Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Three months ago, my colleague Brian Orndorf covered Decal Releasing's US Blu-ray of Michael Mann's twelfth big-screen feature, Ferrari (2023). For Brian's thoughts on the film and his evaluation of Decal's a/v presentations, please click here.

Enzo with Lina.

Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: the screen captures are taken directly from the UHD disc and have been downsampled to 1080p.

Universal Studios UK has recently released a 4K Ultra HD of Ferrari that's encoded on a BD-100 and housed with a slipcover. The feature presentation contains both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Further confirmation comes from MediaInfo scans I made of a large file on the disc. (Neither the slip nor the case's artwork make any mention of Dolby Vision.) This is a single-disc edition. (Universal has issued on the film in 1080p on a separate Blu-ray.) Ferrari has had other 4K disc releases in Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium. I don't own any of those European editions so I can't confirm if each has Dolby Vision in addition to HDR10.

The movie appears in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 2.39:1. The American Cinematographer did a feature on Ferrari for its January 2024 issue and lists three cameras used for filming: the Sony VENICE 2, Red Komodo, and V-Raptor. Director of photography Erik Messerschmidt has said he chose the VENICE 2 for its excellent color reproduction. (See in particular screenshot #s 26, 32-34, and 38.) Messerschmidt also employed five different lenses, including Panavision Panaspeed and P+S Technik Skater Scope (one of Michael Mann's favorites) for Steadicam shots. In the AC article, it's apropos that Messerschmidt remembers his early conversations with Mann centering on light. I saw Ferrari in my local megaplex earlier this year and the way Messerschmidt lit the interiors of Laura (Penélope Cruz) and Enzo Ferrari's (Adam Driver) home, as well as other interiors, made a lasting impression. To inspire his low-level lighting schemes, Messerschmidt studied the Venetian school of Italy's late Renaissance of portrait painters: Caravaggio, Tintoretto, and Titian. The DP selectively chose certain lights to appear on characters. For example, the sunlight from outside shines on Enzo in profile and on his mother in the background (see frame grab #10). You'll notice throughout many of the screen captures how Ferrari maintains a chiaroscuro look. If you watch the film with HDR10 in Filmmaker mode and your display automatically increases the brightness close to the max, I would advise reverting that setting to its calibrated level if, for instance, they were calibrated in Movie mode. (The latter may be preferable to watch the film in.) I distinctly remember from my theatrical experience how dark the interiors appeared.

Ferrari was practically made for the UHD format. Messerschmidt told AC writer Patricia Thomson that he shot in 8K and 6K (Super 35) modes, sometimes switching between the two depending on the lens chosen. Mann had a rule that only red could be seen on the Ferrari and Maserati replica cars. The red shows a big "pop" when watched in full UHD. (See samples of it in screen capture #s 4, 25, 28, and 30.) According to Thomson, a majority of car sequences were shot with six cameras with vehicles going anywhere from 110 mph to 140 mph.

The stock footage that opens Ferrari also contains shots of Adam Driver (with mounted cameras). Zoe Mutter wrote a piece about this in a recent issue for British Cinematographer Magazine. Mutter reported that photogrammetry plates were also shot so the visual effects team could "comp" Driver into the archival race footage. You can see an example of this in Screenshot #40.

Universal has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 76.5 Mbps. The whole disc sports an overall bitrate of 82.9 Mbps. Brian noticed that the Decal transfer showed some banding but I didn't detect any on this presentation.

Nine scene selections accompany the 130-minute film.

Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal has supplied an English Dolby Atmos mix and a PCM 2.0 Stereo option (2304 kbps, 24-bit). The bitrate for the Atmos track reaches as high as 5472 kbps. The AMPAS posted a video on its YouTube channel with Michael Mann and re-recording mixer Andy Nelson explaining Ferrari's audio delivery and sound track choices. Mann said that he wanted all his actors to speak in American English with Italian accents. He also wanted it to appear that his actors were born in Italy but had spent time in the US. The Italian accents are so effective that I sometimes have difficulty deciphering all the spoken words for a given phrase or sentence. That applies to both my theatrical experience and viewing this 4K. Thankfully, Universal has included optional English SDH, which I'll switch on for my future viewings. I found it interesting that the recording level for dialogue in one scene between Enzo and Laura is audibly lower compared to a following scene between Enzo and Lina (Shailene Woodley), which is a notch louder. (And none of the characters shout in either scene.)

The racetrack scenes in various locales throughout the film fully exploit Atmos' sonic capabilities. The sounds of cars speeding around (sometimes off-screen) create a "rainbow pattern" above. Auro-3D audio supervisor Iwan de Kuijper deserves a lot of credit for widening the field for Ferrari's sound effects.

Daniel Pemberton's score, which the composer reportedly wrote in just a week, is warm and active on the surrounds. Pemberton employs slow and haunting strings to underscore the characters' relationships and reflective moments that they have. By contrast, Pemberton ratchets the tempo for the racing scenes: briskly played strings along with some brass and timpani. These instruments complement the revving of engines. In fact, car sounds are interspersed with musical instruments on Milan Records' soundtrack album of Ferrari.

Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Universal has included the same handful of brief featurettes that appear on the Decal Blu-ray. Please refer to Brian's review for details. Ferrari's teaser trailer and theatrical trailer are not on this UHD disc.

• Building the World (4:42, 1080p)

• Building Perfection (3:09, 1080p)

• The Mille Miglia (3:23, 1080p)

• Adam Driver on Enzo Ferrari (4:49, 1080p)

• Penelope Cruz on Laura Ferrari (3:49, 1080p)

Ferrari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ferrari (2023) is, on the one hand, a fascinating study of Enzo Ferrari's personal tribulations with his wife and mistress. On the other hand, it's also an insightful look into a man's professional character as he attempts to salvage his declining business by compulsively trying to keep up with his competitors in the car industry. The racing scenes are simultaneously exhilarating and parlous to watch. Universal Studios UK has delivered an ultra-fine 4K transfer to go with a healthy encode in Dolby Vision and HDR10. The Dolby Atmos mix puts the viewer in the middle of the action, especially during the racetrack scenes. Extras duplicate the EPK features on the Region "A" release. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.