BreakBeatDJ

I have some of my early radio sets from the late 80s when I was a kid on tape, and some really rare stuff from the radio in NYC. If you're nice to me, someday I may put some of that stuff up here. 🤣 Unfortunately, I have ZERO tapes from my live sets and parties. I played at the Beat club on Byrd Rd. in Miami when I was 15, it was the first hip hop club in the south. So dumb I didn't record anything from those sets. They would be historically valuable now. I was just worried about making people dance, not getting shot, and wasn't focused on recording.

Yeah, this is great. So, when I quit Djing, Downtempo was 90-110, just on the edge of danceable. The emergence of a lot of hip lounges (no dance floors, with couches, very intimate, designer drinks) in NYC in mid/late 90s played a lot of electronica/chill wave/downtempo. That's why I was confused by the term. Downtempo then was super laid back, slow. What you're describing above is a diff genre for sure. I have no idea what it is today. Terms def change. Thanks for the explanation! I always enjoy your posts.

Nice set. I love seeing all the gear and Mad Dog turning knobs on his eurorack modular synths. But . . . educate me . . . It's called downtime live, but this isn't downtempo. Is that the event name? This is what counted as downtempo when I was coming up.

This is all wrong. My 13 year old self had it right . . . “A two liter of root beer, a large pepperoni lovers, piping hot, the Raiders on Monday Night Football with the sound off, The Meters on the turntable.” A “Swift horse under” me would chafe my ass more than the couch.

Kudos to Shout. I would have loved to have been in that pitch meeting when this idea was thrown out there. Love it, it's ridiculously kitch and smart at the same time. My grandma loves snow globes, I can just see her showing this off to her friends.

Well, this is making me glad I'm not a Movie on a Disk in a Case in a Slip in a Box in a Box kinda collector.

Well, I'm a director/cinematographer of TV commercials who has increasingly done color grading and editing over the last 20 years, so not a pure colorist, but have spent thousands of hours at the Resolve panel (just finished working on a NatGeo segment. fyi) coloring commercials and other advertising short films. So, my work is largely about skin tone, proper color balance and other secondary corrections, I seldom get to do anything "creative" in terms of a broader look design, like a movie colorist would. To be honest, I probably trust your judgement, and @hal56 on these Cameron films more than my own, I don't own all of these new versions. But, I do remember very clearly when all the teal/orange spectrum grading started appearing particularly in action/crime films. It does not feel modern to me anymore. I think Cameron is trying to future proof the look of his films, even with some of the smoothing filters, that make people look waxy, and the various color pushes, not just teal, but the entire blue spectrum seems to be sinking in to the shadows more than I would like. I don't know how it's going to play, but I am with you, I'd prefer a more balanced, rich, crushed look, like the originals. One more note . . . after sitting in edit suites with a lot of different film makers, there is a certain amount of insecurity that sets in. Does it look good? Is it dynamic enough? Is it too natural? On and on and on, and after looking at their footage for weeks, months, years, they are fundamentally bored with it. That insecurity often translates in to a lot of really poor decisions for color and gamma. I've done it myself, out of insecurity that I didn't light a scene well enough, or the look is too bland. Cameron is not above that, and my guess is there's no one around to tell him no. Pure speculation. You all may have discussed this above, forgive me if it's repetitive.

Yeah, I'm sure we were saying the same thing . . . any chance I get to be a nerd and talk coloring, I go overboard.

Hopefully properly glued and requires no assembly.

