4:20.I agree that Lynch would not have been able to get the funding to make this movie on film, but I don’t really think that he shot on digital reluctantly. From what I’ve read David Lynch fell in love with the digital aesthetic and workflow, even if it haven’t been perfected yet. I personally love the fact that this movie looks like a home video most of the time
Lynch started the project with the intent of it going on his website as a short but it developed into a feature and by that point he’d shot too much of it on DV to be able to switch formats midway through.
I just don't understand at this point in his illustrious career that the money people wouldn't be falling over themselves to give him money. It's so weird.
@@howiespancakeshack well most of the movies he makes don't exactly rake in massive amounts of money at the box office. Just because he has a cult following doesn't make him a box office guarantee
I agree that the upscale was bad but as somebody that saw the film for the first time with the Criterion remaster, despite recognizing that the upscaling was poor, it also added another level of eerie uncanny atmosphere to it, especially shots where people were standing in the distance and their faces would be totally distorted by the upscaling. I'd probably try to just watch the original when I get around to viewing it again but seeing as I was sleep deprived in tandem with what I just mentioned it kinda worked for me in a strange way.
Hey noodle! Didn’t know you are a Lynch fan (or maybe just about the upscaling process criterion go through) Hope everyone who helps out with your channel is doing well
Amazing stuff! The AI was definitely one of the things that bothered me in this remake, but at times it also brings that “early Dall-e” uncanniness to the movie. The faces and details started to morph and it’s bothering in a way that adds on to the viewing experience
I'm against remastering as soon as it deviates away from restoration. I want to see a film which looks as much like the film that the original audiences saw as possible. By all means eradicate the ravages of time, like fading and scratches, and drop-out in the case of video, but I don't want to see "new and improved".
Just watched it on the big screen. I feel like the hard edges you find diagreeable lends itself to the sharp, lofi aesthetic of the cheap DV format. In that sense, in my opinion, the remaster here does what a remaster its meant to: preserve and enhace to modern presentation formats. Adding grain to this however is a non-sensical, diabolical thing to do.
It was originally exhibited in theaters as a film-out which had grain. They scanned one of them to use for this release but Lynch didn't like it and opted for direct digital upscale. Adding fake grain is pretty hilarious considering the real thing would have looked better as it was shown theatrically.
It's nice coming back to a channel you like and realizing you still like it. Thank you for explaining the technical stuff for scrubs like me who never even heard of dynamic range before. Whenever I use a digital camera the most important goal for me is to have no fingers in the picture. Learning about stuff like this makes me appreciate the work put into great movies/videos even more.
Remastering Inland Empire completely takes away from the 2000s digital consumer esthetic, it actually downgrades the move. it should be intentionally lower resolution in my opinion.
refreshingly measured use of ai. even with black box models you can take steps to be aware of what's going on so that you can take full advantage. they're tools, not magic. you get it
Slightly blurry and saturated 480p quality is what made Inland Empire so special and actually look good and interesting, intentionally feverish. AI upscaling it is as redundant of a disservice as removing crackles and static from The Caretaker's albums, or for a more familiar example, colourizing Eraserhead. The remaster is as subtle as my mom's TV where she watches Russian comedies on RU-vid in 360p, while the TV has a fake sharpness setting
Wow! I watched the film on criterion, the entire time hoping there would be more color- thinking that the grey undertone was just a creative choice. Now I know, the original is so much better, color is so important!
I'm seeing a lot of remasters desaturating and changing the course balance of movies. Males me wish I was technically minded and could do my own remasters lol they also seem to be clueless at to retaining the basic character of the image.
The proteus model of Topaz actually has a lot of option to play with, allowing you to dial in the degree of "hallucination" and sharpening you want to have. However, I usually use Artemis with the high or medium setting, which I find gives a fair balance and can be applied for the entire video assuming it has a roughly the same look throughout. It won't look like it was actually filmed in HD/4K/35mm, and it won't look as good as your selective approach, but it's good enough and actually doable in a reasonable amount of time. Note that I do that mainly for old homevideos (SD->HD) and concerts (HD->4K) for personal use only. If I were to do something for a public consumption (which I will eventually) I would also be more selective in my approach.
