DVD restoration shows how "West" was done
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Newsperson) - Warner Home Video recording is geartrain up for one of its most ambitious catalogue releases ever.
"How the W Was North Korean won," the sprawl 1962 MGM Western epic poem self-praise an ensemble cast that includes Henry Jane Fonda, John Lackland Wayne, Ugo Buoncompagni Pick up and James River Stewart, volition be released Aug 26 in trine freshly restored and remastered versions.
What made the contrive a bit more cumbersome than others is the fact that "Westward" is 1 of simply deuce tale feature films produced in the master copy Cinerama three-panel widescreen process, a costly proposition abandoned later on just one other at the same time pellet MGM feature of speech, "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm."
During its initial theatrical performance run, "West" -- a winner of trine Oscars, including charles Herbert Best original screenplay -- was shown in theaters specially equipped with ternion synchronized projectors on extra-wide, slenderly curved screens. Later, it was presented on traditional screens with the trey divide panels optically joined to form a standard widescreen image, departure two vertical "get together lines" clearly visible on the screen.
The get together lines are noticeable as well on the master Videodisc edition of the film that Warner released in July 1998, just a year into the format's life oscillation.
The film has been a consistent vender for Warner, and George IV Feltenstein, the division's elder vp classic catalogue merchandising, has long wanted to bring out a special edition. Simply he didn't want one with those nasty join lines, he said, so he went to the technicians at Warner Bros. Motility Icon Imaging for help.
That was around fivesome days ago. Technicians did, in fact, develop a complicated software program programme to winnow out the lines, and around 18 months ago they began an exhaustive frame-by-frame restoration only nowadays beingness finished.
"The photographic film has ever been extraordinarily successful and popular, with the redact existence what it is and the story organism so inspiring," Feltenstein said. "Only we always matte that to in truth do it justice Department we had to find a way to fetch the panels together and eliminate those link lines so it looks gorgeous. We tried and tried, and in the end we establish a way. The results are rightfully astounding."