It makes me so happy you're stoked for Kindergarten Cop. One of those wonderful guilty pleasures movies

I agree with the last half of your last statement, but motion and color grading are not the same thing, as you know. An image doesn't suddenly become more contrasty because it's in motion (the images aren't interlaced). I personally have never seen a properly sourced still image from a scene, and then watched the scene and thought the grade was different. You're right, if the still has been doctored, sharpened, whatever, then yeah, that's a different story, and it's completely useless. You are also right, the overall affect is changed once you add motion, but not because the color grade is different or the still is wrong. No colorist, myself included, would ever try to grade based on the moving scene, it would be impossible to get any consistency. (Although you do correct for color bleed, chromatic aberration, lighting issues, etc via secondaries). It is true you have to watch a scene during the process, but even color styles are held and applied via still frames. I think that compression and output format make a big difference, and that is where motion can make things look differently from a still, if it's an inter-frame compression or not, and how it's handled. But, we love our progressive scans, precisely because they are made up of non-interlaced still frames. Thanks for sharing, it's an interesting topic and not one that gets talked about much : how a movie actually looks.

Yeah, I was pulling hard for the Lions. I really like the way that team plays. I hope they dominate the NFC north for a while. I'll be pulling for the 49ers. It's a once in a lifetime chance to get a Taylor Swift heartbreak song about her man losing a Super Bowl. I heard she started writing it right after the game last night. 🤣

This is a nice list. I think it's an interesting challenge to lose the last 4 letters of the Gangster . . . Gang . . . what are your top Gang movies? This opens it up to a lot more movies. Gangs of New York, West Side Story, Donnie Brasco, Shottas, Set it Off, The Wild One, Snatch, Reservoir Dogs, on and on. Much harder, there are a lot more gang movies than gangster movies.

Ah got it. So this is really an issue with the source and these analysis videos. I missed that. Calibration is a huge deal, and it is so difficult to know what is really there versus what you are seeing, if the calibration in the entire image chain is not correct.

I'm curious why you don't like these still frame comparisons. When you color grade a movie, that is literally how you do it, you pull up a reference matched still and color/contrast match. I think you can tell a lot about how a movie looks from the frame grabs. It's clear one of the above is more contrast-y and saturated, the other has a far wider gamma and there's more detail in the shadows. Maybe I missed part of the discussion and what was being discussed. Forgive me if so.

Wow looks awesome. Your Star Trek collection is impressive, looks like there’s no more room on that shelf!

Very cool never seven that. Australia’s was by far the best and France was the worst. Hmmmmmmm.

I was living in New York when the GCT interior renovations were complete (1998 IIRC). It was amazing to see. I had friends who lived in Connecticut that I would visit regularly, every time I went to GCT to get on the Metro North, I would wait in line at where window 15 would have been just to feel like Cary Grant, no matter how long the line. Grand Central is by far my fav landmark in NYC. If you go, take time to have drinks in the Campbell apartment, or see if you can get a hook up and play tennis in the tennis courts on the higher floor above. Or at least go shop in the market on the east side of the terminal. Closest you'll ever get to feeling like Cary Grant, prob. Oh, wear Ray Bans.

@goose_3387 Just shocked at this news. Heartbroken for you and your loved ones. I won't begin to say I understand, or can imagine, what you (and Üdi @CAYENNE-FAHRER) have/will go through. But know that a lot of people out here in the world will be sending a lot of love and best wishes for your journey going forward. I'm hoping we will see you here again soon, with all your generosity and talents on full display. GOOSE STRONG!

Yup. There are so many things to love about this movie, but the reality is, I wish I were Cary Grant in NbNW, he’s magnetic. And Eva Saint Marie is, well, stunning in every way. but . . . Can’t talk about NbNW without talking about the kid covering his ears. I can’t not see it. Curious if they removed it for the new 4k restoration.

TWINE

Thanks. I get bummed when everyone is saying 4k restoration then later find out it was just upscaled to 4k. I love this movie. I hope it looks as great as everyone says.

Do you have a source that it was a restoration? I know that's what is said, but I actually haven't researched it at all. I hope so.

WB owns the rights to NbNW, not Universal. They released a theatrical 4k I believe in 2019, not sure if it was a new scan or not, but selectively screened. It will prob get released this year as part of a WB100 release or individually (65th anniversary). That's the hope/speculation. It appeared in the Universal Hitchcock HD box, there was some sort of deal with WB to include it, I believe it was a swap for a Kubrick film that Universal owned that WB wanted for one of their boxes..