box...and the beautiful box art...plus most criterion movies are great!
I love criterion sales !
Pretty pathetic justification of filling a market void. For profit. Remaster, what a disgusting term, given the word Master. Criterion is about encashing Hauntology and makes a lot of money doing so... Here we find zombies worshipping technology instead of the very content which is making them rich. Duh Criterion if the word has any relevance here...
I want to thank this company very much..these people are doing things that are not only worth doing, but also very necessary for our generation.
Sayantan Dutta yeah
N
Amen
I have to agree. The next generation needs to see movies with better qualitys.
ENOUGH SAID
It's inspiring to see so many young people passionate about restoring classic movies. I love cinema and I'd love to work at the Criterion someday, even as a janitor.
Criterion is carrying the DVD / Blu Ray industry right now. So thankful for them, and their preservation of avant-garde / foreign films
I am glad they talked about the covers. I simply love criterions box art.
Each Criterion release needs to come with a behind the scenes of its restoration, please!! Too all at Criterion thank you. 👍And please think about including a behind the scene look of the restoration; Criterion is for Film fantastics, we love that kind of stuff. 🙂
It's a shame they could only scan this at 2K, due to time constraints. Maybe at some point again soon, they could go back in and do it at 4K or 8K, especially since this is in the Library of Congress! I love the great work they are doing with older films and trying to preserve them!
I'm sure they'll have time when they're ready to sell the 4K Blu Ray version
No its because this was relesed in very early 2015. These days Pc's can do that type of stuff in hours instead of days
I know right? I would've scanned 4k and clean it all up. Now use it as a master for the 2k. Basically just scale it down. Less work. But they know what they're doing.
2K is enough for me. Hell, i'd even watch 720p if i can't be able to find it.
How long do you wait before you get started though? Now people are filming in 8k but you can always wait for the next big thing. Better to get it done well in 2k for at least one generation to enjoy now and then come back to it in a decade and start again.
I'm big fan of what people at Criterion do. Would love to work for them some time in my career.
Glad to see effort being put into the box art.
Movie posters, box art, any still image or printed material have become a forgotten art in regards to film.
I’ve been a Criterion collector since the mid-1980’s. If it did not exist, I have serious doubts that the major studios would have been inspired to include such special features as commentaries on their own discs. These guys were (and are) innovators in their field.
And here I was this whole time thinking the "Criterion Collection" was a special board made up of a bunch of old dudes sitting around in tuxedos sipping brandy and scotch, smoking big cigars, and slurping on caviar in a mansion at the end of Rodeo Drive. Didn't realize how "Nine Inch Nails" it actually is. Cheers.
A. "Nine Inch Nails" might be pushing it, lol.
B. "Nine Inch Nails" are now old dudes in mansions who are so over it they don't even drink.
@@mnkykungfu If you don’t get it you never will.
@@chumcool I don't think anyone gets it, dude
@@luckygitane Well... I guess I’m in the shallow end of the RUclips pool again.
@@chumcool unless you're talking about Trent and Atticus's workflow-- sitting at screens and goofing with instruments-- which is only marginally similar, I don't see how you'd compare the attitude of an industrial alt-rock outfit with a boutique DVD company.
Criterion do such important work. Their restoration jobs are stellar. Some of them are so good they look like contemporary releases. Thank you for preserving these works for us!
Those people are doing an amazing job!
I’ve often thought about how I would be able to watch some of the greatest films ever made without something like Criterion. The thought of a “lost” film tears me apart.
I would LOVE to see these guys restore to 4K the WW2 Era Movie called The Best Years Of Our Lives. Plus EVERY Tarzan movie starting from Johnny Weismuller all the way down to Casper Van Dien.
If the negative of those films are still around and they are in good condition, they can do it!
The William Wyler masterpiece The Best Years Of Our Lives? Awesome film. They need to do another great of Wyler's too, Roman Holiday. Paramount haven't put t to BluRay so they need to permit Criterion to give it the sort of release it deserves.
Scott Luther - They don’t strictly need the original negatives (which is a blind shot if they even exist anymore) just something of a stable enough recording or copy to remaster itself.
These are the cleanest desks I've ever seen.
I'm guessing they cleaned things up a bit for this video
Strange how the art director has the smallest monitor of anyone...
For print design color reproduction and gamut is way more imortant than size. Also, most of the things he will do would be in portrait orientation so aspect ration doesn't matter and it was shot in 2014
Honestly the fact that there are people complaining about FC getting a 2K restoration instead of 4K just goes to show how good we have it today.
