Ozu DVDs

[Trond Trondsen]

Hello,

> make the films look better than I ever really imagined possible.

yes, they have done a remarkable job... It's such a vast improvement
over the video old tapes - take for example the restoration/remastering
of Higanbana:
Before: http://www.phys.ucalgary.ca/~trondsen/mastersofcinema.org/OZU/higanbanavideo.jpg
After : http://www.phys.ucalgary.ca/~trondsen/mastersofcinema.org/OZU/higanbanadvd.jpg

Here is a snippet from Tokyojin Magazine... [October 2003 #195, pp. 42-44]
[Rough translaton by Sato Kimitoshi]

--

TAKASHI KAWAMATA ON THE OZU RESTORATION WORK

"Since 1962 old burnable films were replaced by non-burnable films. And
when transferred, mold and stain, together with images, were fixed on
new films. And the preservation problem. Aging stuck films together.
This time we made use of technology of the Technological college of
Singapore, and restored even tiny scratches. It works so precisely
that it may make  even the rain disappear. And it
cannot restore big scars. We have to place the damaged part   
with the  previous frame. So our work with our hands is the   
most important. We began to think about  the remastering work 
about twenty years ago.
     
Re: soundtrack:

we restore it in the same way that we do with the visual images, making
use of a plugin soft called noise reduction. Recently Gosfilm discovered
"There was a father", but  to my disappointment, it
is very poor in sound quality, and fifteen minutes shorter than the
Shochiku version. So we did not use it for restoration.

A trailer of Tokyo Monogatari was found at a reception room of the
production quarter, Shochiku.
It used takes different from those of the movie. The original burnable
film trailer. The original negative of the film was lost by the fire.
Fortunately a copy had been made for Poland, and we made a dupe nega,
and remade a master of it. The present Tokyo Monogatari is printed
based on this master. But this DVD version is much better, I hope.

I worked with Ozu san from his first work after the war: Nagaya
Shinshiroku. Until Higanbana, I
was an assistant to Atsuta san. I became chief from Bakushu. I
specialized in moving. Only one pan in Banshun, the last scene of
Bakushu and picnic scene of Soshun were taken by the moving camera.

This is my saying: If we say film quality is ten, video is three, 
and DVD six or seven.  DVD is weak on red, but this version is much 
better I am sure."

--

Mata!

Trond
http://www.mastersofcinema.org
http://www.nostalghia.com
  ____________________________________________________________
  Trond S. Trondsen trondsen at phys.ucalgary.ca ve6nor at amsat.org 
  Institute for Space Research (ISR), Calgary, Alberta, Canada 
  URL: http://www.phys.ucalgary.ca/~trondsen