Bill Hunt ha añadido bastantes detalles del proceso para que la semana que viene tengamos Titanic en 4k.

No va a dejar a nadie indiferente...

Titanic was shot on 35 mm photochemical film (specifically Eastman EXR 50D 5245 and Kodak Vision 500T 5279) in Super 35 format by cinematographer Russell Carpenter (True Lies, Avatar: The Way of Water) using Arriflex 35 III, Panavision Panaflex Gold II, and Panavision Panaflex Platinum cameras, with Panavision Primo spherical lenses, and it was finished on film at the 2.39:1 aspect ratio for its initial theatrical release back in 1997 (which included 35 mm anamorphic release prints, as well as 70 mm blow-ups).

I’ve recently had the chance to speak with Lightstorm’s SVP of Production Services & Technology, Geoff Burdick, about the process involved in bringing this film to the 4K Ultra HD format, and have confirmed that the new Titanic UHD remaster is built upon the 2K digital intermediate work done in 2012 for the theatrical 3D release, which began with native 4K scans of original camera negative and the best available VFX footage (including interpositive material were available and useful). At the time however, Stereo-D could only work in 2K resolution. So the important thing to understand here is that work on this film has essentially been ongoing in the years since, with the overall goal always to bring the image up to the current ‘state of the art’ using the latest available mastering technology.

A new 4K digital intermediate has since been built using the original scan data. And VFX footage was never simply ‘uprezed’ or completely redone, but new details were often added (back in 2012) to enhance the shots at Cameron’s direction. An example is the scene where Cal looks out the window of his First Class private promenade deck—as originally filmed, the view outside was just a painted blue card. A little bit of detail, movement, and specularity has been added to the ocean’s surface. Another example involves the night sky as seen at the end of the film, when Rose is awaiting rescue—the stars above are now ‘correct’ for that date and time in history (thus fixing an infamous error pointed out previously by a popular online science communicator).

More recently, Lightstorm has worked with Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post to optimize the 4K image in a hands-on and closely-supervised process that involved remastering the film scene by scene, and shot by shot—sometimes working on different areas within the same frame—to ensure that every bit of detail in the negative is visible, while managing but never eliminating organic grain (which, it should be noted, was intended to be very fine given the film stocks used).

The specific techniques applied were different for each shot, but involve propriety deep-learning algorithms developed by Park Road. The point is, shot-by-shot throughout the film, the Lightstorm and Park Road teams have worked together to maximize the film’s 4K image quality to Cameron’s specific standards and preferences, which includes a new high dynamic range color grade that’s available on this disc in Dolby Vision format (with the usual HDR10 base layer). And the resulting image was directly approved by Cameron and producer Jon Landau.