I'm only 23 and even I remember when DVD was as good as it got for home video. Folks older than me will remember when buying a Criterion edition meant getting a LaserDisc. To have access to these films in HD is already like a dream come true compared to how things were just over a decade ago; getting 4K restorations at all, even if Criterion doesn't have the time or resources to do it for every single movie (and it is a lot more expensive, especially in terms of storing those huge files), is something special I don't take for granted.
@Inge Fossen Yeah, but 7th Seal for the Bergman Set was scanned at 4K but printed in 1080, why? Remember, with 4K comes the possibility of HDR, Dolby Vision, DTS:X, and or Dolby Atmos. So don't buy the arguments that 4K is not noticeable. It is - when it is scanned, mastered, and printed to disc properly and with compatible technologies as well. As for the "look where we used to be" argument - we used to be I love Lucy in kinescope. It's 2019, not 1951. Desi Arnaz went to 35mm, kinescope was so bad. Time marches on.
@Inge Fossen Thank you for your considerate reply. But what you're saying still sounds eerily like what some people said when 8-track tapes went to cassette, when cassette went to CD, when VHS went to DVD, and when DVD went to Blu-ray. Of course, you need a player, but that's not a reason not to buy one. You need a 4K TV as well. I still have my old VHS player, but only for some family tapes. I went to DVD but not right away. Basically, I think most film fans rush to praise a film maker's "vision," but ignore that he/she is as much imprisoned by available technology as anyone. When you point that out some will claim it was a deliberate choice, but the PRINT of that film is as much a creative artifact as it is one person's vision. Look how VHS tapes fade to washout; Was that a vision? I think not. So upconverting film to the highest available format is always to be preferred since it encodes the highest amount of data about the master and therefore renders it more truthfully. You may feel uncomfortable referring to an Auteur's film as, "so much data" but it is in fact true. If you prefer film the way it was shot then that's a good argument for attending a Film Festival, but not for buying any kind of player of any format. Yes?You may disagree but I thank you, Inge! for making me think more about my ideas.
@Inge Fossen Mostly agree with you, my friend. I too have 4K player and 55" 4KTV( mine OLED). However I would quibble on one thing: 4K difference may not be very noticeable on our 55" TVs but the HDR, HDR10, Dolby Vision (as well as Dolby Atmos, DTS:X audio) is VERY noticeable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think those are available on regular HD. They can make a HUGE difference in viewing. Also, as you admit, bigger TVs have more to gain from 4K, which in turn is an argument for it. Dolby Vision affects light as well as color, if I am correct. So it would be a very interesting experiment to take a bright, colorful Classic art house film like say, "Stalker" or "Ran" or "Lawrence of Arabia" (that one shot in 60 or 70mm, I think) and give it the full 4K Dolby Vision treatment and see what derives. It might be remarkable. I just re-watched Stalker on DVD recently and the light play that was clearly a strong emphasis in the film by Tarkovsky was superb. It's great that we can debate these questions compared to the pitiful choices we once had.
I agree, and I am the type that is complaining that he did a 2K instead of 4K! I am hoping they will go back and do a minimum of 4K or possibly even 8K. He only did 2K because of a time crunch!
@@1cathexis You're absolutely right. There is a big difference between 2K and 4K. I work in films myself, I do this literally every day. And the idea of spending all this time and work in remastering an old film IN 2K and not 4K, is unbelievable. That means everything has to be redone when doing the 4K scan, which eventually will happen. What a waste.
This is awesome! Been snapping up Criterion Collection releases since the laserdisc days (just bought the Pulp Fiction LD box a few weeks ago in fact). Great stuff.
Please know that "Foreign Correspondent" and "Saboteur" are two of my favorite Hitchcock movies.
I was born in 1936 and so I love World War II movies. These are two "fringe-World War II movies."
That umbrella scene ("Foreign Correspondent") when the prime minister is supposedly assassinated, that is classic, unforgettable Hitchcock.
Later in that movie, the windmill scenes are classic Hitchcock.
When the spy falls from the Statue of Liberty (Saboteur) is classic, unforgettable Hitchcock.
To realize the relative innocence of movie-goers in the early 40's (pre-noir), you know how exciting these movies were for 40's audiences.
I am so happy you are updating these two Hitchcock classics.
Most people go for Hitch's big movies, but I love how these little characters operate in the Hitchcock universe.
Same for "The Lady Vanishes" and "The 39 Steps," British Hitchcock!
Criterion is the absolute best and they deserve your love and appreciation. My Criterion collection keeps growing and I expect it to continue to grow till I die. Thank you Criterion you absolutely beautiful people. Thanks for all the hard work and love.
Thank you all for your great work! So many classic gems beautifully presented.
Many, many thanks for what you are doing. Many of these films are classic that deserve to be presented in the best possible format.
This is awesome, the Criterion Channel has been such a nice break away from the typical streaming platforms. Thank you!
