The Great Tragedy of the 'Buffy' HD Remaster

Passion of the Nerd

AI-assisted summary of The Great Tragedy of the 'Buffy' HD Remaster — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2019-03-21

Key ideas

20th Century Fox's high-definition remaster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer suffers from severe technical defects, including discarded color grading, destructive 16:9 cropping, heavy digital noise reduction, and blown-up standard-definition visual effects. (0:00)
Key series creators—including Joss Whedon, David Fury, Steven S. DeKnight, and cinematographer Michael Gershman—have openly condemned the transfer for discarding the visual craft and artistic intent of the original broadcast. (17:00)
Because the remaster's flaws stem from automated batch processing rather than human oversight, the errors cannot be patched and require a complete, ground-up restoration from the original film negatives. (17:50)
With physical media declining, the flawed streaming release threatens to become the permanent historical version of the series seen by future generations, mirroring the loss of the original Star Wars theatrical cuts. (17:50)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube by the channel Passion of the Nerd on March 21, 2019, this video essay examines the severely flawed high-definition remaster of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. The video description includes links to original DVD releases recommended for an authentic viewing experience, citations to cultural criticism regarding the show's legacy, and references to the grassroots Buffy HD campaign.

## TL;DR The essay outlines the foundational narrative importance of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in modern prestige television before detailing the catastrophic technical failures of 20th Century Fox's official HD remaster. It systematically catalogs how the release stripped away atmospheric color grading, ruined original 4:3 framing with haphazard 16:9 cropping that exposes crew members and boom mics, smoothed skin textures into wax using aggressive Digital Noise Reduction, and relied on low-resolution visual effects upscaling. Featuring scathing reactions from creator Joss Whedon and late cinematographer Michael Gershman, the piece warns that the decline of physical media risks permanently enshrining this damaged conversion as the definitive version of the series unless fans demand a complete, ground-up restoration.

## Atmosphere & style The presentation blends the meticulous, shot-by-shot precision of a film-preservation critique with the palpable, wine-fueled exhaustion of a devoted fan witnessing a cultural treasure get desecrated. It balances dry, biting humor against deep historical reverence for the craft of television, making the technical breakdowns accessible and visually striking. The tone turns profoundly solemn when quoting the original creators—particularly director of photography Michael Gershman mourning the erasure of his life's work—transforming the video from a mere critique of technical incompetence into an urgent, melancholic plea for artistic preservation in the streaming era.

## Bulletin - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=0s) 20th Century Fox's high-definition remaster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer suffers from severe technical defects, including discarded color grading, destructive 16:9 cropping, heavy digital noise reduction, and blown-up standard-definition visual effects. - [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1020s) Key series creators—including Joss Whedon, David Fury, Steven S. DeKnight, and cinematographer Michael Gershman—have openly condemned the transfer for discarding the visual craft and artistic intent of the original broadcast. - [17:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1070s) Because the remaster's flaws stem from automated batch processing rather than human oversight, the errors cannot be patched and require a complete, ground-up restoration from the original film negatives. - [17:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1070s) With physical media declining, the flawed streaming release threatens to become the permanent historical version of the series seen by future generations, mirroring the loss of the original Star Wars theatrical cuts.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=0s) Modern television remasters typically return to original film negatives to scan in high definition while preserving aesthetic intent, but the Buffy remaster represents the exact opposite approach. - [01:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=72s) Buffy played a foundational role in modern serialized television alongside The Sopranos, training acclaimed writers and influencing showrunners like Russell T Davies and Damon Lindelof. - [04:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=282s) The remaster routinely skipped post-production color grading, leaving raw negative lighting that erases night scenes, sunsets, and gothic atmosphere. - [06:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=406s) In the Season 5 finale 'The Gift', omitting the nighttime blue color grade destroys the thematic and visual impact of dawn breaking during Buffy's emotional breakthrough. - [08:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=511s) Buffy was composed and protected strictly for a 4:3 aspect ratio, yet Fox forced a widescreen 16:9 conversion using aggressive zooming and cropping. - [09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=584s) Careless reframing lopped off critical compositional storytelling elements while exposing film cameras, lighting rigs, boom mics, and off-camera crew members on the edges of the frame. - [09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=584s) Unsupervised widescreen framing exposed actors whose sideline lips remain completely motionless while their ADR dialogue plays audibly. - [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=714s) Excessive Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) scrubbed away natural film grain and human skin texture, leaving characters looking like waxy plastic dolls. - [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=714s) Because Seasons 1 and 2 were captured on Super 16mm film, aggressive DNR was especially catastrophic, scrubbing away image detail embedded directly inside the grain structure. - [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=714s) Competitor remasters like CBS Digital's work on Charmed and Star Trek demonstrate that 1990s television can achieve natural film grain and rebuilt high-definition effects with proper care. - [14:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=878s) Rather than rebuilding digital visual effects from raw plates in native HD, the studio blew up standard-definition composite tapes, introducing blurriness and harsh edge halos. - [14:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=878s) The few CGI effects rebuilt for early seasons took unapproved artistic liberties, such as turning tactile crumbling vampire ash into billowing smoke. - [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1020s) Director of photography Michael Gershman lamented that the remaster threw his life's work in the garbage by removing the dramatic cinematic texture he crafted. - [17:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1070s) As streaming platforms replace physical media, the flawed transfer risks becoming the sole surviving visual record unless fans demand a complete ground-up restoration.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=0s) The Golden Age of Television and the Buffy Remaster Disaster

Television has entered a gilded age driven by the internet, DVR technology, and modern streaming platforms, all of which have made it easy for audiences to invest in serialized, season-long narratives. In many respects, long-form television storytelling has surpassed the scope and emotional depth typically found in average cinema releases. Alongside these newer cinematic epics, classic television series that viewers once experienced through blurry, standard-definition CRT screens are being lovingly restored. Studios routinely return to original film negatives to strike pristine high-definition scans, refreshing visual effects while preserving the artistic integrity and aesthetic tone of the original work.

The high-definition remaster of *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, however, stands as the exact opposite of this meticulous preservation. Instead of a careful restoration, the release presents an alarming cascade of glaring technical defects: characters' faces are smeared with smoothing filters until they resemble wax figures, established nighttime shots are inexplicably brightened into broad daylight, color timing is radically altered, and production crew members and equipment are left visible on the edges of the frame. The contrast between contemporary industry standards and this slapdash release is so profound that the narrator laments needing an entire bottle of wine just to process the visual catastrophe.

“With these remasters, studios are going back to the original films the shows were shot on, creating brand new high definition scans of them, and updating their special effects while keeping the original flavor.”

---

[01:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=72s) Why Buffy Matters in the Modern Pop Media Landscape

For skeptical viewers who might scoff at putting *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* alongside landmark prestige dramas like *Breaking Bad* or *The Sopranos*, its foundational role in modern television history cannot be overstated. While the series built upon foundations laid by supernatural predecessors like *The X-Files* and *Twin Peaks*—and drew conceptual DNA from comic archetypes like Peter Parker—it fundamentally revolutionized narrative structure. As noted television critic Emily Nussbaum observed, 1999 was a watershed moment in television history defined by two shows: *The Sopranos* and *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. Nussbaum highlighted how David Chase and Joss Whedon pushed the medium into uncharted territory by blending horror, comedy, and drama into an intricate mythic architecture that established the template for modern serialized television.

The creative footprint of *Buffy* extends through the dozens of top-tier showrunners and creators who cite it as an essential influence. The series’ writing room, Mutant Enemy, operated as an incubator for writers and producers who went on to shape productions like *24*, *Once Upon a Time*, *Daredevil*, and *The Martian*. Its season six musical episode, "Once More, with Feeling," popularized the narrative musical format across American television. Whedon himself treated the show as his personal film school before launching *Angel*, *Firefly*, *Dollhouse*, *Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog*, *Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.*, and directing major cinematic tentpoles.

