Darth Tater said:

How does this green light/blue light thing happen in the first place?

I think it must have something to do with them adding some color setting over the whole movie without checking for side effects. Probably the same thing as Luke's saber being green and grey shadows being blue. Just a guess of course.

You_Too said:

Darth Tater said:

How does this green light/blue light thing happen in the first place?

I think it must have something to do with them adding some color setting over the whole movie without checking for side effects. Probably the same thing as Luke's saber being green and grey shadows being blue. Just a guess of course.

Yeah, Lucasfilm/Lowry were not at all subtle about how they went about changing colours willy nilly without caring too much how it affected the rest of the image and the continuety with the next shot. The first film is a nightmare in that regard.

BTW You_Too, I've just seen the colour grading thread you started based off the blu-rays and I think the filter you've used looks really really good, very similar to the one i've used in fact! :)

Thanks a lot for your kind words. Actually, Harmy is using a couple renders I made for him as a base for editing some scenes in his version. Harmy knows a lot of stuff that I don't, so I'm sure the result of our combined effort will be great. Well, mostly his effort since I only made a setting for the whole movie.

After a little comparison, I think OMEN may be onto something with both the colors and subtitles in this scene. I'm no expert on this, and I don't know what your baseline is, Harmy, but I checked your proposed version against the dark_jedi's GOUTv3 and mysycamore's Technidisc versions, and Greedo's eyes are overall more blue in their versions (which is how I remember them) and his skin less green. The subtitle font is the same, but maybe a less bold version. It looks like Franklin Gothic Book off-hand (was just trying to match it to the "A long time ago..." screen a few days ago), but I think the weight is too heavy in the new version, like a bold instead of a semi-bold or regular. Also, there is a frame of fade in and out with each subtitle that is very noticeable in the new clip, but I do not see it in the mysycamore or dark_jedi versions.

Compare these, for example:

DJ GOUTv3: http://i.imgur.com/WeMtn.png

mysycamore Technidisc: http://i.imgur.com/z0xWo.png

New Harmy clip: http://i.imgur.com/TYZat.png

Harmy fade out: http://i.imgur.com/3sTbX.png

Now, these things may be all intentional, and I've learned a lot lately about various sources being very different from one another. I am just a casual observer and new to this, but these are just some things I noticed after checking out OMEN's post that you may be interested in.

Take it FWIW, and as always, whatever becomes of it, I am grateful for all of your work, Harmy.

-DT

@DT: Actually, me and Harmy were just having a similar conversation over pm. :)

Thanks for the info, msycamore. I thought the Telecine subs were original.

I came across Franklin Gothic Book the other day when trying to clean up the "long time ago" for the covers I'm working on. I didn't like my digitized version, and Harmy's new 5-min preview rendered it moot because it was much sharper, but I realized that's what they must have done for the Prequels. I lined up every word individually, and, like yours, it was darn close, but just anemic compared to the original, like it appears in those "other" movies. :P

I like finding out these little bits of info about the different processes. Speaking of, does anybody know somewhere I can find out how they did the original subs, titles, and such back in '77? Curious how things like that got made in the pre-digital age.

Oh, and here's the same screen from the Puggo Grande for reference. Harmy, looks like your thicker font is closer to original. I, too, do not notice any fade in and out, though, even on this version. (But, as always, this is just info; I trust your judgement. :) )

Greedo (Puggo Grande): http://i.imgur.com/lPVTD.png

Hope this helps,

DT

Harmy it's great, but there's still colour issues with Ben. His close up for the line "more powerful than you can possibly imagine" and the following close-up differ noticeably in tone and hue than the preceeding and proceeding close-ups.

Still wonderful though. I just think this project deserves to be PERFECT! :)

Method 3b is best... I think.

Method 1 is the worst.

Harmy said:

tell me which one works best/is the least jarring

Man, Harmy, I hate to say it, but they are all pretty noticeable.

Pardon my ignorance, but do you think it might be better not to insert the frames? I know it might sound like sacrilege, but wouldn't a few missing frames that don't affect the shot be better than an obvious adjustment?

Not criticism, just curiosity.

-DT

Then it wouldn't be in sync with the GOUT.

Hal 9000 said:

Then it wouldn't be in sync with the GOUT.

Actually, it is already quite out of sync with the GOUT, hence why I created the updated chapter times.

Some links to what I'm talking about:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harmys-STAR-WARS-Despecialized-Edition-HD-AVCHD-DVD9-and-NTSC-DVD5-AVAILABLE-see-1st-post/post/550205/#TopicPost550205

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harmys-STAR-WARS-Despecialized-Edition-HD-AVCHD-DVD9-and-NTSC-DVD5-AVAILABLE-see-1st-post/post/550295/#TopicPost550295

In dark_jedi's GOUTv3, the last chapter begins at around 1:55:26, but Harmy's starts at 1:55:34. So, there are about 14 seconds of frames here and there that add up over the course of the movie. So, in theory, by adding frames, it is becoming more out of sync with the GOUT.

But, as the movie goes by, it really isn't noticable. IMHO, syncing 100% with the GOUT isn't as important as the perception it syncs, that is, making any changes as imperceptible as possible.

-DT

msycamore, thanks for the detailed answer. I am little confused by something. Earlier up, you said "I didn't try to match the theatrical placement on my Technidisc," which I took to mean that you had added them, but more recently you said that they are the originals. Could you elaborate a bit on this?

PM is fine to not take up too much of Harmy's thread.

Hal 9000 said:

Then it wouldn't be in sync with the GOUT.

If by GOUT you mean the audio, I have found that its fairly easy to remove the 'yes' part of the original 'yes, I bet you have', which is where the missing frames are, so it all flows nicely. With a simple 1 ms audio fade-in and fade out around the audio cut, i've found the audio to flow pretty much seemlessly to me, with Han now saying 'I bet you have' then bang, fried Greedo. I'm no audio expert but i've found that this works for me and the audio cut is not really noticable. It certainly helps that there's no musical score in this section, would have made the audio cut more tricky otherwise.

I know Harmy is trying to recreate these films exactly as they were theatrically but I have to agree with Darth Tater (cool name/avatar btw) on this, they are all pretty noticable, though like others here have said, method 1 is definately the most obvious and jarring. I think it might be worth compromising here and cutting those missing frames and that part of the audio where the missing frames are to not disrupt the flow of what is a very cool/iconic scene for Han Solo. Another option of course would be to take the whole final shot of Han before he shoots Greedo from the GOUT rather than just the few missing frames, that would certainly be less jarring than changing between two sources of differing quality in the same shot.

msycamore said:

You_Too said:

Darth Tater said:

How does this green light/blue light thing happen in the first place?

I think it must have something to do with them adding some color setting over the whole movie without checking for side effects. Probably the same thing as Luke's saber being green and grey shadows being blue. Just a guess of course.

I think it's alot more complicated than that, see this: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Crushed-Blacks/post/539032/#TopicPost539032 That is just a few examples of the inconsistency that is going on with all the levels throughout the film, that's why one single setting cannot correct the damage, just from one moment to another it goes from being extremely saturated to being very desaturated, what should've been blue are green and vice versa and what should be bright is dull in another moment, I don't know if the blu-ray release have corrected some of this but that's what's going on with all the levels in the 2004 DVD, which create a wonderful mix of disaster.

I'm no expert on this, but one color setting added over the whole movie cannot be the culprit for this.

That is what my experience regrading the first film has let me to believe that as well, the colour grading is too inconsistent to use just one filter to regrade the whole thing, but if I had to choose just one filter to apply to the whole film, it would be remarkably similar to the one You_Too has created in his blu-ray regrading thread.