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TITANIC 35mm Preservation! (a WIP) — Page 2

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The names “James Cameron” and “George Lucas” are synonymous when it comes to revisionism. I’d be shocked if you didn’t find both their names in a thesaurus. 😄

Hopefully making Avatar 2-5 keeps him too busy to further destroy classic movies!

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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RU.08 said:

yotsuya said:

That is awesome for a raw scan of a print. I can’t say that the changes to this film bother me as they do for some films. I appreciate the removal of the out of place elements and the correction of the sky. Not sure why they changed the sky in the flying scene. I’d have to watch it and see if I like the new version or not. But as I don’t have this film on blu-ray and my copy is the original version on DVD, I would be very interested in seeing the final product.

The Bluray is obscenely revisionist. Have a look at the Title card:

35mm (optical compositing):

Bluray (“glorious” digital compositing):

How can you tell? It looks pretty much the same to me.

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The letters are actually completely different shapes. Maybe the digitised logo always looked that way, but they didn’t use it in the original print. On the bluray the top of the T’s are shorter and the N is narrower, and of course the gold border is way thicker than the original. The ocean and the letters are in a different position relative to each other despite being the same frame of ocean.

Also, the bottom of the letters and the tops of the I letters and the N were originally curved, but have been straightened in the new logo. I can actually show it that was originally curved:

That’s from a 1998 promotional poster. The logo is actually different to both the 35mm version and the Bluray, but those parts on the letters are curved, and it shares the same basic features as the 35mm and bluray logos (gold border, asymmetric Ts, bottom tip of the N protrudes, etc). It appears they had several different versions, which is not unusual, but the version used originally in the 35mm print is gone on the BD.

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Never was that much of a fan of Titanic (and I’ve actually never seen the whole movie…) but seeing that 35mm footage actually makes me want to watch it. Great job so far and best of luck with the project! 😃

“Stargazing wizards, stare into the night,
Hurricanes and blizzards, here comes the final fight”

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RU.08 said:

yotsuya said:

That is awesome for a raw scan of a print. I can’t say that the changes to this film bother me as they do for some films. I appreciate the removal of the out of place elements and the correction of the sky. Not sure why they changed the sky in the flying scene. I’d have to watch it and see if I like the new version or not. But as I don’t have this film on blu-ray and my copy is the original version on DVD, I would be very interested in seeing the final product.

The Bluray is obscenely revisionist. Have a look at the Title card:

35mm (optical compositing):

2005 DVD:

Bluray (“glorious” digital compositing):

You know, you are on a site devoted to Star Wars, so calling this subtle difference “obscenely revisionist” is taking it a bit too far. Now the Star Wars SE, DVD, and blu-ray could be called obscenely revisionist, but what Cameron has done to Titanic involves minor tweaks of the sort I wish Lucas had made to Star Wars.

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yotsuya said:

You know, you are on a site devoted to Star Wars, so calling this subtle difference “obscenely revisionist” is taking it a bit too far. Now the Star Wars SE, DVD, and blu-ray could be called obscenely revisionist, but what Cameron has done to Titanic involves minor tweaks of the sort I wish Lucas had made to Star Wars.

There’s nothing “minor” about digitizing the whole film from the camera negative and then re-compositing everything. By comparison Blade Runner was digitised from the camera negative for the unedited shots, and from the master positives or intermediate negatives for all the shots with optical effects. And that’s standard now for a 4K remaster.

But I should note there was absolutely no reason to do an extensive restoration for a recent flick like Titanic anyway, all they had to do was scan the o-neg, grade it to the print, and release it. Easy peasy.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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Agreed and the horrendous colour shift that JC has inflicted upon Aliens is far from minor.

Good luck with this preservation, I’d love to contribute but finances aren’t great right now.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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RU.08 said:

yotsuya said:

You know, you are on a site devoted to Star Wars, so calling this subtle difference “obscenely revisionist” is taking it a bit too far. Now the Star Wars SE, DVD, and blu-ray could be called obscenely revisionist, but what Cameron has done to Titanic involves minor tweaks of the sort I wish Lucas had made to Star Wars.