Despite this immense cultural and industry legacy, the HD remaster handled by 20th Century Fox was rushed to completion and distributed across platforms like Netflix US, Amazon Prime UK, Facebook Watch, and FoxPlay. The remaster was met with near-universal condemnation from fans, critics, and original Mutant Enemy alumni, yet Fox addressed only a trivial handful of errors in early episodes while leaving the bulk of the disaster untouched.

“To say that 'Buffy' is an important influential show worthy of a quality HD remaster is of an understatement something and, in an era where we're getting more and more carefully and beautifully created remasters, 'Buffy' currently has (without hyperbole) the WORST HD conversion ever seen.”

- Prominent showrunners influenced by *Buffy*: Rob Thomas (*Veronica Mars*), Russell T Davies (*Doctor Who*), Damon Lindelof (*Lost*, *The Leftovers*), Eric Kripke (*Supernatural*, *The Boys*), and Amy Sherman-Palladino (*Gilmore Girls*). - Initial community pushback began around 2014–2015 via the collaborative efforts of the *Buffy HD* research group on Facebook and video essays documenting early transfer anomalies.

---

[04:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=282s) The Stripping of Color Correction and Atmosphere

Filming on set is merely the first step of bringing a show to life; raw footage must pass through post-production, where picture editing, audio mastering, visual effects compositing, and color grading occur. Color correction allows directors and cinematographers to alter hue, saturation, and exposure to establish atmosphere, define spatial reality, or turn daylight shoots into convincing night scenes. A famous cinematic parallel is *The Matrix*, where the real world carries a cool, organic blue wash while scenes inside the simulated computer program feature a distinct digital green tint mirroring computer code. *Buffy* used post-production color grading constantly to establish its mood, enrich palettes, and support supernatural storytelling.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Comparison of Original Production and Flawed Remaster Pipelines accDescr: Flowchart illustrating the intended original post-production pipeline compared against Fox's deficient HD remaster workflow.

subgraph Original["Original Post-Production Workflow"] A["35mm Film Capture"] --> B["Telecine & Editing"] B --> C["Artistic Color Grading"] C --> D["4:3 Broadcast Master"] end

subgraph Remaster["Flawed HD Remaster Workflow"] E["Original 35mm Negatives"] --> F["Automated HD Scan"] F --> G["Automated Exposure / No Color Grading"] G --> H["Defective 16:9 Widescreen Crop"] end ```

When remastering a show from scratch, technicians must scan the raw camera negatives and then meticulously re-apply the secondary color grades established in the final broadcast cuts. In Fox's remaster, this entire phase was essentially bypassed in favor of crude, automated brightness and contrast adjustments. The consequence is visual incoherence: moody gothic lighting is bleached away, sunset scenes no longer feature visible sunsets, and day-for-night sequences appear as bright as midday. Even the high-profile musical "Once More, with Feeling" looks washed out and flat. In one egregious juxtaposition, a scene explicitly set at 11:34 at night carries the exact same illumination levels as Buffy taking a midday nap.

“And it’s clear that, for the remaster, a crucial part of the post-production was regularly skipped: color correction, also called color-grading.”

---

[06:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=406s) The Loss of Visual Subtext in "The Gift"

The catastrophic impact of discarded color timing is most evident in the Season 5 finale, "The Gift." Throughout the season, Buffy fights to protect her sister Dawn from an unkillable god, ultimately reaching a point of complete despair when forced to choose between Dawn's life and the collapse of the universe. In her lowest emotional moment, Buffy engages in a desperate battle, until a flash of insight leads her to realize that she can sacrifice her own life instead of her sister's. As she makes this emotional breakthrough and leaps to save reality, the physical sun rises over Sunnydale.

In the original broadcast grade, the nighttime battle sequences leading up to this resolution are cast in a heavy, cool blue palette that reinforces the crushing despair and cold isolation of Buffy's dilemma. When dawn finally breaks, the warm golden morning light dramatically shatters the visual coldness of the night. In the HD remaster, the blue color timing was omitted entirely, leaving the raw negative's warm, orange, and rosy tones on screen during the nighttime fighting. By stripping out the blue tint, the remaster erases the contrast between the hopeless battle and the symbolic sunrise, flattening an essential thematic payoff into visual mush.

“By removing the blue tint, there is no longer a visual distinction between the hopeless battle and Buffy’s moment of clarity with the scenes after.”

- Episode highlighted: Season 5, Episode 22 ("The Gift"), written and directed by Joss Whedon. - The thematic sunrise directly parallels the sister's name (Dawn) and Buffy's breakthrough, a visual metaphor ruined by the remaster's premature warm color palette.

---

[08:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=511s) Broken Framing and the Forced 16:9 Conversion

Standard-definition television of the 1990s was composed for a 4:3 aspect ratio, producing an image that fit roughly square screens. Modern televisions and monitors utilize the wider 16:9 rectangular format. When older series are converted for modern displays, technicians must choose whether to preserve the original 4:3 composition with black pillarboxes on the sides or adapt the image to fill the 16:9 screen. Joss Whedon has stated clearly that 4:3 is the intended format for *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, clarifying that he is not opposed to the series being seen in high definition, but is opposed to presenting it in widescreen.

While *Buffy* was captured on 35mm film using Panavision cameras whose film gates physically captured a wider area, the directors and cinematographers composed and framed strictly for the center 4:3 safe area. Other series, such as *The Wire* and *Charmed*, have demonstrated that widescreen transfers can be executed respectfully through careful shot-by-shot reframing, or by offering high-definition 4:3 presentations alongside widescreen releases. Fox's remaster of *Buffy*, however, approached widescreen conversion like a bulldozer, aggressively and haphazardly zooming and cropping the frame, lopping off important visual information, and mangling the compositions planned by the filmmakers.

“Whatever decision they were going to make, the problem is that 'Buffy'’s conversion to widescreen was done with a bulldozer using insane amounts of cropping.”

[09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=584s) Broken Framing, Cropping, and Exposed Production Errors

Rather than opening up the frame to properly incorporate the unused sides of the original film negative, the remaster consistently makes baffling choices to zoom in and crop down the original broadcast picture. Season 1 is particularly disastrous: intimate framing on characters like Willow and Buffy becomes claustrophobic, awkward, and crowded. Even when later seasons begin opening up wider portions of the negative, the team still inexplicably lops off crucial visual information from the original compositions. In "What's My Line?", the burned church at the climax of the episode is cropped out entirely, and in other instances, background jokes and visual cues—like an entire latte sitting next to Angel—simply vanish from the frame. The prevailing theory among fans is that the remaster team relied on an automated computer algorithm to guess the framing and never bothered to review or manually correct the output.

The result is a barrage of ruined compositions and total indifference to the original directors' intent. These cropping problems plague all seven seasons, making the extreme zoom-ins doubly insulting when compared to the European widescreen standard-definition DVD releases, which proved that no aggressive zooming was necessary to fill a 16:9 frame. Because *Buffy* was never framed or protected for widescreen broadcast, opening the mattes without careful shot-by-shot supervision introduces rampant technical glitches. Viewers frequently see lighting rigs, Panavision cameras, and wandering crew members standing just outside the original 4:3 safe zone. Furthermore, opening the sides exposes actors whose lines were dubbed or altered in post-production, leaving moments where characters speak audibly while their visible lips remain completely still.