Amazing video! I love learning about film restoration and the Criterion team do an incredible work!
You guys are some of the most important art restorers out there, I think, in terms of the fragility of the art (or its medium) and the vitality of the art form. Movies are going to be popular for the rest of forever, and now so many of these great classics are digitally restored in a "forever" format. Just watched Seven Samurai last Saturday, couldn't hold it together. So much fun, pathos, legendary characters, action that's mind-blowing. And a presentation that looks and sounds sooooo _good._
These guys are doing wonders for the art of cinema.
Wow , this is soooo cool. Can't stop smiling. Thank you criterion for the amazing work you do
Big fan of the Criterion Collection. Thank you for what you do, and giving the public a glimpse of your artististry.
Thank you Criterion for all you do. Amazing team effort.
Awesome! Thank you all for doing this!!!!!!!
I discovered a lot of new favorites and hidden gems from Criterion. Always thankful.
The folks at Criterion are simply the best. AHHHH This makes me so happy. I already had a great deal of appreciation for the amount of work they put into each and every one of their releases, but seeing this adds so much to that. I hope they stick around for a long time. I also wish they'd do a release of Klimov's "Come and See," but I won't be pushy.
All of these studios are doing such an amazing job . I recently acquired jaws in 4k uhd with Dolby atmos and was just completely blown away. It’s unbelievable what they are able to do these days as far as restoration goes . Amazing
I wonder if the grain of the original negatives limits whether 4K would bring out any more from it. I love the fact that the progress of computing allows such powerful restoration to take place and the irony is that we had to wait for the technology to allow us to see those old movies again in pristine condition
You guys are doing such important work, you are restoring our art, which is a huge part of our culture and history, so that future generations can see it. It saddens me very much how many things got lost to time. Our generation is the first to really see the importance of preservation and we are often just in time to restore classic works before it's too late. To think otherwise in a few decania many things of our life (or rather our grandparents' life in this case) would be lost to time is quite a scary thought. I'm very glad people like you guys exist to keep that from happening. Thank you!
Thanks for your hard work
ALL of James Cagney's movies are at the Library of Congress, PLEASE restore them.
Wonderful work
Important work, and highly entertaining as well!
Is incredible. I'm really grateful Criterion exists because there is a REAL restoration of a lot of films with a really messed up quality.
I love old classic movies!! So glad they are being preserved
Thanks for this great look into Criterion.
Great job you are doing Criterion
You are serving the humanity after restoring lot of gems as classics
Bravo
Long live cinema
Love you
I discovered Criterion Collection in the 1990s laser discs and have been hooked on ever since. I am glad that they have become so popular now.
love these guys! this label is truly revolutionary in film preservation. I find it fascinating that Criterion has been around (officially) since the early 80s. I actually have a few titles on Laserdisc!
This is pretty awesome, not gonna lie. Thank you for making this! ❤️
Never knew how drastic the changes were before that before and after. Incredible work being done by them
The Apu Trilogy is probably the biggest achievement in film restoration currently, pretty incredible
You do a great service for cinema. Thanks so much.
This whole process is a pice of art. Wow. This is fantastic! Thank you for preserving our human art history so well!
Your dedication is greatly appreciated. I've seen several of your 'remastered' movies, including Foreign Correspondent, and the quality is amazing. I feel that when we see these movies now we are seeing them looking better than the original audiences! The cream in my collection is your BLU RAY of WAR AND PEACE (Russia c1967)!!!
Foreign Correspondent has some stellar suspense sequences, so I’m happy I watched it on Criterion for the first time
I really appreciate the serious work Criterion have been putting up.
The Criterion Channel is the greatest gift for young film buffs out there, it is THE best streaming service on the market by far. What an awesome company.
Thank you guys, you are true cinema lovers.
Fascinating! Thank you
I’d like to see more on the audio stuff. That’s kind of cool how they may mix a track that’s really only mono or stereo
Wow, just amazing. This is god's work. The cinema is my Church.
The only downside to this was seeing how going from 2 to 8 days scanning time was all it took to make the decision to restore in 2K rather than 4K.
Perhaps the difference would be negligible, or they had access to the film for a limited time, but spending an extra 6 days then to have the film in 4K now and forever seems like it would have been very worth it.
He said they were under a time crunch, so yes probably only had access to the film for a few days.
Just got my godzilla criterion collection I'm so happy I finally get to watch all the legendary films even if one of them is not that good
Love their restorations, I always look to see if the film is part of the Criterion Collection if I'm buy it for my own collection.
Incredibly necessary and makes me so happy that Criterion exists as a company.
More than happy to pay good money for their top notch efforts rather than some dumpster bin, bare bones release with zero love put into it.