There’s nothing “minor” about digitizing the whole film from the camera negative and then re-compositing everything. By comparison Blade Runner was digitised from the camera negative for the unedited shots, and from the master positives or intermediate negatives for all the shots with optical effects. And that’s standard now for a 4K remaster.

But I should note there was absolutely no reason to do an extensive restoration for a recent flick like Titanic anyway, all they had to do was scan the o-neg, grade it to the print, and release it. Easy peasy.

Again, compared to what Lucas has done, what was done to Titanic is nothing. It is literally insignificant in comparison. Terming it “obscenely revisionist” is extremely exaggerated. What editing changes were made? From all the previous posts I’ve read, nothing was changed that affected he story or even the run time. Where even Blade Runner has been edited in ways that affect the run time (though he was nice enough to include the 4 previous releases if you bought the full set). And Star Wars has been edited with every new release going clear back to the original 77 releases (at least three effects shots were replaced after the film was released). JC just cleaned things up and tweaked some sky shots for the HD released. That is not a new thing to do. If that was all Lucas had done to Star Wars in 97, I don’t think this site would even exist.

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yotsuya said:

Again, compared to what Lucas has done, what was done to Titanic is nothing. It is literally insignificant in comparison.

I don’t think it’s insignificant, remember most people are actually happy with the Special Editions, just as most people are probably happy with the version of 2012 Titanic, or the re-graded versions of The Good The Bad The Ugly and Jurassic Park.

What editing changes were made?

There were no editing changes made to the 1997 Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi either, and of the two important editing changes in Star Wars, the Jabba Scene and the Luke/Biggs scene in the rebel hanger, I think most OOT fans actually like the second of those scenes.

From all the previous posts I’ve read, nothing was changed that affected he story or even the run time. Where even Blade Runner has been edited in ways that affect the run time (though he was nice enough to include the 4 previous releases if you bought the full set). And Star Wars has been edited with every new release going clear back to the original 77 releases (at least three effects shots were replaced after the film was released). JC just cleaned things up and tweaked some sky shots for the HD released. That is not a new thing to do. If that was all Lucas had done to Star Wars in 97, I don’t think this site would even exist.

The 1997 Special Edition was made under the same mandate. To remaster the badly degraded effects shots - optical wipes, the speeder scene through Mos Eisley, reduce visible black matte lines, etc. That is a restoration, but it’s not a preservation of the films.

JC has gons through a number of his old films and digitally “fixed” errors/mistakes/limitations of the originals, including Titanic. This transforms a film that was shot and edited entirely on film into something it’s not.

Anyway it’s fine if you like the 2012 version, just as it’s fine for people to like the Special Editions. All I’m interested in is preserving the original theatrical version.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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RU.08 said:

yotsuya said:

Again, compared to what Lucas has done, what was done to Titanic is nothing. It is literally insignificant in comparison.

I don’t think it’s insignificant, remember most people are actually happy with the Special Editions, just as most people are probably happy with the version of 2012 Titanic, or the re-graded versions of The Good The Bad The Ugly and Jurassic Park.

What editing changes were made?

There were no editing changes made to the 1997 Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi either, and of the two important editing changes in Star Wars, the Jabba Scene and the Luke/Biggs scene in the rebel hanger, I think most OOT fans actually like the second of those scenes.

From all the previous posts I’ve read, nothing was changed that affected he story or even the run time. Where even Blade Runner has been edited in ways that affect the run time (though he was nice enough to include the 4 previous releases if you bought the full set). And Star Wars has been edited with every new release going clear back to the original 77 releases (at least three effects shots were replaced after the film was released). JC just cleaned things up and tweaked some sky shots for the HD released. That is not a new thing to do. If that was all Lucas had done to Star Wars in 97, I don’t think this site would even exist.

The 1997 Special Edition was made under the same mandate. To remaster the badly degraded effects shots - optical wipes, the speeder scene through Mos Eisley, reduce visible black matte lines, etc. That is a restoration, but it’s not a preservation of the films.