While cropping is inherently the cheapest and most damaging way to mask these errors because it permanently destroys compositional information, superior restorations handle these issues with artistry. In HBO's high-definition remaster of *The Wire*, crew members, cameras, and C-stands were painstakingly painted out digitally frame by frame rather than slicing away the frame itself.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Broken Framing Workflow in Buffy Remaster accDescr: Diagram contrasting proper remastering practices against the automated and careless methods used in the Buffy HD transfer.

subgraph CarelessRemaster["Buffy HD Remaster (Fox)"] A["Original 35mm/16mm Film"] --> B["Automated Auto-Framing Algorithm"] B --> C["Indiscriminate Cropping & Zooming"] B --> D["Unchecked Widescreen Matting"] C --> E["Lost Visual Context<br>(Burned church, props lost)"] D --> F["Exposed Glitches<br>(Crew, cameras, lighting rigs, audio desync)"] end

subgraph ProperRemaster["Industry Standard (e.g., The Wire)"] G["Original Film Elements"] --> H["Shot-by-Shot Inspection"] H --> I["Digital Paint-Out of Equipment"] H --> J["Protected Original Composition"] end ```

- **Extreme cropping examples**: In Season 1, close-ups on Willow and Buffy are squeezed uncomfortably tight; in Season 2's "What's My Line?", the burned church at the end of the episode is cut out of the shot completely. - **Production gaffes exposed**: C-stands, boom mics, lighting equipment, Panavision cameras, and off-camera crew members appear routinely on the edges of widescreen shots. - **Audio-sync discrepancies**: Expanding the frame reveals actors on the sidelines whose lips do not move while their dialogue plays. - As the narrator summarizes the failure: “So you have cropping and reframing where it's pointless and breaks the original vision of the director, and you have shots where cropping actually would’ve been a benefit just outright ignored.”

---

[11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=714s) Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) and the Plastic Texture

The most egregious technical offense in the remaster is the aggressive, indiscriminate application of Digital Noise Reduction (DNR). Because *Buffy* was captured on physical Panavision film cameras, its natural texture includes film grain—tiny, dancing particles that give organic film stock its distinct, cinematic weight. DNR is a digital processing tool meant to diminish visible grain, but when dialed up recklessly, the software cannot tell the difference between film grain and genuine human skin texture. Human beings have natural pores, freckles, and fine lines; the remaster’s heavy filtering scrubs these features away entirely, leaving the cast looking like smoothed-over plastic dolls or smeared watercolor paintings.

The irony is that this over-processing completely destroys the fundamental benefit of scanning 16mm and 35mm film in high definition. In numerous instances, the standard-definition DVD master actually retains far greater facial texture and image detail than the smudged 1080p remaster. When evaluating comparable projects, this disaster stands out sharply. 20th Century Fox’s own HD transfer of *The X-Files* avoided this trap, and the contemporary remaster of *Charmed*—which was shot on 35mm during the exact same television era—showcases crisp, filmic sharpness and natural grain without sacrificing fine detail.

Even footage shot on smaller gauges can look stellar when handled by a competent team. The BBC's *Pride and Prejudice* miniseries was shot on 16mm just one year prior to *Buffy* Season 1, and its Blu-ray release is beautifully defined and organic. Similarly, the 16mm first season of *Gilmore Girls* demonstrates that 16mm film can transition into stunning high definition when grain is preserved rather than scrubbed. Because the first two seasons of *Buffy* were filmed on Super 16mm, retaining the grain was doubly vital, as all fine detail on smaller film stocks is physically embedded inside the grain structure. The arbitrary, ham-fisted application of DNR proves that Fox chose a brute-force, automated batch process with no human technician supervising the work.

- **Film gauge differences**: Seasons 1 and 2 of *Buffy* were shot on Super 16mm, while later seasons transitioned to 35mm film. - **DNR visual artifacts**: Over-filtering scrubs out freckles, facial lines, and skin pores, turning live-action footage into a flat, waxy watercolor look. - **Positive industry benchmarks**: - *Charmed*: Shot on 35mm in the same late-'90s era, restored with sharp detail and subtle DNR. - *Pride and Prejudice* (1995): Shot on 16mm, offering sharp, natural, textured high definition. - *Gilmore Girls* (Season 1): Proof that 16mm television elements hold up cleanly in HD without aggressive smoothing. - Highlighting the absurdity of the transfer, the narrator asks: “What is the point of remastering a show from film if you make it look like it was shot on a digital camera from 1998?”

---

[14:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=878s) Compromised Visual Effects and Upscaling

Because *Buffy* was an episodic television series produced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, all of its digital visual effects—vampire facial morphs, dusting sequences, and magic spells—were composited on computers in standard-definition resolution and printed onto video tape. A legitimate HD remaster requires technicians to retrieve the original raw film plates, rescan them in 1080p, and reconstruct the computer-generated elements from scratch. While a few isolated effects in Seasons 1 and 2 were rebuilt in native high definition, Fox abandoned this effort almost immediately. By early Season 2, the studio stopped rebuilding dusting effects and simply took the dated standard-definition video files, blew them up to fill an HD canvas, and pasted them back into the show.

The few CGI shots that were re-rendered suffered from baffling aesthetic liberties. Instead of recreating the original look, the team altered the fundamental behavior of the vampire dusting, turning the crumbling ash into an unconvincing, billowing smoke effect. The remaining bulk of the series relies entirely on standard-definition upscaling, producing jarring visual rollercoasters where crisp live-action footage abruptly cuts to muddy, blurry, low-resolution visual effects, only to cut back a second later. These upscaled shots are layered with harsh digital edge enhancement that produces glowing white halos around characters' silhouettes, looking far worse than the standard-definition DVDs.

The climax of Season 2's finale, "Becoming, Part 2", highlights this laziness. The critical sequence featuring the dimensional portal opening behind Acathla looks dreadful: the CGI is poorly upscaled from standard definition, using what appears to be an alternate, unapproved visual effects pass with completely different colors than the broadcast master. By contrast, CBS Digital rebuilt every single visual effect shot from scratch in native high definition for their remasters of *Star Trek: The Original Series*, *Star Trek: The Next Generation*, and *Charmed*. *Buffy* received none of this care, craftsmanship, or budget.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Visual Effects Workflow Comparison accDescr: Flowchart illustrating the difference between CBS's ground-up rebuild of visual effects versus Fox's upscaled shortcut for Buffy.

subgraph CBSMethod["CBS Method (Star Trek / Charmed)"] direction TB C1["Raw Film Scanned at 1080p"] --> C2["Rebuild CGI from Scratch"] C2 --> C3["Native HD Composite Matching Original"] end

subgraph FoxMethod["Fox Method (Buffy Remaster)"] direction TB F1["Late 90s SD Effect Composite"] --> F2["Blown-up / Upscaled Video"] F2 --> F3["Edge Enhancement Artifacts & Blurry Shots"] end ```

- **Rebuilt vs. upscaled effects**: Rebuilding dusting sequences ceased early in Season 2; subsequent magic and monster effects rely on magnified 480i video files. - **Dusting alteration**: The recreated vampire deaths replace tactile, crumbling dust with an arbitrary smoke simulation. - **"Becoming, Part 2" portal**: The climactic portal sequence behind the demon Acathla uses a blurry, upscaled SD asset featuring altered color timing never present in the original broadcast. - **Edge halos**: Heavy sharpening and artificial edge enhancement produce distracting white outlines around characters during upscaled sequences.

---

[17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1020s) Outrage from the Creative Team

The grassroots fan campaign *Buffy HD* reached out directly to key members of Mutant Enemy and the original production crew, finding that the creators share the fans' deep frustration. Joss Whedon made his feelings known in 2015 when he succinctly posted online, “Widescreen Buffy is nonsense.” Frequent series writers, directors, and executive producers David Fury and Steven S. DeKnight expressed mutual disgust, calling the transfer an embarrassing mess, with DeKnight declaring, “Somebody should be indicted.”

The most heartbreaking appraisal came from the late Michael Gershman, who served as the Director of Photography on the vast majority of the series and directed several pivotal episodes. In 2016, Gershman gave an emotional statement to the *Buffy HD* campaign:

> “It's a shame to have all of my work thrown in the garbage. I tried to give *Buffy* a texture that would turn a teeny bopper show into a serious dramatic presentation. Alas, once any piece of art leaves the artist's hands, control is lost. Sorry everyone can't see the work in its original incarnation.”

