MovieChat Forums > Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) Discussion > Boom mic

Boom mic

posted 13 years ago by filmfan16
3 replies | jump to latest

I watched "Blue" tonight on the just released Criterion Collection Blu-ray and discovered something odd. There is a scene, I believe in the second half, where Juliette Binoche is sitting at a table talking on the phone in her apartment and the boom mic can clearly be seen dropping down into frame for several seconds. Now, I know goofs like this occur occasionally, but I Googled this mistake and could find no documentation of it. Is this an error with the aspect ratio or transfer of the Blu-ray? Was it improperly cropped? Or has this microphone always been in the film? I just find it odd that no one else (that I could find) has mentioned it before now.

[–] Revolutionow 13 years ago

I don't know, but I noticed the same thing. It seems odd that for such an exquisitely made film there would be such a careless error on the part of the filmmaker.

ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image

[–] anitric2000 13 years ago

This would be odd for Criterion...but it sounds like a matting problem. I'm assuming they went back to the camera negative (the full 1.37:1 frame) and thus had to extract the 1.85:1 image. It would be very disappointing if the problem is due to (I don't know if they did this...just a thought) extracting a 1.78:1 ratio to fill the entire 1920x1080 HD frame on the Blu Ray...which would mean slightly more at the top is visible than was intended...hence...boom mic.

"Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?"

[–] nightcrawler71 13 years ago

I noticed this on the UK Blu-ray (released by Artificial Eye). You can also see the boom mic on the dvd but it's nowhere near as noticable as on the Blu-ray. In fact I thought the whole film looked a little low in the frame and I emailed AE about it...unfortunately they never replied :(