The Extras
The Extras
The Story Behind Restoring The Searchers 4K
Warner Brothers restoration experts Miles Del Hoyo and George Feltenstein take us behind the scenes of the stunning 4K restoration of John Ford's classic western The Searchers, revealing the technical wizardry that brought new life to this cinematic masterpiece.
• Technical breakdown of the scanning process for VistaVision film at extraordinary 10K resolution
• Challenges of restoring proper colors from a faded negative, especially fixing the sky from yellow to proper blue
• How the team stitched together split 8-perf frames to create seamless images
• Frame-by-frame corrections of technical errors present in the original negative
• Audio restoration process maintaining the original mono sound while enhancing clarity
• Quality assurance process involving multiple stages of review and Film Foundation approval
• Preview that more 4K releases from Warner Archive will be announced in the coming month
If you haven't yet purchased your copy of The Searchers on 4K or Blu-ray, I highly encourage you to do so. The 4K combo pack includes the remastered Blu-ray with all extras. Please vote for The Searchers in the MediaPlay Home Entertainment Awards before March 31st for Best Restoration and Best Audio and Visual Quality categories.
Link to VOTE in the MediaPlay Home Ent Awards Be sure to vote by March 31st.
Purchase links:
The Searchers Remastered Blu-ray
The Extras Facebook page
The Extras Twitter
Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group
As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links. There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast. Thanks in advance.
Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. tim@theextras.tv
Hello and welcome to the Extras. I'm Tim Lard, your host, and joining me are George Feltenstein and Myles Del Hoyo from Warner Brothers. Hi guys, hi, hey Tim.
George Feltenstein:Hey Tim.
Tim Millard:Myles, we worked together for all those years. I was there, but I haven't seen you in so long, so it's good to see you, it's good to see you too.
Miles DelHoyo:It's been a while.
Tim Millard:Yeah, and from the looks of the background there's nobody else there either.
Miles DelHoyo:A lot of layups over there. Yeah Well, that's part of it, but I'm fortunate to be in a private space at the moment, so it's great to have that privacy as we discuss this.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah, good private space at the moment, so it's great to have that privacy as we discuss this. Yeah, yeah, good. Well, our listeners are very familiar with George, so I wanted to start with you, miles, and just have you give us a little background on what it is that you do there at Warner Brothers.
Miles DelHoyo:Okay, that's a loaded question. So I've been at Warner Brothers for 15 years and through that time I've had the privilege of being at the forefront of a lot of new technical advancements in the industry for entertainment, video and audio, and my background has been mostly in that before joining Warner Brothers, so it was great to continue that as part of my career path. Most recently, though, I've been heavily involved in restoration work, namely film restoration for catalog theatrical films, and that's been a great opportunity for me to be able to dive into some of these classics and and even some lesser known classics that uh were able to breathe new life into them in the 4k with high dynamic range, um color grading and they just look amazing. To be able to see these films, uh in that light and to to experience them all over again, which, uh, in many cases, feels like cases feels like it's fresh and brand new and you're catching and seeing things that you never really appreciated before because you couldn't Right and now you can.
Miles DelHoyo:So, yeah, but my background has been very much in audio video technology and, with the advancements in today's display technologies, which has just gone leaps and bounds in, just like the last 10 years, Display technologies, which has just gone leaps and bounds in, just like the last 10 years, and with how we can experience and appreciate movies and television as well and other entertainment content at home on displays, whether it's a dedicated home theater or even mobile. So these displays are quite advanced to be able to show probably more detail than some people would like you to see. And that's where you know, mastering comes in to make sure that it's curated properly and that it looks the way it should. And so that's my job right now is to help supervise, if not oversee, that process from start to finish and the finishing being going out to market so the consumers can enjoy it.
Tim Millard:Right, and when I was there, I worked in the home entertainment side for the extras. But what is the group that you're actually a part of? What's the official name?