Awesome work Caleb! Although in staring at your final shots, I can't help but wonder if maybe it just looks like the original footage with a de-noise filter applied? I know you want to preserve that video look, but I think I would prefer at least some sharpening. The AI may suck at eyes, but it does a great job with skin and other textures. Can you post more sample clips that have a better balance of all the various filters and effects? On second thought, the only way to remaster Inland Empire is to play the DVD on an old CRT and record it with a 35mm film camera.
This release hurts Criterion's credibility for "preserving". I wish they would have included an SD version on DVD, as well (maybe out of their control if Lynch didn't want that). It's wild to me that this was released in this state.
Finally, someone who can explain what I was thinking when I saw the remaster. It wasn’t what I saw in the theater back in 2006. The colors weren’t as vibrant and the faces looked off.
The Canal/Optimum Blu-Ray version has a different grading than the Rhino/Absurda version which was the original (Lynch reportedly supervised it himself). He had corrected the darkness of the digital and the colors quite well. The digital gives the feeling of a nightmare ready to collapse, along with the direction and set design of course.Lynch i think had understood even from Lost Highway this aesthetic concept,he used it in the film ,i don't know why now find it ugly.The only places where the digital lost this magic was in the 2-3 scenes in daylight. I have seen the remastered version and it has not of course that feeling,the colors and pixels that were just before the collapse in brightness and pieces. If anything needed correction, it was those 2-3 scenes with natural light because there the images collapse and the aesthetic concept of course.
Reminds me of the work I’ve been doing on the Super Mario Bros Super Show, though I assume you have considerably more knowledge about high-end video production than I do. The best way you could upscale this with AI might be to get a period-accurate camera in working condition and use that to shoot similar footage at different zoom levels and create a custom model (probably several, actually) based on that. There are some things like depth of field that make that a bit more complicated than it sounds, but it could result in something more authentic, at least on some level.
A movie made to look nightmarish by making it as ugly and digital as possible is made uglier and more digital by the Lynch-approved remaster? It actually makes more sense to me than a better-looking remaster. To improve the footage will mess with Lynch's intent. Even in Twin Peaks: The Return and his newer short films, he still shows how much he prefers the dirtiness of digital. Making the footage look better is like beautifying Vinterberg's Festen or making Begotten look less murky. It doesn't make sense.
Thank you for all the hard work! I saw this in theaters and the scene with Grace Zabriskie was like an acid trip. It was so hard to technically explain to people, thank you again!
This explains why I thought it looked a bit weird I thought they sharpened the hell out of it. Kinda wish they'd included a 480p version on the disc aswel. It wouldnt have taken much space.
the interlacing artifacts are good, he even seemed to do wacky stuff to make it stand out, things that only happen in one field like the strobe, can't even do inverse telecine and have it look right, can barely edit it in a sane way
Loved how you went into this man. Just found your channel ! I went to see the film yesterday, and definitely noticed what you were talking about Going in, I wasn't expecting it to look better and even expected it to be a bit worse . But yeah, there were some parts that really looked awful 😄 Still like the movie, but I am surprised this version was approved by Lynch
The worst thing about the remaster is in the most important part of the movie - the closeups. It gets this awful effect of subsequent frames being supersharp and then smeary one after the other as actors perform their subtle facial movements. Takes you right out of the scene.
I think you get a very nice result, although I am a fan of the new remaster - like you mentioned halfway through the video, I do think the uncomfortable and uncanny effect of the new version is part of what works about it. The shimmering and unusual skin and eyes are unsettling but I think it works in this instance. You wouldn't want that for literally any other movie. The original version hasn't gone anywhere and I think of this new edition as a companion to the DVD - not a replacement. Seeing the 4K version in theaters was actually pretty effective.