JC has gons through a number of his old films and digitally “fixed” errors/mistakes/limitations of the originals, including Titanic. This transforms a film that was shot and edited entirely on film into something it’s not.

Anyway it’s fine if you like the 2012 version, just as it’s fine for people to like the Special Editions. All I’m interested in is preserving the original theatrical version.

My point was that your characterization of what JC has done to Titanic is an exaggeration. No, it does not preserve all the glitches, but he did not change the story. Lucas went through and recomposited nearly every wipe. He inserted serveral sections into ANH, a couple into TESB, and made some major changes to ROTJ. So the characterization that no editing changes were made to TESB and ROTJ is simply not the case. Editing changes were made to all three, while the most severe were mande to ANH, the other two did not escape undedited. The wampa, Cloud City, Vader’s departure, Jedi Rocks, the Sarlaac, and the Victory Celebration were all as major as Mos Eisley, Jabba, and Biggs.

And this isn’t something new. Lawrence of Arabia no longer exists in any of its original theatrical forms (mainly because none of them were the Director’s vision). It was remasterd in the 80’s into the Director’s cut and that is the only one I have seen since. It restored all of the studio mandated cuts for various markets, including having the actors come back to dub some of their lines where the audio had been lost. It was called a restoration because they restored all the cut elements per the Director. Other films have suffered similar fates over the years.

And I am all for preserving all versions. I am in the process of trying to ferret out all the alternate shots in ANH to compile what seems to be the original theatrical version that is only preserved in the less than ideal quality of Puggo Grand and the Moth3r bootleg tape. So I am all for preserving, but I do not think such extreme comments are called for when a director just goes in and cleans up his work with modern tools. Yes, preserve both, but there is no need to call such a minor tweaking (compared to what Lucas has done) a major reworking.

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yotsuya said:

My point was that your characterization of what JC has done to Titanic is an exaggeration.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, but I think we can both agree that GL went further with his revisionism.

So I am all for preserving, but I do not think such extreme comments are called for when a director just goes in and cleans up his work with modern tools. Yes, preserve both, but there is no need to call such a minor tweaking (compared to what Lucas has done) a major reworking.

This isn’t “minor tweaking” though. Minor tweaking in a restoration would be to re-composite bad quality elements but make them as faithful as possible - that’s not at all what was done here. They re-composited elements that didn’t need restoration purely to create a precursor for a 3D conversion. They went through and re-did everything. A good restoration has a “light touch” and only retouches where needed to bring the poorer quality elements up to the quality of the rest of the film. But as I’ve mentioned, this film was not in a state that it needed such a restoration!! Star Wars on the other hand WAS in a state that needed restoration. And of course they went way too far with it and introduced changes we all hate. 😃

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 (Edited)

The only things that were changed in Titanic was the star field in the sky, removal of studio equipment, re-framing the “Left Eye,” “Right Eye” shots, making the “TITANIC” credit a bit bolder. I am not aware of anything else that was changed. These don’t alter the film in spirit at all. No VFX were re-composited, unless you’re talking rotoscoping for the 3D (which isn’t an issue with the 2D). The framing is similar and the colours, though they feel a bit fake (Hello digital grading), is very similar to the 35mm release prints, which was not the case with the previous home video releases.
The theatrical cut as is, exists on the DVD in good enough quality. HDTV versions are also theatrical. There are ways to watch the “flawed” film.
Being the perfectionist he is, there was no way JC was going to allow studio lights or wrong star field, especially after being pointed out.
In Jurassic Park, not only was the studio equipment removed, Spielberg also removed netting that held up fake leaf canopy in the “Veggie-Saurus” scene. He added a lightning flash visually, which terrifies the lawyer, making him request the guests to return to the cars. The wire that pulls open the dilophosaur’s fan-like membrane is also digitally removed. The VFX, especially the final T-Rex shot, is touched up and polished. All of these improve the film subtly. But, JP also exists in its original (debatable) version in the previous home video releases. It wasn’t Walkie-Talkies replacing guns after all.
Having said all that, I do appreciate the need to restore the original versions. Which is why we’re all here, aren’t we? Your effort is laudable, there’s no question about that.