Miles DelHoyo:Well, my immediate group is a small department. It's called Emerging Formats and Mastering and Mastering is a small department. It's called emerging uh formats and mastering and mastering and, yeah, and we fall within the larger umbrella post-production creative services. So we're happy to be a part of that larger group because it really uh speaks to the point that our focus is on creation and, uh, creative intent, to be specific, and we, we safeguard that um uh feverishly. You know that's something that's very important. Right for us to make sure that that we, we safeguard that um uh feverishly. You know that's something that's very important for us. To make sure that that we are in line with the artistic vision and uh, and that's that's. That's something that I know the fans appreciate too, especially when it comes to restoring classic film. So, um, we're all in line with that.
Tim Millard:Well, George, we're here to talk about the Searcher's 4K, which was the first 4K release from the Warner Archive, and it's been a huge success. Maybe you could take us back, George, to working with Miles and some of the background on how the Searcher's 4K came to be a Warner Archive release.
George Feltenstein:Well, the great thing is is that when the restoration work began under Miles' supervision, there was no finite plan on how it was going to be released and there were some big projects being done pretty much simultaneously. Miles, you can clarify if I'm wrong, but I believe North by Northwest and the searchers were done very close together. Is that accurate?
Miles DelHoyo:Yeah, very concurrent. They were going at the same time with different colorists and operators involved in the process, with different colors and operators involved in the process. But yeah, we started those both late 2023. Yeah, together.
George Feltenstein:And both of these titles were with the promotional and substantial emotional support of the Film Foundation, as Warner Brothers and the Film Foundation worked very closely together on several initiatives, so both of these were in play at the time and when it came time for release, my colleagues and I all talk about what we're going to do with various 4K titles. Miles is part of those conversations as well, and everyone thought that they would take North by Northwest out through traditional retail, but that Warner Archive could have its first shot at a 4K with the searchers. And for me, the searchers and for me, the gratifying part about that is not only that I'm, like many people, such a passionate fan of the film, but I was incredibly moved by the excellence of the restoration that Miles and colorist Jan Yarborough at Motion Picture Imaging Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging their work on the film and their work on the audio as well, because picture and sound are of equal importance. And it was such an honor to be able to bring this film to 4K HDR in a 4K Blu-ray combo with a beautiful slip sleeve, two hours of extras, and that we have the original key art. Actually that came from the UK campaign, but not some altered version of how to represent the film. I'm a firm believer in original key art if it's good, and that's why we went with the UK key art and not the US key art, because the US poster has a little bit of floating heads and some things that wouldn't be quite right for a cover and it's what's inside the disc ultimately that counts.
George Feltenstein:And the 4k has been authored by fidelity in motion so that it had a huge bit rate and we took great pride in it. And miles really led the charge to be able to work internally so that we could take a lot of the standard definition to work internally, so that we could take a lot of the standard definition originally standard definition enhanced content pieces and have them up converted to high definition on the Blu-ray disc so that they would look as good as they could, because the material, these pieces that were made a lot of them were so impressive that we didn't want them to be left behind because they weren't standard definition. So Miles had a great deal to do, not just with overseeing the mastering of the movie and the color correction and the audio, but he also made incalculable contributions to the overall presentation and for that I'm very grateful.
Miles DelHoyo:Yeah it was a fun little project to work on. I mean I say that now, but it was definitely a doozy during the time because there were so many moving pieces and there were several complexities involved in making it look as good as it did. But the bonus or the special features were a part of that, as George mentioned, and taking those which we had the best quality sources available as interlaced standard definition video content, we wanted to put those on the disc in a more favorable quality that would lend itself closer towards the quality we were trying to achieve for the feature. So we did that and it came out looking great. We have some state-of-the-art tools that are proprietary at the studio and some really, really smart people that I get the benefit of work with that were involved in making that happen. So we're very pleased with the end results on the disc. For anybody who has that, I hope they enjoy it because it you know a lot of attention went into making every aspect of that disc look as good as it does.
Tim Millard:And I'm extremely appreciative since I worked in the creation of the extras, not on this title but on other titles that you guys went to that extra work of making sure that it looked great for the fans out there. And, George, I think that's one of the positive things that people have said about the release is that you packed it with all of those extras and you did go to the efforts to make it look so good so that the fans can really kind of replace what they had before with this, especially the combo pack right, the 4K with Blu-ray.