It looks like the video camera is glitching on the remaster. Shame. I didn’t watch the new Blu-ray through yet but I feel like the color grade and glitchy look will ruin the mood of the movie that I loved. now sadly I’m less excited. :( The eyes and facial details on closeups and weird outlines around characters on long shots really didn’t look good. Edit: So I popped in the disk and watched some scenes and what really made an impression on me, more so than the ai factor, was how much the image was desaturated. I so much more prefer the colors of the original
Totally agree with you. A remastering is intended to preserve a work as best as possible, not change it. Too many notables like to muck with grading though. Limitations of the time force a look and artistry thats intrinsic to the finished piece. .
Lynch originally fell in love with digital because the imperfections of capturing to a censor with a camcorder like Sony PD150 DVCAM reminded him of early cinema when they were still figuring out how to keep the bloody film roll from bursting into fire let alone glide smoothly along the sprockets
Studio Canal made a posh looking Press Release document about the re-master specs and I highly suspect Topaz put sponsorship money into it that incentivized the notion of a digital remaster... like the 1st master filmmaker movie that has a new release but its original was in digital so it's a whole new thing beyond scanning negatives
1:28 - i'd have to disagree. There are lots of movies shot on dv that look like inland empire. Take Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine by Nam Gee-woong from 2000 or even earlier 964 Pinocchio by Shozin Fukui from 1991. Lynch owes a lot to movies like those.
@@samuelw01 I think he's aware of the plethora of low budget mini-dv films that came out around the turn of the century, especially those with a surrealist or horror character. Perhaps he never studied Killing Machine specifically, but that's only one film a part of a broader trend which he was certainly aware of by 2006. To answer your question, I certainly think it's possible if not likely.
I was looking forward to going to the cinema to see the new 'restoration' I now have a feeling I'm going to be noticing the ai issues if I go to see it.... Also, this is an excellent video, very in-depth and informative!
Hi nice analisys of Inland Empire bad remaster and cool personal remaster. IMHO the worst thing about Inland Empire (master) is the bad conversion from original 30i to the cinematic 24p (remember the Sony PD150 camera records in NTSC 480i DV not 480p). In fact I always found distracting the residual orizontal interlace artifacts on moving characters' elements like hands, mouths and eyes.. It annoys me much more than other digital video issues like edge enhancement. I wonder what would look Inland empire in his original NTSC 480i 29.997fps shooting and cut, easy to upscale in 1080i to preserve the original motion. In my own I tried to reduce interlacing artifacts in Avidemux by taking down the pre-remaster version from 1080p to 480p and applying the Yadif deinterlacing filter with no temporal/spacial check (since its not the original 480i) and I found it pretty good to conceal the interlace issue I hate. So I recently watched all movie in "my" SD re-deinterlaced remaster and finally I could just concentrate on the captivating mindwarp of Lynch's last masterpiece. Btw, cool channel
not unexpected hatsune miku dragging me kicking and screaming into violent middle school flashbacks ahh like those "i interpolated this animation with ai to increase the framerate look how much better it is" meanwhile it's this visual mess that literally takes the choices artists made for each individual frame and fucks them sorry if this is a little unhinged and word-association-y, love your content and probably think about your cybergunk series every couple days since first seeing it its been really impactful ok thanks
I just got the bluray and do not feel like I wasted my money at all. If you were convinced not to watch it by a video essay, cool, but you should at least pirate the bluray version and decide for yourself. Or not, doesn't matter.