His words underscore that the remaster is not merely a technical disappointment; it is a systematic erasure of the artistic labor that elevated *Buffy* from a kitschy teen show into an enduring cultural touchstone.

---

[17:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1070s) The Dying Medium and Why Fans Must Speak Out

The sheer volume of framing, coloring, cropping, and resolution errors means that the existing remaster cannot simply be patched or adjusted: it must be completely scrapped. Doing the job properly requires starting over from scratch with the original negative film cans—a process requiring considerable studio time, money, and commitment. Yet *Buffy*'s legacy and historical importance merit precisely that level of investment.

The urgency of this issue is compounded by the rapid decline of physical media. Unless one still owns vintage VHS tapes or laserdiscs of the original *Star Wars* trilogy, it is practically impossible to watch those films without George Lucas's controversial Special Edition revisions. In the same vein, as DVDs and Blu-rays become obsolete, audiences will depend entirely on streaming libraries and digital storefronts controlled by corporate conglomerates. Whichever file Disney and Fox host on their servers is the version that will define the show's legacy for future generations.

If audiences remain silent, the definitive visual record of *Buffy* will remain a blurry, careless mess. Fans must speak up and make their voices heard. With a modern *Buffy* reboot in development, the hope is not only that a new show might meaningfully explore the struggles of a new generation, but that renewed corporate interest might convince Disney to revisit the classic original series and finally treat it with the care, affection, and artistic respect it has always deserved.

- **Streaming monopoly**: As DVDs fade out, streaming services become the sole gatekeepers of how historical television is presented and preserved. - **Precedent of lost originals**: Like the untampered theatrical cuts of *Star Wars*, original television broadcasts risk being permanently superseded by flawed corporate remasters. - Describing the scale of the failure, the narrator emphasizes the only real solution: “It may seem daunting but the truth here is, you can’t fix this remaster. There are too many mistakes. Too much went wrong. Doing it right means starting over again with the original footage and... yeah... that means expense.”

## Notable quotes > [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=714s) What is the point of remastering a show from film if you make it look like it was shot on a digital camera from 1998? — Ian Martin (Passion of the Nerd)

> [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo&t=1020s) It's a shame to have all of my work thrown in the garbage. I tried to give Buffy a texture that would turn a teeny bopper show into a serious dramatic presentation. — Michael Gershman

## Mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Passion of the Nerd, Joss Whedon, Emily Nussbaum, David Chase, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Mutant Enemy, Rob Thomas, Russell T Davies, Damon Lindelof, Eric Kripke, Amy Sherman-Palladino, 20th Century Fox, Disney, The Matrix, The Wire, Charmed, Pride and Prejudice, Gilmore Girls, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, CBS Digital, David Fury, Steven S. DeKnight, Michael Gershman, Star Wars, George Lucas, Panavision

## Video description Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/passionofthenerd

SPOILERS FOR ALL OF BUFFY

Suggested versions (links support the channel)

Note: Unfortunately I can't keep up on the what digital service is carrying which version of the show (especially internationally) as they change too frequently. However, a LOT of people have asked me which to buy so these are the two versions for purchase that are currently the best choices for the original experience of the show.

Buffy Seasons 1-7: The Complete Series (Region 1) This is the current print DVD, American, stand definition, 4:3 boxed set for the series. This is the format as originally intended by Joss Whedon.This version will ONLY work in a Region 1 (North American) DVD player unless ripped. https://amzn.to/2JcAPKZ

Buffy Complete Season 1-7 - 20th Anniversary Edition [DVD] [2017] (Region 2) This is the 16:9 Standard Definition European DVD printing. This is the second best version of the series currently available for purchase. Second best because the show was not protected for 16:9 so SOME onscreen errors are present (vignetting, mics, etc.) but NOTHING on par with the current HD remaster. These DVD's will ONLY work in a Region 2 (Eurpopean) DVD Player unless ripped. https://amzn.to/3kuWNqe

For more info, checkout the Buffy HD Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BuffyHD/

Social Links

Sources: Co-Written by Nicolas Respaud: https://twitter.com/Rem_Nico and Kévin Hérieau

Vox - How Buffy the Vampire Slayer transformed TV as we know it Todd VanDerWerff and Caroline Framke https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/10/14857542/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-explained-tv-influence

Cahiers Du Buffy Emily Nussbaum https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cahiers-du-buffy/amp

Buffy Summers Is Responsible For Everything You Like On TV KADEEN GRIFFITHS https://www.bustle.com/p/buffy-summers-is-responsible-for-everything-you-like-on-tv-9651649

10 Shows influenced by Buffy the Vampire Slayer BBC America http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2017/03/10-shows-that-wouldnt-exist-without-buffy-the-vampire-slayer

AV Clubs Interview with Russel T Davies https://tv.avclub.com/russell-t-davies-1798217185

Force Awakens: George Lucas Special Edition timtimfed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93Jh6JNBng

Music Credits: "Favorite Secrets" by Waylon Thornton http://waylonthornton.tumblr.com

0:00 Introduction 1:10 Why Buffy matters 4:42 Absent Color 8:31 Broken framing 11:54 Digital noise reduction (DNR) 14:38 Special effects 17:00 What the creators think 17:50 How to be heard

#buffythevampireslayer #btvs #sarahmichellegellar #mutantenemy

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[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo)

中文简报

《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》高清重制版的巨大悲剧该文概述了《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》在现代优质电视剧中奠基性的叙事重要性，随后详述了二十世纪福克斯官方高清重制版带来的灾难性技术缺陷。文章系统列举了该版本如何抹去氛围感调色、以草率的16:9裁切破坏原版的4:3构图并穿帮露出工作人员和话筒吊杆、运用激进的数字降噪（DNR）将皮肤纹理磨成蜡状，以及直接放大低分辨率视觉特效。文中引用了主创Joss Whedon和已故摄影指导Michael Gershman的严厉批评，并警告称，随着实体介质的衰退，除非粉丝要求进行彻底的原生底片重修，否则这套受损的转录版本恐将永久成为该剧的终极定本。二十世纪福克斯出品的《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》高清重制版存在严重的画质技术缺陷，包括舍弃原版调色、造成破坏的16:9画面裁切、过度的数字降噪，以及直接放大的标清视觉特效。 (0:00) 包括Joss Whedon、David Fury、Steven S. DeKnight以及摄影指导Michael Gershman在内的多位核心创作者，均公开谴责该转录版本抛弃了原版播出的视觉工艺和艺术意图。 (17:00) 由于重制版的缺陷源于自动化的批处理而非人工监督，这些错误无法通过简单修补解决，必须从原始胶片底片开展彻底的从头修复。 (17:50) 随着实体光盘等介质走向衰退，这一存在瑕疵的流媒体版本恐将沦为未来几代人看到的永久历史版本，宛如《星球大战》原版影院剪辑版的流失重演。 (17:50)