George Feltenstein:We always try to carry over legacy content in our Blu-rays and this was a 4K where the only thing on the 4K disc is the Peter Bogdanovich commentary. But we also have the Blu-ray available, not just in the combo pack, which is where the extra features lie, but we made a new Blu-ray available to those who have not yet made the move to 4K, because our previous Blu-ray, which is almost 20 years old, is very much worth replacing. I'll leave it at that Right and the difference is so dramatic. We're very, very proud of the work and I'm so grateful that this has all come together and we will have only a handful of 4K releases coming from Warner Archive, but they will be very, very special films.
Tim Millard:I did want to take the listeners a little behind the scenes here into your process. If that's okay, Myles, Sure, I'll try to speak to what I can yeah, just what you can speak to. But when you see these titles come to you and you know you're going to be working on them, what is kind of the workflow process? Kind of the workflow process? Tell us a little bit about what you do to put this into place as you're going forward and you make out your schedule of this work.
Miles DelHoyo:Sure, the process does start identifying the master and all available pieces that go towards creating, or recreating, if you will, the entire picture. We have a whole team that's that has the responsibility in our archive archival group to investigate, research, identify and pull in the best available source elements and as part of our preservation strategy, that team pulls in these elements very carefully, checks them through with certified facilities and processes to safeguard them. Then they'll be scanned, these film elements, into a digital intermediate file format which then becomes our source where we start the downstream digital restoration process of creating the 4K and HDR and putting it out to a screen format that is applicable by today's standards. So it does start there, I would say the research and quality check process probably is I mean, depending on the title, anywhere from four to eight weeks, and then we get into the scanning process, which could take easily another four to six weeks, and that's before we even start getting it into cleanup and color correction and those downstream steps, which they have their own timeline about four to five months of work from when we investigate to when we complete and quality check, a final master that can then be sent to the disk authoring vendor facility to do the work to create the disk image and put that out to market. In addition, we also make it available for streaming through digital.
Miles DelHoyo:But from that point to where we start to making it available for distribution, it's about, you know, I would say, average four months, and we've had titles that have taken longer, and I only make note of that because the ones that take longer typically involve some form of talent, a talent we typically would involve filmmakers, whether it's a director or director of photography or even an editor, because, like I said earlier, the creative intent is most important to us and there is a lot of subjectivity, if you will, in what we do, especially when we get into color, if you will, and what we do when, especially when we get into color. Uh, we do have references that we follow, but sometimes you can't beat, uh, in most cases you can't beat the uh, the definitive reference, which is the people who made the film to begin with, um, and in many cases that's the director or the director of photography. So when they are involved, it can, um, make our timelines a bit longer than that, but that's always a good thing and we appreciate their involvement.
Tim Millard:George, I remember we talked about, you know, the searchers and how this new version has the colors correct, so to speak.
George Feltenstein:Right, yes, the sky is blue, not yellow.
Tim Millard:Exactly so I think you know, just to follow up with Miles' comment there, when the filmmakers aren't there, how did you guys go about that?
Miles DelHoyo:uh, making sure that these colors were correct yeah, well, uh, I mean, there's a lot of common sense with respect to some of that stuff, you know you want.
Miles DelHoyo:you want things to look like you would expect them to. Skies are typically blue unless you have some sort of um armageddon fallout happening. But in the case of of the searchers, there was a lot of common sense. We did have existing prints they for reference and um, we had I'll just say this because we didn't have a filmmaker involvement, because they're not available, obviously. Uh, this was 1956 and john john John Ford is not with us.
Miles DelHoyo:But we did have the benefit of having our senior, most experienced colorist on the project, mr Jan Yarbrough, and he's been at Warner Brothers for over 30 years, I'm sure, in the capacity in which he has worked in color correction. So he is extremely talented and there was no doubt in my mind that having him on the job would yield the best results and he did take his time to get it done right. We'd go back and we would get involved and question things and we'd make sure that no stone was unturned, to say that, to use that term. But back to the previous transfer. It's a little bit of history there. So, as George mentioned, it was almost 20 years ago. I think 2006 was when that first transfer was done for high definition, the early days of HD distribution and this film has an original camera negative that had faded with respect to its color retention, so the color of the dye within the actual negative had deteriorated quite a bit. And so there were what we call protection prints that were made YCM separations yellow, cyan and magenta and the way those are done is they're done in kind of a grayscale output to register both of those three primary colors. And so those were used. Those YCM separation protection prints were used in 2006 and scanned at 6K on inferior scanners at the time to create that transfer. And I would expect that, because of the source used and some of the deficiencies at the time and other aspects that were involved, attributed to a less than premium quality or even, you know, a logical quality that we would want to say is of today's standards. It just didn't happen. The sky was, I think, an unfortunate side effect of that. But today we have superior scanners, we have a brand new one that we just used on this project to where we were able to scan an ultra high resolution, because this is VistaVision.