Film prints are like time capsules that allow us to travel back to simpler and more “real” moments in our past. We wish to share these with the coming generation some day, hoping to see their eyes sparkle with an enthusiasm that used to be ours. Unfortunately though, kids today have virtually no similarity to kids in the '80s or '90s. So, we’ll likely be disappointed in that one area at least. The world has paradoxically become more liberated, yet more superficial and confined at the same time. I apologize for the philosophising.

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I have a sample showing the extent of the damage to the print on reel 10. It appears as small green lines. Our scanner believes this will be the worst of the damage. As you can see it’s not too bad and shouldn’t take too much time to fix digitally. I think we’ll plan to fix all the damage before release, but not bother with the dirt at least for the initial release.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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Papai2013 said:

The only things that were changed in Titanic was the star field in the sky, removal of studio equipment, re-framing the “Left Eye,” “Right Eye” shots, making the “TITANIC” credit a bit bolder. I am not aware of anything else that was changed.

JC has also altered the colour grading, in a similar vein to that visited upon Aliens and The Terminator.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Papai2013 said:

The theatrical cut as is, exists on the DVD in good enough quality. HDTV versions are also theatrical. There are ways to watch the “flawed” film.

Sure, the theatrical version (it’s the same cut of the film) is available as HDTV or DVD. But that’s not the point, we have a print of the film now that we can make our own release from. 😃 As you can see from the samples I’ve posted the print is in great condition, archival quality even, and I don’t think it’s going to take us very long to fix the damage.

Plus we will also have both the DTS audio and the optical audio. Our scanner has run a few reels through his projector and said the optical mix sounds terrific. Speaking of which, is it best to simply leave it a a Dolby Surround 2.0 PCM, or should we decode it to 4.0?

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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JayArgonaut said:

JC has also altered the colour grading, in a similar vein to that visited upon Aliens and The Terminator.

Actually, the home video colour of all the films were wrong, if that’s what you hold as sacrosanct. They did not reflect the photochemical finish of the 35mm prints, which had more yellow, teal, purple and brown. This was the case with almost all mainstream studio films back in the day. Titanic’s colour timing is no exception.
The digital grading of 2012 tries to go back to that look but because of the limitations of the Rec 709 colour space, it still cannot achieve that result.
From what I have seen, Aliens, The Terminator, all look close to their 35mm couterparts but not the same.

RU.08 said:

Plus we will also have both the DTS audio and the optical audio. Our scanner has run a few reels through his projector and said the optical mix sounds terrific. Speaking of which, is it best to simply leave it a a Dolby Surround 2.0 PCM, or should we decode it to 4.0?

How many channels does the optical track have? That is what should be kept in the release, “as is.”

RU.08 said:
…we have a print of the film now that we can make our own release from. 😃

Well, can one of such releases contain the full height of the cells, pleeeaaasssee???

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OK guys, quick funding update. We so far have pledges from: cpalmer2k, alexp120, Beber, Roobee, and Papai2013. You guys are the best - with a bit more we can get this scanned very soon and then get a good quality release out I would say well before the end of the year. Given what we have seen I am planning on just fixing the green perf damage lines, and frames we find with heavy dirt.

Papai2013 said:

How many channels does the optical track have? That is what should be kept in the release, “as is.”

It has TL and TR. The issue is that it’s an analogue format that I’m not sure is really designed for digital? I know in other 35mm release people just leave the Dolby SR tracks as 2.0 - but do they decode correctly in a home theatre? This I don’t know partly because I don’t have a home theatre with surround sound in which to check.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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RU.08 said:

It has TL and TR. The issue is that it’s an analogue format that I’m not sure is really designed for digital? I know in other 35mm release people just leave the Dolby SR tracks as 2.0 - but do they decode correctly in a home theatre? This I don’t know partly because I don’t have a home theatre with surround sound in which to check.