Reading summary

20th Century Fox's high-definition remaster of *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* severely compromises the landmark series through automated cropping, stripped color grading, and heavy-handed digital filtering. According to the original creative team and industry critics, the transfer discards crucial artistic intent and requires a complete ground-up restoration to preserve the show's legacy. Cultural Legacy Versus a Careless Transfer (1:12) Television critic Emily Nussbaum cited 1999 as a turning point defined by *The Sopranos* and *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, noting that *Buffy* reshaped serialized television by intertwining horror, comedy, and drama. Its writers' room, Mutant Enemy, served as an incubator for future industry leaders, and showrunners such as Russell T Davies, Damon Lindelof, and Eric Kripke cite the series as a primary influence. Despite this historical weight, Fox distributed an HD transfer across major streaming platforms that original creative alumni and fans widely condemned. Stripped Color Grading and Diluted Visual Subtext (4:42) During original post-production, color grading established the show's gothic mood, spatial reality, and supernatural tone. The HD remaster bypassed this phase in favor of crude, automated brightness adjustments, causing day-for-night sequences to appear as bright as midday and flattening sunset palettes into visual incoherence. This loss is most evident in the Season 5 finale, "The Gift." The original broadcast used a cool, blue palette during the climactic nighttime battle to visually reinforce Buffy's despair, making the eventual sunrise a sharp visual metaphor for her breakthrough and her sister Dawn. By leaving the raw negative's warm, orange tones in the night battle, the remaster flattens this thematic contrast entirely. Broken Framing and Exposed Production Glitches (8:31) Although *Buffy* was captured on 35mm and Super 16mm film, creator Joss Whedon and his cinematographers specifically composed and protected for standard 4:3 broadcast displays. Rather than utilizing careful shot-by-shot reframing—as seen in remasters like HBO's *The Wire*—Fox's team relied on aggressive, automated cropping algorithms to force a 16:9 widescreen presentation. This haphazard zooming altered essential framing, cutting out background jokes, props, and even entire narrative elements like the burned church in Season 2's "What's My Line?" Conversely, when shots were arbitrarily widened without supervision, the presentation exposed distracting production gear along the edges of the frame, including boom mics, C-stands, lighting rigs, and Panavision cameras. The widened framing also revealed off-camera crew members and highlighted dialogue desynchronization when background actors' dubbed lines played while their lips remained completely still. Aggressive Digital Noise Reduction and Low-Res Effects (11:54) The transfer heavily applied Digital Noise Reduction (DNR), a filtering tool designed to minimize film grain. The algorithm failed to distinguish film grain from human skin, smearing facial pores, lines, and freckles until actors resembled waxy plastic figures. This heavy processing resulted in less visible facial detail than the standard-definition DVD releases, undermining the purpose of scanning the original negatives. While benchmark transfers like *Charmed* and BBC's *Pride and Prejudice* retained organic grain structures from 35mm and 16mm film, *Buffy* suffered from automated batch smoothing. Visual effects received similarly negligent handling. Because original computer-generated assets were mastered in standard definition on video tape, rebuilding them in true HD required re-rendering raw film elements from scratch. After Season 2, Fox abandoned rebuilding effects and began blowing up dated standard-definition composites to fill 1080p frames. This resulted in jarring transitions, altered CGI styles, and heavy digital edge enhancement that produced distracting white halos around characters. Outrage from Filmmakers and the Preservation Crisis (17:00) Key creators voiced sharp condemnation of the remaster. Joss Whedon bluntly declared that "widescreen Buffy is nonsense," while writer-producers David Fury and Steven S. DeKnight labeled the release an embarrassing mess. The late director of photography Michael Gershman lamented that his artistic labor—intended to give the series a textured, serious dramatic look—had essentially been "thrown in the garbage." As physical media like DVDs decline, corporate streaming hosts risk making this compromised transfer the permanent, definitive version for future generations. Because the remaster's flaws stem from foundational scanning, automated framing, and skipped color grading, critics and creators argue the transfer cannot simply be patched. Preserving the series' visual legacy will require Disney and Fox to completely scrap the existing files and invest the resources needed to scan and reconstruct the original negative elements from scratch.

精炼阅读摘要

电视评论节目《Passion of the Nerd》指出，20世纪福克斯对具有划时代意义的经典美剧《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》（Buffy the Vampire Slayer）所制作的高清重制版是一场技术与艺术上的灾难，粗暴的色彩剥离、画幅盲目裁剪、过度降噪及低劣特效处理严重损毁了原作的视听质感与叙事遗产。剧集里程碑地位与重制质量的剧烈落差 (1:12) 电视评论家 Emily Nussbaum 曾指出，1999年是现代电视史的转折点，这一分水岭由《黑道家族》与《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》共同确立；该剧不仅开拓了融合恐怖、喜剧与正剧的叙事架构，其编剧室 Mutant Enemy 更孕育了大批后续执导《迷失》、《黑袍纠察队》等代表作的知名创作者。然而，在这部极具文化与工业影响力的作品迎来高清重制时，负责制作的20世纪福克斯却交出了一份充斥粗制滥造痕迹的答卷。该重制版被分发至 Netflix、Amazon Prime 等流媒体平台后，因人物面部蜡化、夜景亮如白昼以及工作人员频繁穿帮等严重技术事故，遭到影评界、影迷群体及原制作团队的普遍谴责。色彩校准缺失对叙事深度与隐喻的剥离 (4:42) 在正规影视流程中，后期调色（Color Grading）是确立空间氛围、色调隐喻和实现“白昼拍摄模拟黑夜”的关键环节。重制团队在扫描原始35毫米底片后，完全跳过了逐镜头色彩校正，仅依赖自动化的亮度和对比度调节，致使全剧原有的哥特式阴郁影调荡然无存，甚至出现深夜场景与正午小憩光线完全一致的混乱。这种工业疏漏直接摧毁了剧集的核心叙事高潮。例如在第5季季终集《The Gift》中，原版通过冷峻的深蓝夜色烘托巴菲面临牺牲妹妹还是毁灭宇宙的绝望心境，最终伴随清晨第一缕金色阳光升起，象征巴菲的精神突破与牺牲救赎。然而在重制版中，蓝调冷光被粗暴抹去，战斗场景残留底片的暖红原色，导致黑夜苦战与象征希望的破晓之间失去了应有的对比度，使得精心构思的视觉隐喻被彻底抹杀。强制16比9画幅引发的画面裁剪与穿帮 (8:31) 《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》拍摄于胶片时代，尽管底片物理成像区域较宽，但编导乔斯·韦登（Joss Whedon）与摄影师全程严格按照4:3画幅安全区进行视听语言构图，韦登也曾公开明确表示反对将本剧转换为宽屏。然而，福克斯重制版粗暴采用了自动化裁切算法，为了强行填满现代16:9屏幕而盲目放大画面，造成大量构图信息被切除，如第2季关键场景中被烧毁的教堂以及背景中的视觉线索均遭损失。更为严重的是，在未加人工监督的情况下直接打开画幅遮幅，导致原本位于4:3取景框外的拍摄器材大白于天下。成片边缘频繁出现剧组的C型架、麦克风吊杆、Panavision摄影机及闲逛的工作人员，甚至暴露出侧旁演员嘴唇不动却念出台词的后期配音瑕疵。相比之下，HBO在重制同为4:3拍摄的《火线》时，均通过逐帧数码涂抹擦除器材并保护原构图，反衬出福克斯处理方式的懒惰与破坏性。野蛮降噪造成的蜡像质感与低质特效拉伸 (11:54) 该重制版在画质处理上滥用了激进的数字降噪技术（DNR）。本剧前两季采用Super 16毫米胶片拍摄，后续转为35毫米，画面天然保留着承载高清晰度细节的有机胶片颗粒。重制算法无法区分颗粒与人体皮肤纹理，粗暴过滤导致演员脸部的毛孔、雀斑和面部细纹被全面抹平，呈现出类似塑料娃娃或水彩画涂抹的蜡状质感，其实际面部细节表现甚至落后于原版标清DVD。对比《圣女魔咒》或BBC版《傲慢与偏见》等高清重制典范，该项目完全丧失了胶片应有的质感。此外，剧集中原以标清标准合成的电脑视觉特效并未进行原生高清重建。除前两季极少数特效曾尝试重绘外，福克斯很快放弃了成本投入，转而将老旧的480i标清视频直接拉伸并贴回画面，甚至随意将吸血鬼原有的碎屑化灰动画改动为浮夸的烟雾效果。粗劣的逐行缩放配合过度锐化，在人物轮廓边缘制造出刺眼的白色光晕，使观众在高清实拍与模糊低劣特效之间频繁遭受视觉割裂。原创团队的痛惜与流媒体时代的保存危机 (17:00) 主创人员对该版本的破坏表达了极大愤慨，执行制片人 Steven S. DeKnight 直言责任人理应受到指控；本剧已故摄影指导 Michael Gershman 痛心疾首地表示，自己试图赋予青春剧以严肃戏剧质感的所有艺术心血“全被扔进了垃圾桶”。由于实体媒介（DVD与蓝光）正迅速衰退，流媒体平台已成为未来观众获取经典影视的主要通道，平台服务器托管的版本将直接定义该剧的历史定本。评论强调，当前的重制版由于错误积重难返而无法修补，唯有彻底推翻现有成片、耗资从原始底片重新扫描制作；在影视公司正筹备重启版《巴菲》的契机下，观众与影迷唯有持续发声，才可能促使版权方重新给予这部经典作品应有的艺术尊重与审慎修复。节目总结认为，现存的《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》高清重制版在技术与审美层面均是一场不可挽回的灾难，其根本原因在于制片厂依赖自动化算法而缺乏专业人工干预与艺术敬畏。随着数字流媒体成为影视传播的主要甚至唯一渠道，原版视听记忆面临被劣质数字化版本永久替代的风险，呼吁版权方重新立项进行彻底修复已成为抢救这一文化遗产的当务之急。