Miles DelHoyo:We scanned the eight perforation frame in two pieces, four perf and four perf. So we took a frame and we scanned it in half, and each half was scanned at roughly 10K. So you're looking at 10K by 7K. Vertical is roughly 76 million pixels. So we had a lot of area that we were able to cover in our digital intermediate file, which wasn't there in 2006. It's no more than a 6K and that was for the entire film frame of the eight perf. So if you double that, you know you're looking at over 150 million pixels, because that four perf and the four perf together, making the single VistaVision eight perf frame, was a lot of pixels and the results were just tremendous, and so that was the first step in gathering this together and making it a success. We also had the benefit of new technology to where we were able to have a refined stitching process to take the half of each one of those eight perforation frames and stitch them together digitally to make a seamless single frame image that you have now today. And we did that in a six and a half K resolution stitching process, which was the maximum we could do for the stitching tool, and then ultimately ended up color grading in six and a half K and then downscaled to today's 4K format from that.
Miles DelHoyo:My point in sharing all that is that it's just the technology is so much better now just from the scanning point of view.
Miles DelHoyo:We're able to yield such greater results by having so much more information pulled from the negative.
Miles DelHoyo:In addition, we also re-scan those ycm separation masters to get as much of what we could out of both available sources.
Miles DelHoyo:Uh, the blue channel in the in the original negative had the worst effect of of deterioration. So that was one area where, using the blue channel from the ycm scan, we were able to restore and bring back uh quite a bit of that blue which again probably attributed to most likely attributed to better looking skies and other areas of the film that blue right blue on on the shirts uh and the clothing and other areas you can see. There's one scene that I really like where um ethan uh played by uh john wayne, he's holding up his war medal, the civil war war medal, and he's showing it to his uh, his niece, um, and that image, just a close-up, it's just such high fidelity and and beautiful color and you can see very clearly everything that was in that original camera capture was able to be restored by today's technology. So that was. That just again proves that technology is everything when it comes to these restorations, and we have the benefit of having superior technology that we've never had before to do it.
Tim Millard:Right, and if I have it correct, did you say you did a 10K scan.
Miles DelHoyo:Yeah, yeah, so the scanner allowed for a 10K 4 perf scan. This is 35 millimeter VistaVision, so it's 8 perf, which, if you think of it, it's a 35 millimeter standard, but it's captured horizontally rather than vertically through a camera, right, right, it's roughly two and a half times more the negative that we can scan from. So we wanted to capture as much of that as possible and retain the fine grain structure that's in the VistaVision film negative. So the only way we could do that by today's standards is to take every frame, which is eight perfs, and split that in half, so a standard four perf frame of the eight perfs. So each half was scanned at around 10K and then stitched together and the stitching process yielded a 6.5K after cropping and properly formatting it to what we needed for the final color.
Tim Millard:Yeah, I mean, I think that's partly why it must look so good. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Miles DelHoyo:And you know, arguably in 2006, when you just had HD as your final output, you probably wouldn't notice that as much, but by 4K and HDR you definitely want to start with an image of that caliber, of that quality, because we're really enhancing the pixels in the high dynamic range where your lights, mid-tones and highlights are all visible on the screen at the same time, and being able to have all of that pulled from the original negative during the scanning process at such high fidelity is very important to that process when we get to HDR, to make it look as good as it does.
Tim Millard:Outside of what you just said about doing the split, was there any other interesting things that the VistaVision required for this restoration remaster.
Miles DelHoyo:Well, I mentioned the split and the stitching Um. Well, I mentioned the split and the stitching Um, I think, everything for our archive and preservation so that we retain the most information from that film print and then we carry that into the HDR process. So I think, beyond the stitching aspect the split frame stitching process everything else pretty much follows suit with how we handle a standard project.
