Image quality

Thank you for the thoughtful reply padj, I learned a new word from you (I had to go to the urban dictionary to look up git because it isn't in the English language dictionary).

Do I really think that Roberto Faenza would direct a film on video in 1982/83?

Is that a serious question?

You ask it as if we were talking about George Lucas.

As for Roberto Faenza, the guy has 15 directing credits in 40+ years, none of which I had ever heard of until happening upon this "film" on television.

Let's frame that question with a few other questions:

Would Roberto Faenza direct a film that stars an over-the-hill punk rocker with zero acting experience as the star?

Would Roberto Faenza direct a film that is to end up looking as horrible as this one does? (Please note the countless posts knocking the image quality, even positive posters posting on unrelated topics can't resist slamming the poor picture quality.)

Would Roberto Faenza direct a film that clearly has no budget whatsoever?

We're not talking about Kubrick here...


You can easily tell by looking at this "film" that it was as low budget as anything could possibly be. You can further note that since it was made in 1981 and not released until three years later that the low budget production actually went totally bankrupt at some point. Films don't ripen in the can; any delay is a sign of severe financial problems, often a studio or bond company questioning the benefit of even completing such garbage.

You can save a lot of money by making a film on video, that was true even 20 or 30 years ago. You can save money on a film production that has gone broke by doing a telecine transfer of existing footage, doing the rest of the shots on video of the same format, and editing the whole project in a linear video editing bay. The process of editing the whole project in a linear video editing bay would cost about 1/20th of what it would cost to do it with film (then, not now).

Note that every single person has witnessed negative image artifacts that come from videotape.

Note that no one is credited with any negative cutting, dissolves, or anything else related to film or lab work on this "film".

Note that I witnessed a lot of bad artifacts from film, where it looked like it was a transfer from a worn print. My initial post offered an explanation for that.

How can you explain the look of this film?

If they made the TV master from a VHS tape and authored the DVD from a VHS tape, as many posters have claimed, why would it have a worn film print look with scratches and flecks? If film, they'd have made it from a newly made print, not a rental return from film distribution.

My post is the only one that even offers an explanation for this.

How would you explain it?