Source quotes

[11:54] Ian Martin (Passion of the Nerd): What is the point of remastering a show from film if you make it look like it was shot on a digital camera from 1998? [17:00] Michael Gershman: It's a shame to have all of my work thrown in the garbage. I tried to give Buffy a texture that would turn a teeny bopper show into a serious dramatic presentation.

Original transcript

[0:00] We truly do live in a gilded age of television. [0:03] The internet era brought with it things like DVR and the streaming services which have made [0:07] it possible for people to easily follow season-long story arcs. [0:11] Consequently in many ways, long form storytelling on television has surpassed the scope and [0:16] depth of your average theater experience. [0:18] "Dracarys." [0:20] But it isn’t only that. [0:21] Classic television which we once had to watch through the bottom of a coke bottle [0:25] is being restored to a glory the likes of which we’ve never gotten to see. [0:29] With these remasters, studios are going back to the original films the shows were shot on, [0:34] creating brand new high definition scans of them, [0:37] and updating their special effects while keeping the original flavor. [0:40] Many of these beautiful restorations have been done with a meticulous attention to detail [0:45] and with loving care for the original source material. [0:49] And then… [0:52] And then...there is the 'Buffy' remaster… [0:55] Why do ALL THEIR FACES LOOK LIKE RUBBER DOLLS? [0:58] Oh come ON. [0:59] That’s not even the same color! [1:00] It’s DAY TIME. [1:02] YOU CAN SEE THE CREW. [1:03] JUST CROP THEM OUT!!! [1:06] [Buffy crying] [1:08] *sigh* [1:10] I’m going to need a lot of wine for this one. [1:12] Before we get into this, [1:13] if you’re unfamiliar with the show [1:14] and seeing me make comparisons between 'Buffy' and [1:17] 'Breaking Bad' or [1:18] 'Star Trek' [1:18] or any other all time great made you want to: [1:21] “Scoff.” [1:22] - “Did you just say the word 'scoff'?” [1:23] Let’s quickly run down the importance of the 'Buffy' in the modern pop media landscape. [1:28] Of course, the show owes a great debt to earlier trailblazers. [1:31] Buffy is very much a supernatural girl-power Peter Parker. [1:34] When 'Buffy' first aired, 'The X-Files' had been teasing season long story arcs for three years. [1:39] And both 'Buffy' and 'The X-Files' owe some debt to the short lived 'Twin Peaks'. [1:43] But noted TV critic for the New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum [1:45] wrote in 2014 [1:47] that 1999 marked a turning point for television [1:50] because of 'The Sopranos', [1:52] and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. [1:53] Quote. [1:54] “...David Chase and Joss Whedon were turning television into something radical" [1:58] "...and groundbreaking" [2:00] ...the latter by forging a mythic...meld of [2:02] horror, [2:03] comedy, [2:04] and...drama.” [2:05] 'Buffy' took the influences of its predecessors and, by the middle of its run, [2:09] had combined them seamlessly into a more coherent model for serial television that is still in use today. [2:16] Since 'Buffy' aired it has been cited as an influence by many major showrunners including [2:20] Rob Thomas, [2:22] Russel T. Davies, [2:23] Damon Lindeloff, [2:24] Eric Kripke [2:25] and Amy Palladino. [2:27] 'Buffy'’s writer’s room, Mutant Enemy, [2:28] was a training ground for a team that would later go on to be major influences on [2:32] '24', [2:33] 'Once Upon A Time', [2:34] 'Daredevil' and [2:35] 'The Martian'. [2:36] The show’s insanely terrific episode, ‘Once More, with Feeling,’ [2:39] popularized the musical episode and was probably at least partially responsible for... [2:47] though...maybe don’t hold that against it. [2:49] And, of course there’s Whedon’s work itself. [2:51] Whedon said he used 'Buffy' as his own personal film school [2:54] and he later went on to having a major hand in shaping one of the most significant film series’ of all time, [3:00] along with creating 'Dollhouse', [3:01] 'Angel', [3:02] 'Firefly', [3:02] 'Dr. Horrible', *aka Dr. Horrible's Sing-a Long Blog [3:03] and 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'. *aka MARVEL's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [3:05] If this topic of the awful remaster sounds familiar, [3:07] it may be because 4 years ago, when the remaster was only partly complete, [3:12] I recorded a voice over for a video called 'What’s Wrong With Buffy’s HD'. [3:16] This video, like that one, was done in collaboration with the team at [3:19] 'Buffy’s HD' group over on Facebook, who have done the lion’s share of the research and referencing. [3:24] However, since we made that video back in 2015, [3:27] the abysmal remaster has limped to its conclusion [3:31] and we all felt it warranted some kind of complete post mortem. [3:34] Especially, if 'Buffy' is ever to get the remaster it actually deserves. [3:39] Since Fox Studios finished remastering the show the remaster has been seen on [3:43] Netflix US [3:44] several tv channels, [3:45] Amazon streaming (for a short period of time) [3:48] and is currently available on [3:49] Amazon Prime UK, [3:51] Facebook Watch, [3:52] FoxPlay [3:53] and other streaming services, [3:54] despite the fact that the effort was almost universally panned by fans, journalists and members of the original Mutant Enemy team. [4:02] Yet, except for fixing a few shots in the early episodes, Fox has done virtually nothing. [4:07] To say that 'Buffy' is an important influential show worthy of a quality HD remaster is of an understatement something [4:13] and, in an era where we're getting more and more carefully and beautifully created remasters, [4:19] 'Buffy' currently has (without hyperbole) [4:21] the WORST HD conversion ever seen. [4:25] "I don't like you." [4:26] Period. [4:26] We’re going to do a breakdown of the many many mistakes including [4:29] the absence of color-correction, [4:31] the framing, [4:31] the weird digital filters they threw on the footage, [4:34] and the handling, [4:35] or rather mishandling, of the show's special effects. [4:38] Disney, [4:39] if you’re out there, [4:40] please listen closely. [4:42] Shooting all the footage for a movie or television show is only the beginning of the process when it comes to creating a piece of content. [4:48] Once all the footage is shot, it enters what is called 'post production' [4:52] where the footage is edited, sound effects and score are mastered, [4:55] and special effects are created. [4:57] And it’s clear that, for the remaster, a crucial part of the post-production was regularly skipped: [5:02] color correction, also called color-grading. [5:05] Color correction is, simply, shifting the color in a computer of filmed footage [5:09] to achieve a particular kind of effect. [5:11] In 'The Matrix', any of the scenes that were occuring in the real world had a light blue organic hue to them [5:17] and any of the footage in the Matrix itself was tinted green, [5:20] the same color as the green text on Neo’s computer [5:23] - a visual indicator that they were all in a program themselves. [5:26] 'Buffy' used color correction quite a bit to change the atmosphere of a scene in the editing room, [5:31] make footage that shot during the day look like it took place at night, [5:34] or simply to make the show look richer. [5:36] The first step in the HD remaster process is to go back to the original film footage that was shot for the show. [5:42] But after you do that you have to reapply all of those color corrections that were done in post production [5:48] and it’s clear that much of that work in the original show was outright ignored. [5:52] In doing so, a multitude of issues were created depending on why a scene was color corrected in the first place. [5:57] Some scenes now look like daytime [5:59] or a sunset scene no longer HAS a sunset. [6:02] At a basic level, it