Tim Millard:Right? Well, and because you started with such a high you know 10K then you bring it down, like you said, and you stitch it together at the 6K. The Blu-ray also really benefits from that as well, right?
Miles DelHoyo:Oh for sure. Yeah, the Blu-ray becomes a derivative of our master source. Our master source, at finish, when we render out from the color session, is in 4K, ultra high def. So that's 3840 by 2160 pixels, it's roughly 8 million pixels on your screen. On your screen, and this, um, I think this, uh was a 185 aspect ratio. So we're, we're showing the entire image, um, and at that resolution on your display. Yeah, and when it goes to a standard blu-ray, we we do what's called a color trim to the rec 709 color gamut for legacy display color standards in HDTV and in 1080p. So you get definitely a downscaled version of the higher resolution, but you retain all the information by downscaling rather than upscaling. That's inherent in the original source that is optimized for that legacy display, inclusive of the color benefits. So we are color grading in a much larger color volume and the benefits of that are found as we trim from larger volume or larger box down to the smaller volume or box which is your Rec.709 Gamut for standard legacy displays.
Tim Millard:And I wanted to point that out because there are still a lot of people who listen to this podcast and watch us on YouTube who have not upgraded to 4K. And it's just a great point to say this new remastered Blu-ray is going to give you a much better picture and sound than the previous Blu-ray. So even if you have the Blu-ray and you think, well, I already have it on Blu-ray is going to give you a much better picture and sound than the previous Blu-ray. So even if you have the Blu-ray and you think, well, I already have it on Blu-ray, there is a huge benefit to this one. So even if you say, well, that's all nice and good about the 4K, there is a huge benefit for just getting the newer Blu-ray as well, right, george?
George Feltenstein:Yes, and that goes without saying, and because of the work that was done here to Miles' good point of earlier. The technology of when the last Blu-ray was made, almost 20 years ago, of the searchers was limited in so many ways. But there was also revisionist color correction that was controversial from the moment that disc was released and, frankly, a lot of us were not happy with it. So in many cases our Blu-rays, when they came out, let's say 10, 12 years ago, they were the best that they could be, and now they can be even better in 4K, depending on the elements that we're working with. And this is just a case where all the elements came together to create something that is worthy of one of the greatest American films of all time.
Tim Millard:Right, well, were there any challenges that were unique to this release that we haven't talked about?
Miles DelHoyo:Miles, Like I said earlier, the main challenge was the fading of the print and how we had to restore that from the YCM being a source of truth to help bring back those color channels, especially the blue one. There were definitely age-related artifacts in the negative that had to be cleaned up, probably more so than the average because of its age, with respect to dirt hair, some to dirt hair, some wrinkling, and trying to keep the image stable. That was all done. I think I'm trying to remember my projects where we've gone through so many already since then. But I know, okay, I know one area.
Miles DelHoyo:There was an issue about 11 minutes in, I believe 11 minutes maybe in change where in the original negative the frame in a particular shot and if I remember correctly it's where John Wayne is talking to the Reverend Samuel Johnston played by Ward Bond and it's kind of a medium close-up and they're just standing there next to the table in the cabin and they're having a quick exchange. It's just two quick shots, but the frame was actually on the negative, it was moved over a bit and part of the frame that's supposed to be on the left was showing up on the right, and so it's an obvious error. I mean obvious once we caught it, but it predated the previous transfer. It's in the old transfer but it was always in the negative. That way, when we found that we were able to properly reposition the frame and take the side that was on the opposite end and move it to its correct position so that we're able to restore that frame, I mean, I think that amounted to maybe 20 seconds of a shot, but as little things like that, that really makes it all worth it to restore these things to the best possible condition that they can be and represent them properly in the way that we know that the filmmakers intended to have them. Um, I suspect that the negative at the time because it was an eight perf negative, the way it was cut. There was a mistake and done in that shot and maybe perf perforation was cut slightly off in the wrong direction so it carried over from the next shot, the other side of that, that image. But it was. If you go and watch it you'll find it. If you look that in the old transfer, if you see that you'll, you'll be able to identify. But that was an area where you know we we were challenged in making sure that every frame was correct. Once we saw that at the beginning I think in the second reel or first or second reel we knew we had to be very careful for the rest of the project to make sure everything lined up.