In that case, just look at a Criterion Collection BD 2.0 channel encode. Maybe that’ll help with the specifications.

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I agree with Papai2013. I’d personally leave the audio, like the video, as-is, in the original Dolby Surround format. As far as proper playback at home, Dolby Pro Logic was “designed to decode soundtracks encoded with Dolby Surround” (credit: Wikipedia) and it goes back to the days of VHS and Beta, so it shouldn’t be an issue. (Dolby later improved upon that with Pro Logic II, IIz, and IIx.) New receivers like mine have an even better way of playing these signals based on Dolby Atmos and DTS: X. You might want to double check any audio concerns with Hairy Hen, as he is the best when it comes to these sorts of issues, but I believe a straight lossless stereo encode will do the trick nicely. Hope this helps! 😃

What can you get a Wookiee for (Life Day) Christmas when he already owns a comb?

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Papai2013 said:

JayArgonaut said:

JC has also altered the colour grading, in a similar vein to that visited upon Aliens and The Terminator.

Actually, the home video colour of all the films were wrong, if that’s what you hold as sacrosanct. They did not reflect the photochemical finish of the 35mm prints, which had more yellow, teal, purple and brown. This was the case with almost all mainstream studio films back in the day. Titanic’s colour timing is no exception.
The digital grading of 2012 tries to go back to that look but because of the limitations of the Rec 709 colour space, it still cannot achieve that result.
From what I have seen, Aliens, The Terminator, all look close to their 35mm couterparts but not the same.

Very well but I’m sticking with the earlier versions of all three films. For me, the comparison below sums up why the director does not always know best. 😃

Aliens Colour Grading Comparison

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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JayArgonaut said:
Very well but I’m sticking with the earlier versions of all three films. For me, the comparison below sums up why the director does not always know best. 😃

Aliens Colour Grading Comparison

It’s very obvious that the image on the left is much more filmic and robust. There is proper highlights, shadows and contrast even if you discount the colour.
The image on the right looks made for TV, not cinema. A Very flat image.

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Papai2013 said:

JayArgonaut said:
Very well but I’m sticking with the earlier versions of all three films. For me, the comparison below sums up why the director does not always know best. 😃

Aliens Colour Grading Comparison

It’s very obvious that the image on the left is much more filmic and robust. There is proper highlights, shadows and contrast even if you discount the colour.
The image on the right looks made for TV, not cinema. A Very flat image.

It is true that the image on the left has superior contrast, but the actual colors are not at all good, as was JayArgonaut’s point I think. The left image has a monotone green color that I seriously doubt had much to do with the original timing, and the highlights look somewhat green shifted. The right image may have incorrect contrast and color, but the color is much more appealing to the eye, despite the contrast looking very much like television.

It also seems that various projects here are continuing to show that the original timing on these films was not as blatently green as the BD releases are showing. The info I got on a 35mm screening of Terminator shows me that, though not perfect, my correction was much closer to the original timing than the BD. The creators of these releases have no excuse for the awful color timing choices that have been presented, because it defenitely isn’t a constraint of digital color space.

EDIT: To stay on topic, I will say that I’m not a fan of Titanic, but I feel inclined to give it another watch for the filmic experoence now. 😃

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

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 (Edited)

I did say “If you discount the colour.” So yeah, I know the colour is green-shifted, unlike the prints. But the contrast makes it more filmic and accurate to the look of film prints, which were contrasty and darker than the TV masters of the films.
The left shot has more richness and depth due to the contrast, which is lost in the dull looking right hand-side shot. The right image looks really bad to my eyes.

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^Yeah, get what you were talking about. I just hate it when people brush off awful color changes like that with “It’s closer to the theatrical!” Like, that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near similar to the theatrical.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

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Papai2013 said:

It’s very obvious that the image on the left is much more filmic and robust. There is proper highlights, shadows and contrast even if you discount the colour.
The image on the right looks made for TV, not cinema. A Very flat image.

I respectfully disagree, film is not usually that contrasty. In the left picture the blacks have been crushed.

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