The Criterion Collection has been at the forefront of remastering and releasing classic cinema in the best formats possible. At first, this meant DVD and later Blu-ray. But with today’s 4K displays and encoding that allows for a wider palette and greater contrast than ever before, they are finally able to build versions that can reach or exceed every facet of every image as filmmakers presented them in the original theatrical release of the film prints. Landmark titles such as Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (cinematography by Roger Pratt), Stephen Frears’ The Grifters (Oliver Stapleton) and 1984, directed by Michael Radford (Sir Roger Deakins), are among the many classics being restored to their original sparkling glory for Criterion releases.

Mean Streets

Criterion’s Lee Kline, who holds the enviable position of bringing together original filmmakers and post production artists in this process, frequently brings his 4K scans of these masterpieces’ original negative to Company 3 London and Senior Colorist Gregory Fisher for color grading. “One of the great things about working with Greg,” says Kline, “is he’s fastidious in making sure that he’s got all the proper references and all the right ingredients to do the job right.”

Trainspotting

In the case of the remaster of dystopian masterpiece Brazil, for example, Fisher first studied a well-preserved print from Universal Studios’ vault projected in perfect conditions. Everything Fisher did subsequently in his color grading theater was informed by his excellent color memory of every characteristic of the print. “I’ve always insisted on watching the print before we start,” says Fisher. “I would say 90 plus percent of the time, previous re-issues don’t actually look like the print, so I tend to not even look at them.”

Brazil

Fisher has enormous respect for the celluloid aesthetic and frequently confines his early passes even on contemporary films to “printer light” tools within DaVinci Resolve. He maintains, “it is so important to look at these films with an understand of the aesthetic of the film at the time.”

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

“We’re not creating looks,” says Jon Gray, Company 3 London’s Director of Feature Sales. “We’re re-creating them, so to speak, but it requires quite a bit of artistry and experience to understand exactly what’s in the prints and how to achieve exactly that look with today’s tools. We get log scans of the negative and Greg, or another colorist, will work with Lee Kline to recreate that look, essentially from scratch, and, wherever possible, a director or DP from the film will come in and provide additional guidance.”

Naked

The films 1984 and Naked (directed by Mike Leigh, shot by Dick Pope) were both released theatrically with a bleach bypass process applied at the printing stage. “That was quite unusual and new at the time,” Fisher explains. “The existing video masters were all made from the interpositives, which had no bleach bypass at all.” After viewing the prints, he worked with LUTs of his own design and traditional grading tools to recreate the look of the original print release. “But I ended up approaching the bleach bypass look differently for the two films. Even if they both ostensibly used the same photochemical process. They were finished at different labs back then and the bleach bypass process was different everywhere you went. I would look at exactly what the print looked like and then go directly to the color theater and start to dial in the specific look of that particular film.”

1984

Fisher recalls when cinematographer Oliver Stapleton sat with him and Kline to screen Stapleton’s pristine 35mm silver retention print of The Grifters which the cinematographer hadn’t seen in years. “He said, ‘Wow! I didn’t remember how good it looked!’ Our grading of the new Criterion version would have looked very different if we hadn’t been able to see and study the look of that print.”

The Grifters

Other Company 3 colorists have also performed similar processes on recent Criterion remasters, including Yvan Lucas, who brought out colors for the Criterion versions of Martin Scorsese classics Mean Streets (Kent Wakeford) and After Hours (Michael Ballhaus); Gareth Spensley, who sat with Wes Anderson to create the perfect re-master of The French Dispatch (Robert Yeoman); and James Slattery, who is coloring some additional projects still a bit early to discuss.

After Hours

Excellent show prints have been available but the films just couldn’t quite be displayed with perfect accuracy for Standard- and High-Definition releases, which have become the way a majority of people have seen both films in the decades since they were released theatrically.

1984

While the majority of Company 3 colorists’ work is naturally on new releases, Fisher finds these projects, “hugely satisfying. Some of these films are the reason that I decided to work in the film industry. To get your hands on the original imagery of Brazil or Naked or 1984 and sit with the DP or director of a film that influenced the direction you’re working life has taken over many years is a wonderful experience!”

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