I noticed that they're using a first generation vanilla Macbook (2006) and at least one G5 (phased out in 2005)... workhorse machines that, if you trick them out, work really well for A/V editing.
I have the 1921 Charlie Chaplin movie The Kid on Blu-ray from Criterion. When the opening scene appeared I was stunned at the picture quality of a 100 year old film. It looks like it was made yesterday. 1925's The Freshman with Harrold Lloyd also looks great. Anyone looking for a silent film should start here.
WOW! WHAT COOL JOBS YOU GUYS HAVE!
thank you criterion collection for your fantastic work!!!
you are a true gift for film afficionados like me 😭
Great stuff, just goes to show what wonders today's technology can do.
Lol 4 years ago
@@luciano_luna1941 as was his comment
Not just the technology, but the care and attention used when working with it. That's what makes Criterion stand out from the pack. There are, sad to say, still some substandard restorations being released - messed up colour balance, artifacting etc, even on 4K discs.
Thx for releasing Fantastic Planet!
Some years ago, I bought Criterion's, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" at Barnes & Noble. Truly enjoyed this movie and all the work Criterion did to get this DVD on the market.
Thanks very much. It is always nice to see what the processes look like. Not that we understand all this--
Criterion made films available that I never thought I would get the chance to see. They do an amazing job!
Thank you Criterion for restoring Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky (1976). Easily one of the most underrated films I've ever seen.
This was awesome!
Thank you so much for saving our history.
I've seen this video so many times in the past four years.
My life would be much worse without the great work that Criterion does. Here's to many more years!
I have a newly found appreciation for Criterion after watching this. I actually have “Foreign Correspondent” from them and thought is looked awesome, now I know what went into it! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The covers are really cool , astonishing.
My experience with Criterion releases is small, but purely positive.
This company is a nearly priceless asset to the movie industry.
Great to see.
Thanks Criterion Collection for restoring all of this masterpieces
I didn't know about the art/design department and the role they had in making covers. Very cool
Great job. Also, a great job to have.
This is sooooo fucking interesting!!!
If only we could get the original star wars to these guys.
Shitty Productions
Criterion would be able to do a far better job. The 4K version of Star Wars Online is a fan made version. It’s seriously impressive, but even the guys admit that they are limited by their knowledge and resources.
I am sure a 4K UHD Blu-ray of SW is coming at some point! They may go ahead and scan it at 8K and at least relase the 4K for now and then the 8K later once 8K TV's become more popular!
They should just do an 8k transfer now to save themselves the time, like the Wizard of OZ got. They can go and release a compressed 4k version now, and wait until 8k is more popular to double dip.
@@spookylemon4947 the quest is, will it be the unaltered versions of the OG trilogy or the special editions though?
Lucas keeps fiddling with it.
The remaster of Tati's 'Trafic' is astounding. The best car movie ever made.
My boyfriend sent me this and this is very interesting thank you for sharing. You are doing cool work that i didn’t know existed.
Damn this must be a lot of work. Nice job.
For a long time I have been a big fan of what CC has been doing. I love their respect for movies! I wonder what their "time crunch" was? Seems a pity to not sacrifice 1 week to do a full 4K scan (especially as now 4k is becoming so commonplace). They "waited" 80 years to restore this - what's few extra days?
Probably had to give the film back.
I wish more people had this kind of love and passion for our media culture. Most of the time it seems like it’s mostly people in their 20’s-50’s who care enough to try. I’m no movie restorer myself but even I think film is something that needs to be preserved just like sculptures, paintings, books and monuments since they represent our history and culture to give the future a look at what life was like before.
The people behind the magic, big respect 👌🏼
Film Restoration - CLEAN DESK , Sound Restoration - CLEAN DESK, Art Department - YAY !! Desk looks like mine - Creative people RULE the Earth !
Many of these titles would be rotting away in some storage rooms, but thanks to Criterion, we can see them again fully restored.
These major studios don't seem to care about preserving these lost gems..
Criterion, you do great work. Don't let anyone say otherwise :)
Damn! I may be easily impressed, but this blows my mind!
The fact that you can remove scratches on a film negative show how far technology has come.
Recently I watched the Criterion edition of Alfred Hitchcocks movie "Young and Innocent" (GB, 1937) and it was amazing. I strongly recommend the Criterion editions of Hitchcock's movies.
Thank you guys from the bottom of the heart I can see what you did to my favourite Japanese films Rashomon and more, and I love them and they are so beautiful! Iam so happy. Thank you. Keep up the good work we appreciate it, I am sure everyone does, so I can say that.
The guy talking at 0:12 reminds me of Peter Stormare
These guys are my heroes!