when I saw Company on friday at wood green cineworld it had a look of a rich and polished visual feel. This was one of the reasons I was put off by the film as a whole. Then one of my mate (who saw it in India, Mumbai) said the films colours was unbalanced being both gritty and grainy and has many shades of yellow and green, and the use of constrast was strong to enhance the film. However I didn't see this when I saw the film? The film looked as if it was shot with bold eastman colours!

I've got a feeling that EROS/Adlabs has messed up somewhere.

How did the film look when you guys went to see it?
Do you think Cineworld showed a wrong 35mm positive print??



Edited By Shahran Sunny Audit on April 14 2002 at 11:19

I think the film was very grainy in parts cause the choice of very fast film e.g just after Viveck Oberoi shoots the corrupt policeman. But I don't remember the film being very colourful. The cinematography was actually very dark whenever the scene required esp with Ajay Devgan. To tell you the truth, RGV's cinematography is actually the most bland and unpolished in Indian filmmaking and that is a compliment. I do not think that the lab involved messed up.

I saw the film looking too visually good when I saw it on cinema, which differed from the cinema and tv trailers seen advertising the film which had the qualities you mentioned. It seems I saw the film without the grain and darkness which is where the labs might have messed up. I think there is one print out there that is not to the director's specifications, thus a lack of grain and darkness.

I will go back to see the film on cinema on Tuesday night to see if this is the case. I remember Warner had the same problem with Three Kings back in 1999 on one UGC cinema when the films colour wasn't distorted as per the director wishes (it was even on BBC watchdog propgramme), and I think EROS has done the same with the case of Company.

Maybe if I see the film distorted with grain and unbalanced colours I will appericiate it more as that was the only complain I had with the film - It looked too good in its eastman colours - something I think RGV didn't want.

the movie was very screwed up looking when I saw it (Woodside Cinemas in Toronto last night). There were some really excessive grainy scenes followed by bright crisply-coloured scenes. There was some blurry scenes, followed by some scenes in which the colours would literally bleed. Also, I saw scan lines and some combing (jagged edges), and some effects which looked like motion artifacts. And some scenes were excessively dark, especially featuring Ajay Devgan in the shadows. There was one scene in particular when the only thing visible was Ajay's face (kind-of), which was illuminated by a little flame.


I have a feeling that Company will have a horrible DVD presentation, video wise.

I can now confirm that the labs in India have messed up 5 35mm positive prints of the film which are in circulation. A person from there has informed me of this (after a couple of phone calls was made, some distributors are not yet aware of this problem). The version I saw was taken from a source which was used to create the glossy adverts and making of from by publicity companies in India.

The correct 35mm film version actually should have excessive grain and dark images as well as some colour distortion. Now you can see why I was jarred while watching this film. I did feel that the visuals was way too smooth looking for a subject matter of this nature, and I remember RGV on B4U mentioning some of the visual aspect of the film which was what people here have discribed. Hopefully I will go back to see the correct version of the film asap and will this time apperciate the film much more then I did last time.

What happened to Three Kings, Sunny? I remember back in 99 watching on the big screen. The movie had a lot of intentional grainy shots that gave it look as if shot in 8mm so it was hard to make out any mistakes. But what I was confused was that the sound kept getting noisy and fuzzy and the dialogues disappeared at times. And all this happened in DTS!! As for Indian prints, what can I say, I have given up on them.