Since Paul Smith got Kim and I hooked on the 1984-94 Granada television production of Sherlock Holmes, starring the fantastic Jeremy Brett, I’ve always had a desire to do a proper film restoration of it (the DVD transfer they’ve done is horrible at best).
Anyway, I’ve sent a letter (via a third party) to one of the producers of the series, June Wyndham-Davies, to see if I can get her on board before I start trying to raise capital. Anyway, here’s the body of the letter I wrote to give you an idea of what I’m trying to accomplish:
A good friend of mine and I are looking into the feasibility of raising the capital necessary (in the multi-millions we can only assume) to do a complete restoration, proper ultra high resolution re-transfer, and color correction of the original camera negatives (if they hopefully still exist and have been stored properly) with the aid of the original cinematographers (if they can be tracked down, and/or are alive).Those original camera negs/prints would be scanned in at a minimum of 4k resolution (4096x2160, essentially 4 times that of full HDTV 1920x1080 lines of resolution), for eventual international re-distribution via HD television/cable and BluRay disc (assuming Granada would be interested in distributing HD versions of the show, which I have no doubt they would), for not only the countless fans already extant, but for a whole new generation of viewers.During this complete restoration process (of not only picture, but sound as well, enhancing the original mix for possible surround sound capabilities), we would also try to restore out-takes, bloopers, and track down as much ‘behind the scenes’ information (pictures, interviews, sound bites, scripts, drawings, etc) and interview as many people involved with the original series to round out a definitive collector’s edition box set of all the original television episodes as well as the feature length episodes in full high definition and surround sound, with extra discs chock full of hours of bonus material to finally complete any fans collection.I’m sure Granada have considered (or will soon consider seeing the open marketability of renewing an old asset like Holmes) doing an HD run of the series, we just want to make sure they’re not going to go the cheap route and just transfer it to HD tape, but do it the justice it deserves (ie a complete restoration going back to the original negatives and prints, as you would any old classic film).I would love to know if you’d like to be a part of this effort. Thank you for any and all help you may offer. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
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