looks like the remaster team was haphazardly [6:05] applying an automatic filter to the brightness and image contrast, [6:09] which has completely altered the mood of some scenes. [6:12] A whole pile of shots now look completely unnatural or washed out, [6:16] including the landmark, 'Once More, with Feeling'. [6:19] But when a scene SHOULD look different, [6:21] because 'Buffy'’s original post production team color graded it, [6:24] that work was skipped. [6:26] The gothic atmosphere of the early seasons is gone, [6:29] color saturation for important episodes has been lost. [6:32] Across the entire remaster [6:34] the brightness is excessively strong [6:36] and often makes no sense within the context of a scene. [6:39] In one of these shots it's 11:34 p.m. at night. [6:43] In the other, Buffy is taking a midday nap. [6:46] Broadly these criticisms might seem petty. [6:48] A small price to pay in exchange for the chance to watch 'Buffy' in that sweet sweet high definition. [6:54] SO let’s look at a single very specific example to understand why a decision [6:58] as simple as color tone can mean SO much. [7:02] But I want to acknowledge up front that all I can do is speculate as to why the original team made the decisions that they did. [7:08] That said my favorite episode of the show is Season 5, Episode 22: [7:12] 'The Gift'. [7:13] Throughout 'Season 5', Buffy has been defending her kid sister Dawn [7:17] from an unstoppable Big Bad. [7:19] And in Episode 22, Buffy finds herself at the end of a rope [7:22] as she’s faced with choosing between Dawn’s life or the fate of the entire world. [7:28] THIS is her character’s low moment. [7:30] "I don’t know how to live in this world, if these are the choices.” [7:34] She fights the Big Bad, [7:35] attempts to save her sister, [7:37] and in a moment of clarity realizes that rather than sacrificing her sister to save the world [7:41] ...she can sacrifice herself. [7:43] During her moment of realization the sun rises. [7:47] Buffy saves the world, [7:48] yadda yadda yadda. [7:49] All of the night sequences at the end of the episode had a blue color tint applied to them [7:53] almost across the board. [7:55] Some shots had a less dramatic grading [7:57] but it’s almost in every shot. [7:58] And that blue tint... [8:00] ...is completely missing in the remaster. [8:03] Tones are more organic. [8:04] The colors are warmer, rosier, and more orange. [8:07] Kind of like the colors of... [8:09] the DAWN, [8:10] the climax of the episode and the moment of Buffy’s emotional breakthrough. [8:14] By removing the blue tint, [8:16] there is no longer a visual distinction [8:18] between the hopeless battle [8:20] and Buffy’s moment of clarity with the scenes after. [8:23] An entire layer of visual subtext has been lost in the episode [8:27] all because of a little... [8:29] ...lack ... [8:30] ...of blue. [8:31] Classic television, like 'Buffy', was created for what's called a... [8:34] ...4:3 aspect ratio. [8:36] Just think, more square. [8:38] Modern TV’s are a more rectangular shaped [8:41] 16:9 aspect ratio [8:43] and when it comes to remastering old shows [8:45] for modern televisions, [8:46] there is always the question of whether or not [8:48] to maintain the original squarish 4:3 shape, [8:51] or to convert it to 16:9. [8:54] Joss Whedon is on record having said that [8:56] the 4:3 is the way he wants the show to be and [8:59] that he’s not against 'Buffy' in HD, [9:01] only 'Buffy' in widescreen. [9:03] The show was shot with widescreen Panavision film cameras, [9:06] but always with the intention of it being cropped down for the 4:3 squareish format. [9:12] Now a widescreen version would go against the creators’ wishes, [9:15] but recent remasters like 'The Wire' [9:17] and 'Charmed' [9:18] have proven that a show could still be successfully converted to widescreen [9:22] without losing the creator’s vision. [9:24] And even though CBS released the 'Charmed' Blu-ray in 16:9, [9:27] they did create 4:3 HD masters that are available on streaming services. [9:32] Whatever decision they were going to make, [9:34] the problem is that 'Buffy'’s conversion to widescreen was done with a bulldozer [9:38] using insane amounts of cropping. [9:41] Logically, it would follow that the remaster should most often just [9:44] open up the frame and use the unused portions of the original filmed shot [9:49] but there are confusing decisions throughout [9:51] to instead crop down the original aired frame. [9:54] 'Season One' is a nightmare. [9:55] LOOK AT WILLOW’s FACE. [9:57] This frame on Buffy looks awkward and crowded. [10:00] Later, the remaster starts [10:02] incorporating more of the original unused portion of the footage [10:05] but continues for some reason [10:06] to crop out parts of the original shot from the show. [10:10] Goodbye, Angel latte. [10:11] In 'What’s My Line', [10:12] they completely crop out the burned church at the end of the episode. [10:16] One running theory for why this happened is that the remaster team had a computer doing [10:20] auto framing and the team didn’t bother to fix it, [10:22] which could be the only way to explain the utter [10:25] indifference to such a terrible job. [10:28] But the net result is a regularly ruined composition, and the director's intention being completely ignored. [10:35] Cropping issues were never resolved, [10:36] and are present in all 7 seasons, [10:39] the extreme zooming being doubly unnecessary, [10:42] as we can see from the European DVDs, [10:44] which were released in widescreen, [10:45] that no cropping was required at all. [10:49] Even if the transfer had been done correctly and used the entire frame, [10:52] since 'Buffy' wasn’t filmed with the ultimate intention of being aired in widescreen, [10:56] without the remaster team paying attention to each shot [11:00] what you end up with are a pile of easily avoidable mistakes. [11:04] "THESE ARE LIES!" [11:05] You often get a syncing issue with the previous shot, [11:07] a piece of equipment appearing like [11:09] lighting rigs or, worse, [11:11] crew members. [11:12] There’s those Panavision cameras we were talking about earlier. [11:15] If an actor was originally cropped out of a shot in the remaster [11:18] you may hear a character speak but their lips are not moving. [11:21] "But we can't," [11:21] "we've gotta..." [11:22] Y-you don't understand." [11:23] Those are the more obvious mistakes, [11:25] but the remaster is full of little ones, [11:27] caused by the change in aspect ratio, that they needed to fix. [11:31] So you have cropping and reframing where it's pointless [11:33] and breaks the original vision of the director, [11:36] and you have shots where cropping actually would’ve been a benefit just outright ignored. [11:40] Thing is, cropping is the cheap and worst way to fix the problem anyway, [11:44] as you lose information from the original shot. [11:47] In HBO's excellent remaster of [11:49] 'The Wire' [11:50] those C-stands, cameras and crew members were [11:52] painted out digitally. [11:54] But we’re far from done my friends. [11:55] We’ve now come to my [11:57] least favorite issue. [11:59] I mentioned previously that 'Buffy' was shot using Panavision film cameras [12:03] and one of the natural byproducts of [12:05] shooting on film was film grain, [12:07] tiny particles or light static moving around randomly in the image. [12:11] For most people, even people who don’t notice it, [12:14] film grain is one of the things that makes film, look like... [12:17] ...well... [12:17] ...FILM. [12:18] Most people generally consider film grain, a neutral or a good thing. [12:22] However, there is a process called [12:24] Digital Noise Reduction (or DNR) used to reduce the [12:28] presence of film's natural grain. [12:31] And in excess, can lead actors to have a [12:33] plastic, doll-like appearance. [12:35] Because you know what human beings