Miles DelHoyo:So we've been talking a lot about the picture portion of the restoration work.
Miles DelHoyo:I don't want to forget to touch a bit on the audio restoration portion and for a lot of our projects well, for all of them audio is just as important as the picture and sometimes more complex, given some of the sources and how they in and digitizing them, and then, starting from the position of going through the dialogue, music and effects independently and listening through and making sure that they're as clean as possible, that we're representing them in the highest fidelity.
Miles DelHoyo:This was a monoro original recording, so we maintained that because it works well and it sounds great, there was no reason to attempt any up-mixing here. But even with that being the case that it is Monoro, we felt that we were able to pull out enough information from the original sources and by today's tools to create quite a well-rounded experience dynamically, with your low-frequency effects and the other elements of dialogue are nice and crisp and clear, which is very important. And then, of course the musical and that rendition on how it fills the room. It sounds really really good and we're quite happy over what it has sounded in the past. So there was quite a bit of work that was done on just the audio restoration as well and we're quite pleased with those results.
Tim Millard:Yeah, I mean, the Max Steiner score is so fabulous and it adds so much. Where in the process is that done? Is that done at the end, or is there people working on it while the picture is being worked?
Miles DelHoyo:on. It's done in parallel pretty much. When we get a green light on a project from our business teams to go ahead and do the restoration, we include the audio as well as the picture in that work, as well as the picture in that work. We have a dedicated team that does handle all this audio work and doing similar to what the picture side of the business does is they're researching the elements and pulling them in and doing a preservation approach to digitizing those elements and then from there they'll pull them in and, using today's premium tools, they'll have a mixer that does conforming and then another one does cleanup and then, working together with those two individuals, they'll produce the best final print master of the audio mix in digital file format which we maintain in a lossless codec that goes out on the disc to give the consumer the best possible presentation or experience of the sound within the audio track that comes out on the disc.
Tim Millard:So the picture is restored, remastered, the audio is also restored, remastered. Then it all comes together. George, where does the approval process? How does that work? Did the Film Foundation have a part in that as well?
George Feltenstein:Well, I think Miles can speak to that directly.
Miles DelHoyo:I can speak to that as well. Yeah, as George mentioned, we have had a lot of quite a a few, rather films that have been sponsored by the Film Foundation. So as part of the process with them, we're in close communication on where we are in the project. We send a preliminary render I guess is the best term over to them to review, them to review. There are key folks at the Film Foundation that will review that and let us know their feedback, whether it's a thumbs up or it's a question, and we approach that very delicately with them and make sure that it meets all expectations. So there's a couple of rounds of that at least.
Miles DelHoyo:That goes back and forth with. With respect to the searchers, we actually went to a final printout of this on 70mm and that was unique to this project. We also did the same for North by Northwest, but we don't typically do that for obvious reasons complexity and cost reasons complexity and cost. But with this one, given that it adds such notoriety and such importance in classic filmmaking that there was a lot of desire to have a 70 millimeter print made and we made I think we did two or three of them, but the Film Foundation did come in and review that print in full and signed off on it. So they in a sense, were our creative thumbs up, approval on the final product and we're quite happy to be working with them on all these projects that we do and it's been great so far in seeing the results in the final deliverables and seeing the results in the final deliverables.
Tim Millard:Well, one of my highlights last year was going to that TCM screening of that 70 millimeter and, george, you were there and that might have been the premier screening of that 70 millimeter, but I know it's also been shown here in LA at the Egyptian and there's just not a ton of theaters that have the equipment or the ability to show it in the 70 millimeter.
George Feltenstein:And that's where the 4K DCP comes in. Yeah, true, I am like I would just say. I would say it's accurate to say I'm probably one of the world's most fervent 70 millimeter fans, and I have been since childhood. That being said, I think the best way to see it in a theater is the 4K DCP, because with the film out, you're creating another generation away and there's a lot of sizzle to 70 millimeter coming from that.
