The Good The Bad & The Ugly - 35MM IB Tech Preservation! (+ lots of info) (FINISHED) — Page 4

metacarattere secondo said:

I own three German VHS and a TV capture from the 80s. They all have this nine differences.

Thank you very much for confirming this. At this point we have no doubt what comprised the International Cut (of which the US cut was most complete) based not only on home releases sourced from theatrical prints, but also a continuity script of the IC.

The Italian cut is less clear given we don't have access to a continuity script that provides a frame-by-frame description, but I'm confident we'll figure it out.

metacarattere secondo said:

By the way, in the "Kitty scene dubbed" thread of the leone forum, you asked about the original joke in the sentence...

I would love for someone to translate the Italian Cut word-for-word because I'm curious how much Mickey Knox strayed from the original script; not only for this scene, but also the entire film. I read somewhere that SL was less than pleased with the fact that MK had taken liberties with the original script in order to achieve his goal of maximizing lip synchronization.

Who's up to the task?? :P

metacarattere secondo said:

Is there an intermission included on this glorious IB Tech print?

I don't know the answer to that...yet. The reel that includes this portion of the film has yet to be scanned. 

Although we are continuing to make progress with the TECH IB, I'm unfortunately not at a point where I can provide a meaningful update. As soon as I have more info I'll share it with everyone here (and AMPS).

Lil Brutto said:

The fact is the IB TECH is EXTREMELY dirty and has a lot of scratches, lines, etc. Despite all this. the colors are intact and vivid. The skies are blue not green like the skies and Blondie's teeth on the 4K BD (just before the desert scene when Tuco catches up with him at Shorty's execution).

Stay tuned.

Following up on my previous post (above) I finally have some caps to share. The expert working on the print (i.e. clean/repair/scan) has been doing a FANTASTIC job. It's a slow and tedious process but the results are truly spectacular!

The R1 screencaps I posted before are from a "raw" scan without a LUT applied. Hence, the desaturated look. This time around the scanner sent me a sample video after applying a LUT in order to give a better idea of how the print actually looks. It's R9 footage of "Sorry, Tuco", which - by the way - has been conspicuously absent from all Italian home releases.

Please keep in mind these are downsized, lossy jpegs grabbed from a lossy sample video. Despite this, the characteristic color saturation/depth/range of the "glorious" IB TECH shines through.

Well since no one had anything to say, let me just say this looks amazing! Its great to finally see the true colors of TGTB&TU.

^^they look a bit magenta shifted to me. But overall it seems the bluray was going for this kind of a feel. They just went overboard with the green tint this time. (sort of like raiders really)

jero32 said:

^^they look a bit magenta shifted to me. But overall it seems the bluray was going for this kind of a feel. They just went overboard with the green tint this time. (sort of like raiders really)

You're right, I've been alerted by a team member working closely with me that these images are magenta shifted from the video he viewed. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this. I do know that the original scan was color corrected to scale back the inherent green in IB TECH prints. It's possible there was an over-adjustment.

I must add the screencaps do exaggerate the magenta as compared to the video clip. However, I've decided to leave these images up for now because the overall "feel" is the same: saturated look of IB TECH along with excellent color range/depth etc, etc. I'll update this thread with new images once we get this figured out.

RU.08 said:

Frankly, from the screenshots the film looks to be in pretty good shape - not the frail, fragile condition described.

 All thanks to the magic touch of "the man" charged with restoring the print.

Would be cool if even the Socorro scene was included,but it's said to never have been included in the italian print at any time.

This scene is described in Christopher Frayling's book "Spaghetti Westerns, from Karl May to Sergio Leone", Frayling says the scene was shot but not included in the film.

He doesn't say the scene was lost or never completely filmed, you get the impression he saw the scene even at some point. He describes all the scenes that were left out from GBU, the grotto scene and so on.

Today they say the Socorro scene is lost forever, only some stills and some shots from the French trailer have survived.

You know all this of course, I just wonder if the scene did exist before and then somehow was lost?

It was perhaps stolen or destroyed or they just can't find it today?

The first edition of Frayling's book is from 1981 so he probably did research in the late 70s/very early 80s.

Thanks for the kind words, captainsolo. It means a lot. :)

Here's a comparison of the color timing difference (PNG format) we're contending with:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/110784

And because I know you're wondering...

vs MGM 2014 BD: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/110787

vs Mondo 2009 BD: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/110851

The  IB tech looks much better than both the others.

RU.08 said:

The point is to use the IB as the colour reference, not the others (certainly not the MGM 4k). But my comment was that the Mondo already looks very accurate.

I have a question though, is the Mondo bluray and the 01 Distribution the same transfer? And if not, does anyone know how the 01 looks?

That's right, we're going to regrade the BD using the IB TECH. Nevertheless, Andrea's color corrections look good. The man clearly has skill. Once we have a complete scan that's faithful to the IB tech I'd love to have Andrea work his magic and regrade the 4K BD.

The Mondo and 01 are the same transfer. The only important difference is the 01 BD is region locked.

UPDATE!

The print has been undergoing a $hitload of TLC over the past few months. For instance, the restoration working on the film just finished repairing a TEN FOOT TEAR without losing a single frame! It's a very time consuming process and can only be accomplished by someone like him with extensive knowledge and experience (a rarity nowadays).

Here is a link to a before/after comparison of R1 footage:

https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/9c3fb3512137f071e81a68ec2d1d5cbf20150402190409/abbcd64b3ff19942656c68af0492193220150402190409/ee80d2

This is after numerous cleaning passes. No attempt has been made to color correct the scan as of yet. But it's abundantly clear that the MGM 4K BD is way off.

Enjoy!

Does anyone have a copy of any of the Italian VHS tapes below?

I'm trying to determine what version(s) of BBC was available prior to the 2000 restoration by the Italians.

Lil Brutto said:

The print has been undergoing a $hitload of TLC over the past few months. For instance, the restoration working on the film just finished repairing a TEN FOOT TEAR without losing a single frame! It's a very time consuming process and can only be accomplished by someone like him with extensive knowledge and experience (a rarity nowadays).

 That's awesome! Love all the effort that is going into preserving this print. I looked at the comparison clip, and it looks quite nice. It takes a second to get used to the colors, considering no modern home video release has ever looked like that, but, as said, it's very far off from the latest 4K release. 

The after part of the comparison looks nice. There's still film damage obviously, but it kinda goes with the aesthetic of the film... 

I'd like to keep the digital tinkering to a minimum so far as to not lose its inherent qualities (e.g. grain, occasional lines, scratches. etc.) Afterall, that's the charm of 35MM.