I love this movie. I think it's great. But I was watching the DVD today, and it was hard for me to get into it because the restoration team did some nutty things. They restored the picture perfectly and it looks beautiful and has such vivid colors and it's amazing to look at. But for some reason, they added some ridiculous audio effects that just aren't necessary. For instance, there's a gunshot at the beginning that seems like it's drowning out the rest of the film and seems like it should have been more subdued. Every time a person is walking, and I mean EVERY time, the most annoying sound effects of footsteps takes you out of the movie. It sounds like horses clippity clopping all over the damn sets! If somebody opens or closes the door, there are these sound effects that totally take you out of the movie because they sound so false and added through a pick your own sound effects audio CD produced with little or no care. It's like the restoration team was like, let's let the audience know that we worked very hard on this and add these annoying sound effects. And then, these guys have the nerve to add their names in supplementary credits with the music blasting and you have no time to think about the movie you just watched because there are these credits there that just shouldn't be there! The movie didn't end with no credits! It ends with the Paramount logo! I know they're small complaints, but it takes me out of the movie and you don't want to do that to an audience. I'm glad they restored the picture, but I'm sure the sound was in good enough condition if I was able to hear the dialogue and score just fine. Has anybody seen this DVD and if so, do you agree? Maybe I'm insane, but I can hear these sound effects from a mile away.
A lot of times, that's how foley was back then.
It's not like the restoration team redid all the foley, they just took out the pops and noise floor hiss.
The old version was really muffled.
Vertigo is my favorite film but i have only seen it since the restoration was done. i did a paper on the film for my soundtrack class. i believe i read that on the original one there was hardly any noise at all during the car following scenes.....and i think they had to redo a lot of the foley, maybe most because of the master tapes conditions..some had rotted completed i think....there are other things but i'll have to reread my paper
also the music score is badly balanced with the dialogue....i found myself turning the music down when it was featured and having to turn it up during the dialogue......i need to buy the soundtrack on cd. it has to be one of the best........my school actually had the original record and i got to listen to it.
Quote from: RegularKarateA lot of times, that's how foley was back then.
It's not like the restoration team redid all the foley, they just took out the pops and noise floor hiss.
The old version was really muffled.
But they did redo all the sound effects and foley:
Just as the images had been fading and rotting in vaults, the sound elements of Vertigo were in similarly poor shape, with sound effects and foley tracks completely lost...
...the foley tracks had to be completely redone from scratch -- although not without some direction from Hitchcock. Harris and Katz also came across Hitchcock's extensive and detailed notes on sound., which they used to copy the many eerie, lonely and ghostly sounds that make Vertigo so chilling.
"Of course, we knew that Bernard Herrmann was notorious for hating sound effects over his score, so we wanted to be as careful as Hitchcock had been, using his pages and pages of notes on how to integrate the sounds from beginning to end," says Katz.
Well I feel like an asshole.
I never rented the DVD... I just have the VHS copy they released when it first came out.
I even have the Vertigo book (w/ forward by Martin Scorceze), but I never got to the restoration section of it.