George Feltenstein:But the 4K DCP is giving you right what was on the negative and what Jan and the team at Warner brothers motion picture averaging did with that, and that's the closest you're going to get, with the exception of being the negative. Right. You're there, um and it. It speaks to the amazing quality of VistaVision, and I've been a big VistaVision fan for a long time too. My VistaVision t-shirt is starting to get a little worn out, so I'm going to have to get a new one. I really have one, and you can get them on Amazon plug. But, in all honesty, we're so proud and thrilled with the response that we've gotten to this release and we'll be announcing our next 4K release probably within the next month or so, within the next month or so.
Tim Millard:And I'm hoping it will get an equal sense of enthusiasm from our fans. Yeah, this has been great, miles, george, letting us kind of get in behind the scenes here about the process and the. You know, not everybody will understand the words that you said, but the hardcore collector, people who are really into the restoration, are going to love hearing the specifics of what went into this title. And for the casual fan, it's just great to hear about the quality and the great work and the commitment there at Warner Brothers, through people like yourself, miles, and you, george, to bring this to the fans. And it's been wonderful to see the embrace from the fans, from the film community, from the filmmakers who are also just fans of this film so many of them love this 4K as well.
Miles DelHoyo:Thanks, tim, to do a project of this scale. Thanks, tim. Several levels of quality assurance checks and that takes, in and of itself, a lot of time. Like I said, we go through a whole digital restoration process to check every frame at the pixel level to make sure that we've cleaned up any little dirt or if there's a digital artifact that's also addressed. We have several pages long of QC notes for a quality control QC, several pages long of QC notes for a quality control QC, and we go through a third party check process.
Miles DelHoyo:So it's not just a group of internal guys with the same eyes looking at over and over. We have other eyes and many times they have other eyes. I just wanted to note that, from a quality assurance standpoint, we take it very seriously and we try very hard to make it bulletproof as best as you can. These projects. They will probably live in this fashion for many, many years to come, and so it's important to us to make sure that they live in the best possible quality that we can get them at, and that's where we have all these people involved. So thank you for your kind words, but I have to also give credit to a huge team of people with many, many hours that were put into making this as good as it has been, and we're very, quite pleased and grateful that George and his business was able to get it out and that it has favorable response and his business was able to get it out and that it has favorable response.
Tim Millard:Well, george, as you mentioned, there should be more 4k coming soon from the Warner archive, so I'm looking forward to that and seeing all the great work that miles you've done or are doing on these releases. So thanks for coming on the podcast, thank you Tim. Thank you Tim and thank you Miles for joining us. Thanks, george, yeah.
George Feltenstein:Always a pleasure. It's podcast. Thank you Tim, thank you Tim and thank you Myles for joining us.
Miles DelHoyo:Thanks, george. Yeah, always a pleasure, it was fun. Good to see you. Yep, take care.
Tim Millard:Well, that was fascinating. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I know a number of people have asked for us to bring on more people who work behind the scenes on these Blu-ray and now, 4k releases, and I'm hoping this was the first of many so that you can look forward to more of these in the future. If you haven't yet purchased your copy of the Searchers on 4K or Blu-ray, I highly encourage you to do so. If you buy the 4K, you also get the remastered Blu-ray with all of the extras, so it's a great package, and, of course, you can also purchase the remastered Blu-ray on its own as well. There is a purchase link in the show notes, so you can look for those there If you've already purchased the new 4K.
Tim Millard:We do want to keep the word out on this terrific release, and one way you can help do that is by voting in the MediaPlay Home Entertainment Awards.
Tim Millard:The Searchers is nominated in a number of categories, including Best Restoration and Best Audio and Visual Quality, so please vote for it in those two categories. I don't think it's listed on the Best 4K of the Year, but there is an area where you can write in your vote, so that's what I did there, as I do think it's the best 4K release of the year, so I hope you'll do that as well. Voting does end March 31st, so you'll need to get on this right away. The link is in the podcast show notes. Click it as soon as you're able and get your votes in. If you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider, you may want to do that, and that way you won't miss the upcoming announcement about what the next 4k release is going to be from the Warner archive. So I'm looking forward to that, and it shouldn't be too long before we get that. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed, you.