How 'Mission Impossible' Made the Leap To 4K and HDR (engadget.com)

In the run up to the release of Fallout, the new movie in the Mission Impossible franchise, Paramount studio re-released the entire Mission Impossible series on 4K Blu-ray last month. The new discs aren't only a huge upgrade for cinephiles -- they're also a fascinating glimpse at how studios can revive older films for the 4K/HDR era. Engadget: "In terms of any re-transfers or remastering that we are doing for our HDR releases, we will go back to the highest resolution source available," Kirsten Pielstick, manager of Paramount's digital mastering group, said in an interview. In the case of Mission Impossible 1 and 2, that involved scanning the original 35mm negatives in 4K/16-bit. As you'd expect, the studio tries to get the original artists involved with any remasters, especially with something like HDR, which allows for higher brightness and more nuanced black levels. Pielstick worked with the director of photography (DP) for the first Mission Impossible film, Stephen H. Burum, to make sure its noir-like palette stayed intact.

[...] "Our mastering philosophy here is always to work directly with the talent whenever possible, and use the new technology to enhance the movie, but always stay true to the intent of the movie," Pielstick said. "You're not going to want to make things brighter just because you can, if it's not the intent of how you were supposed to see things." [...] "You also have to remember that we're not putting in anything that didn't exist on the film [for HD remasters]," Pielstick added. "It was always there we just didn't have the ability to see it. So we're not adding anything new, we're not doing anything to increase those, we're just able to look at the negative in a much clearer way than we ever could before."

Comments

A better headline would be helpful here

[damn_registrars]

I first optimistically read it to mean that the original series was going to be released on HDR Blu-ray. Mentioning sooner that this refers to the original (ie, Tom Cruise) movies would be helpful.

Re:A better headline would be helpful here

[chill]

You mean the shot for 1960s TV, 240 lines of interlaced NTSC? I wonder if the original 35mm prints even still exist, much less how well they were maintained.

Converting that to something that didn't look like washed-out shit on a 4K screen would be a seriously impressive feat.

Re:A better headline would be helpful here

[xleeko]

You mean the shot for 1960s TV, 240 lines of interlaced NTSC? I wonder if the original 35mm prints even still exist, much less how well they were maintained.

Shot for 1960's TV but on 35mm film by total pro's using excellent Mitchell cameras. Just like the original Star Trek, which was shot on the soundstage next door, on occasion with the same physical cameras. Dye fading and such could be an issue, but they should have plenty to go on, plus they don't have to rebuild all of the SFX as they did with TOS.

At least a much better chance that ten years newer, when everything had shifted to videotape.

Re:A better headline would be helpful here

[Anonymous Coward]

The master prints certainly still exist, and like many classic shows the DVDs were "remastered in HD" back in the 00's so cleaned up digital HD transfers of the episodes do exist. I distinctly remember watching a few episodes in 1080p on Netflix back when they had the show years ago, I was dismayed but not entirely surprised when I looked at CBS All-Access last year and realized they only had the show streaming in standard definition even though they've got those HD masters kicking around somewhere.

Now whether any of the original negatives still exist, that's a whole other question. A positive print in good shape is great and all, but to really get the most out of remastering in 4K HDR I'd think they'd need those original negatives.

Re:A better headline would be helpful here

[Darinbob]

Yes, when these were on Netflix it had good resolution. A lot of older shows were shot on film. You can often tell shows that were shot direct to video tape because they had a distinctly different look to them. It took awhile to make video cameras that looked decent, so you'd off odd optics, high persistence which smudged whatever was moving, and overall fuzziness. Twilight Zone did a few episodes with video instead of film (they were going over budget) and those really stick out because of the primitive video cameras used. I think video got stuck with an assumption that they were low quality even after they had improved, so shooting to film remained a standard for pre-recorded weekly television for a long time.

Remastered

[bano]

That's a lot of words to basically say, they remastered something.

Ouch... Right in the Lucas...

[Stonent1]

"You also have to remember that we're not putting in anything that didn't exist on the film [for HD remasters]," Pielstick added. "It was always there we just didn't have the ability to see it. So we're not adding anything new, we're not doing anything to increase those, we're just able to look at the negative in a much clearer way than we ever could before."" Subtle jab at George Lucas, where every remastering is a retelling of the story?

4K is just a bit too much.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see all the thetans that Tom Cruise had to have removed after the film shoot.

Ugh

[sexconker]

The thought of having to see that awful exploding helicopter jump in 4K HDR is terrifying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Phile

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Mission Impossible
Cinephile

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

fascinating like?

[avandesande]

Fascinating in exactly the same way that DVD and HD Blue Ray remastering was fascinating?

Nonsense

[MpVpRb]

Film has low dynamic range, no matter how perfectly it's scanned

SPAM Garbage

[Jahoda]

Ugh. Man, what kind of paid advertisement shilling is this anyway? Oh really??? no shit!! 35mm film can be scanned at 4K , my mind is fucking blown. Cinematic classic Mission Impossible seen as never before.

Give me a fucking break, /.

The new M:I movie is titled "Fallout"?

[Chris Mattern]

So do we get to hear Tom Cruise say "War. War never changes."?

Re:4k = scam / cash grab

[squiggleslash]

Blu-ray's storage and data rates were determined at a time when it was expected to store MPEG-2 streams. Early BD discs actually were MPEG-2. It was HD DVD's adoption and proving of H.264 that pushed BD to adopt and encourage the H.264 format.

So yeah, H.265 might not be 4x an improvement over H.264, but it doesn't have to be - it just has to be a 4x improvement over MPEG-2, which it is.

35mm is not better than 4k

[ffkom]

I have yet to see any 35mm analog material that comes anywhere close to the quality of 4k videos I can shoot on my mundane digital consumer camera. I don't get how people confuse film grain with actual image detail. Even hyped recent 70mm films like "The hateful Eight" are just sad grainy proof of analog films being overrated. If you want to see some decent 4k quality, have a look at documentaries like "Planet Earth 2" or a very few movies like "Lucy" where resolution is actually used for details, not film grain.