Movies - In High-Def Shift, Are Studios Blurring The Picture? : NPR

More on the upcoming blu-ray edition of Dial M for Murder.


Movies - In High-Def Shift, Are Studios Blurring The Picture? : NPR:







From the NPR report:

"The movie's famous murder scene happens in Grace Kelly's living room — all murky and shadowy at night.

The colorist working on the digital version at Warner, Janet Wilson, points out that in the initial digital copy, the room is dark — but the shadows aren't registering boldly.

"You can see that they're kind of blue and milky and washed out," she adds.

The colors have faded on the original film print, it turns out. But using digital coloring, Wilson is able to fix that.

"I isolate that element in the image, and I make it darker," Wilson says, "to make it actually look like a shadowy room."

The enhanced shadows make the room look much scarier. Hitchcock's ghost would approve — or at least Ned Price hopes so."