have? [12:38] PORES. [12:38] FRECKLES. [12:39] And when a DNR filter is dialed in wrong, the filter can’t tell the difference. [12:44] As you can see here, the DNR smooths everything to the extreme [12:48] destroying the benefit of HD from 16 and 35mm film. [12:52] Many shots just look like watercolor as a result [12:55] and it’s sometimes overused to the point where you can actually see greater detail [12:58] in the DVD standard definition version. [13:02] What is the point of remastering a show from film if you make it look like it was [13:06] shot on a digital camera from 1998? *1997 for this episode [13:09] "She irons her jeans. SHE'S EVIL!" [13:11] No other prominent remasters, like 'The X- Files', also made by Fox, suffer from this issue. [13:18] To take 'Charmed' as an example again [13:20] you can see that the level of detail is incredibly impressive, [13:23] the definition isn’t compromised by the fact that they did use DNR, [13:27] and the show looks like it was shot on film. [13:29] This close-up comparison says it all. [13:32] The two shots are the Full HD versions available, [13:35] both shows were shot on 35mm, during the same year [13:39] and yet the way it was remastered, 'Buffy' looks like an extremely inferior process. [13:44] And there are many examples of modern Blu-rays that were taken from a 16mm source that look very good. [13:50] The “Pride & Prejudice” mini-series was shot only one year before 'Buffy Season 1'. [13:55] It looks grainy but high definition, [13:57] and mostly it looks natural with a pleasing amount of detail. [14:00] The Gilmore Girls remaster of 'Season 1' which was filmed two years after 'Buffy Season 2', [14:06] is more proof that 16mm can look very good in high definition. [14:10] 'Buffy Season 1' and '2' were shot on Super 16mm film, [14:13] which is never going to have as much detail as 35mm. [14:17] But that’s all the more reason to avoid Digital Noise Reduction. [14:20] With film transfers, all the detail is in the grain, especially when it comes to 16mm. [14:26] But again, the arbitrary application of the filter just indicates that a brute force, automatic [14:31] and cheap as possible approach was used with 'Buffy'. [14:35] No one at the wheel. [14:36] [radio fiddling] [14:36] "Eyes on the road. Eyes on the road." [14:38] And boy, can you see cheap with the special effects. [14:41] Though 'Buffy' was shot on film, [14:43] things like [14:44] morphs to vamp face, [14:45] vampires being dusted, [14:46] and any and all magic spells were done in a computer after the fact [14:50] and probably rendered in only in the standard definition that 'Buffy' was airing in at the time. [14:54] Meaning, in order to do a proper remaster the team was going to have to go back to every special effect [15:00] and create it again from scratch with a high definition version. [15:04] And some of the special effects in 'Season 1' and '2' have been redone, [15:08] the rest is entirely upscaled. [15:10] Meaning, rather than recreate the effect from scratch over a high definition scan of the original footage, [15:16] the team instead took the old standard definition versions of the shot and just... [15:20] ...blew them up. [15:21] Ever zoom into a picture on your computer too far? [15:24] A couple of the redone HD effects actually look decent enough [15:27] although not identical to the original. [15:29] But the remaster takes great licence throughout with the style of the vampire dusting, [15:34] looking more like a smoke effect than dust. [15:37] The effect was reinvented, rather than re-rendered. [15:40] FOX just...stopped remaking the dusting effect in early 'Season 2', [15:44] they resorted to just upscaling everything from standard definition, [15:48] along with all the other special effects. [15:50] Think taking a low resolution picture and zooming into it. [15:53] The upscaled shots are also suffering from an excess of edge enhancement, [15:57] which will create white edges around the characters and looks worse than the DVD version. [16:02] And, of course, [16:04] upscaling can create [16:05] more unnecessary cropping - [16:07] either when used for a special effect [16:09] or.... [16:10] ...other mysterious reasons. [16:12] So, you’ll be watching the remaster and go from a nice, if overly filtered, HD shot, [16:17] to a blurry, blown up special effect, [16:20] and back again. [16:22] Over... [16:23] ...and over… [16:25] ...and over. [16:26] The whole portal sequence in 'Becoming looks abysmal. [16:29] All the CG shots are upscaled, but it looks like the standard definition effect is a different version [16:34] than the one used in the episode at the time. [16:36] The colors are different. [16:37] If the remaster team was planning on redoing ANY effect in 'Season 2', [16:42] why not this moment? [16:43] Instead... [16:44] ...upscaling. [16:45] But for remasters like 'Charmed' and [16:47] 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and [16:48] 'The Original Series', [16:49] CBS Studios recreated [16:51] ALL of the CGI effects in high definition [16:54] looking very close to the original ones. [16:56] This is what should be done for 'Buffy'. [16:58] Care. [16:59] Attention. [17:00] Affection. [17:01] The group over at 'Buffy’s HD' have reached out to several members of the original Mutant Enemy team [17:06] and many of them have expressed their outrage over 'Buffy'’s mishandling. [17:10] Joss Whedon’s closest comments on the remaster came in 2015, [17:13] tweeting that [17:14] “Widescreen Buffy is nonsense.” [17:16] David Fury and Steven DeKnight called the remaster [17:19] "--an embarrassing mess." [17:21] and tweeted [17:22] “Somebody should be indicted.” [17:23] The late Michael Gershman, [17:24] Director of Photography on most of the episodes [17:27] shared his feelings with the 'Buffy HD' Facebook page in 2016, saying, [17:31] "It's a shame to have all of my work thrown in the garbage." [17:35] "I tried to give 'Buffy' a texture that would turn a teeny bopper show into a serious dramatic presentation." [17:41] "Alas, once any piece of art leaves the artists hands," *a piece, *hand [17:45] "control is lost." [17:46] "Sorry everyone can't see the work in it's original incarnation.” [17:50] It may seem daunting but the truth here is, you can’t fix this remaster. [17:55] There are too many mistakes. [17:57] Too much went wrong. [17:58] Doing it right means starting [18:00] over again with the original footage and... [18:02] yeah... [18:03] ...that means expense. [18:04] Time. [18:04] Cost. [18:05] But I think we’ve covered why 'Buffy' matters enough to do it. [18:08] And there is another reason that we as the fandom need to be making our voices heard about this. [18:13] I CLING to my DVD boxed set [18:15] If you don’t own a VHS or LaserDisc [18:18] copy of 'Star Wars' [18:19] you can no longer watch a version of it that hasn’t been tampered with by endless meaningless revisions [18:25] and frustrating changes. [18:27] But even then, physical media IS dying. [18:29] At some point, our access to our favorite stories is going to be [18:32] exclusively through streaming and ala carte download services [18:37] and it is 'Buffy'’s corporate overseers that will say [18:40] what version of our favorite shows [18:41] they give us access to. [18:43] Will it be a blurry half-assed mess, [18:46] or will it be something that was made with care [18:49] by people paying attention to the show's color, lighting, and composition? [18:53] People have been asking me for my thoughts on the 'Buffy' reboot since it was first mentioned and here’s what I’m hoping. [18:58] I hope... [19:00] ...it’s good. [19:01] I hope it’s really, really unbelievably good. [19:04] Not just because we might have a brand new Buffy [19:06] to comment on the trials and triumphs of a modern young adult. [19:10] But because a shining success and our loud voices around it [19:13] might just motivate Disney to look on the original, [19:17] ...and care.