@@dougiejones5719 I started to watch it on Max ( I assume it's the same as the blu ray since it has the Criterion logo) and I prefer the look of the pirated version that I've had for probably 15 years at this point. I may end up picking it up if there are some good interviews or special features though
I’m not gonna lie I clicked this video expecting to hate it but you really nearly did convince me Love the way you explained your points and even said “fuck it I’ll do it myself” and your examples looked amazing! I have always felt like a good looking remaster of this film would remove a part of it that I found to be deeply engaging. The fact I noticeably saw imperfections added to the whole “uncanny” experience of going through this film. I personally think Janus films managed to keep the film feeling “Off” in a new and (in my mind) better way than the original. Great video!
19:43 Is that what that's called? Skin squeeze? I played around with the idea a few years ago but quickly realized how flat and lifeless it makes skintones look. And now I can see it in almost every 4K remaster out there.
it's weird that none of these companies have tried to retarget the upscaler to the film they're upscaling, it still wouldn't be great but it could be so much better, and they'd have more control over the output. they could literally paint in frames where there are issues they don't want to see in the output, they could even add film grain in a way that makes it look like it was in the source, not just tacked on top
I basically think it reveals a lack of respect on the part of Criterion toward things shot digital from this era, that they felt that running Topaz on it with default settings and then leaving that alone was as good as it could get, and obviously didn't look any further into it, even though they're dealing with the work of a master. Lord. Anyway, your approach was a lot better, and should be the blueprint for any future such endeavors on Criterion's part. I keep thinking about this video. There's a lot here for anyone who wants to use AI to help with a remaster without letting it *be* the output. Makes me wonder if some mid-level-manager was just like "Well Inland was shot in SD digital so I'll just handle that one myself." Also, your closing "What the fuck was that?" cracked me up. Very affirming take on the whole thing. There is a way forward, and this was not it.
good video but i wouldnt even touch the film just upscale it and thats it, everything the digital sharpened look has its the charm. But your idea looks very good, maybe too modern look it gives. Too soft and maybe color bleed. Also the dinamic range thing there are ia image predictors, maybe they are old but you gave them images with holes in then and they fiiled them so maybe with that you could fake dynamic range but at some point its kinda just playing into conventions of the time imo
Wish they did a remaster including "More things that happened", the deleted scenes from the film which in itself is almost the lenght of a full feature and is a really good and hard to find extra on an official release, while it's quality on the original DVD was terrible. I think it complements the film as well as The missing pieces does Fire walk with me. Otherwise I agree that this remaster is terrible, like the original way more!
Honestly i dont know how he ended up with so bad footage from pd150. He probably used lp mode or something even lower. It is not mr bean handycam as people think. It is actualy professional broadcast quality camcorder. You could easily upscale that image to 1080p. He must have really bad sample or messed up image with bad lighting and not optimal settings. Do they even have original DVCAM tapes?
THANK YOU. I felt like the movie had its soul removed. Watched the new 4K with my wife, and had a hard time explaining to her why the original movie was even good to begin with. The transfer felt like an insult to the themes.
The reason why your argument is invalid is: Lynch oversaw this carefully, and he´s a PSYCHO about quality. Which means the remaster is his choice all the way.
incredible "project was passed off to a nepo intern who spent the summer partying and then half-assed it in their last week" energy from the criterion remaster
Looking awesome! Would love to watch the movie in your version! I have seen the original version and man it looks terrible, even more so when compared to the silky, gorgeous and tasteful images Lynch shot on 35mm film, especially Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me and Mulholland Drive. The lighting is also awful and the dialog seems to have been recorded on the camera microphone. The only things that make it bearable is the fantastic acting and Lynch's knack for creepy weirdness.
I actually liked the remaster! When I saw it in theaters I immediately felt how unstable and artificial the digital picture was on the big screen. The handheld close ups and higher frame rates were hyperreal for a cinema presentation. The inhuman textures & fake/fluid surfaces actually recaptures that artifice pretty well for a new technological age. What are Lynchian films if not textural hallucinations? And personally I think some of those hard edges define his compositions better overall, though they clearly should have dialled it in for some scenes (and left the saturation alone!). It's an interesting re-rendering in any case and I'm sure there will be even better re-re-renders down the line.
