Shuggy

poita said:

Another very quick test with new settings.
https://we.tl/Og9PVhOQCM

Beautiful!

emanswfan said:

Looking at the above promotional image or 35mm scan, I just threw that blu-ray screenshot into Resolve real quick to do a rough match of the look.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/200935

Man, that looks great.

Terrific work, mate. Currently seeding. 😃

Merry Christmas to you and your family, Poita. And to all a Happy Holidays.
😊

poita said:

I’ve been asked about the condition of the German print and if it is salvageable.
I did have some of it scanned, even though I couldn’t get it cleaned. I’m uploading a few seconds of how it looks mixed in with how it looks with a very basic restoration done to it, as a quick test of how much work would be required.
The print is very red, but it looks like a reasonable colour balance could still be achieved, it is quite battered and dirty, but a lot of that can be worked around.

A very quick sample, with some basic adjustments can be grabbed here:

Incredible. I never cease to be amazed at the colour you are able to salvage from these red prints.

Glad to hear your daughter is back home, Poita. 😊

Wishing your daughter a swift recovery, mate. All the best.

Dreamaster said:

Blackout said:

Dreamaster said:

Question, how do we feel about adding in a touch of sharpening?

Feeling real good.

😃

Updated photos:

This is probably close to my final version. The gamma has been adjusted considerably from the grindhouse edition and this version looks pretty decent across all of my various display sources. I applied a bit of sharpening to this one as well. Added in a few new shots.

This looks great, mate. The saturation is very pleasing. Hope you can make this available. 😃

poita said:

As a few of you know, I have health issues, and I am away from Monday through Friday for treatment, so may or may not be able to answer PMs etc. until the weekend, depending how hard it all hits.

I’ll be back online Monday week at the latest, so don’t take radio silence in-between as me ignoring anyone 😃

Wishing you all the best, mate.

poita said:

Thanks to everyone, we have enough to have 5 reels cleaned, and aren’t far from being able to get #6 done, so I have sent them all in, and am hopeful that we will raise the last part before I have to pay the bill 😃

My heartfelt thanks to everyone that has helped out in any way, I feel it is such an important film to preserve, and it was literally going to fade away forvever if we didn’t act

I’m uploading the scans done so far to Harmy now, and will post some images and samples over the next few days as I get them rendered out.

GO TEAM!

poita said:

Reel2 has been cleaned and pre-scanning to check for problems is happening now.

The last reel preview was downloaded 297 times! I’m so happy that there is still so much interest in Empire, I personally love this film.

Thanks also to the first ‘Reel Sponsor’, and to the others that have chipped in to get the reels cleaned. I’m still picking up freight, scan, and storage costs, so it is great to have the cleaning taken care of. Each reel takes up a 5TB HDD, and then you want to have a backup, so each reel eats up 2 x 5TB hard drives, so it gets real crazy, real fast.

To those who have already helped out, I sent you an Infinit invite, which will allow me to share the work in progress files with you. I use the software myself all the time, it is reliable and trouble free, and if you install it from my invite, it gives me the space to be able to share the larger versions of the files with you.
I’d love it if some of you could check the reels as they come in for missing frames, and frames you think need particular attention.

Thanks again to everyone, more samples soon!

Thanks to you too, mate. I’m glad to see someone caring about the preservation of this cinema milestone - and the film-making techniques that birthed it - as much as you do.

poita said:

Thanks to everyone here, there is now enough to get Reel2 done.

Great news. 😃

dahmage said:

go ahead and do it! i already did

Excellent. And I just donated 50.

oohteedee said:

Shuggy said:

Who’s ready to chip in? Can we get a show of hands?

I donated a few days ago.

Good man.

poita said:

As for costs, the main cost at the moment is ultrasonic cleaning, which comes out at 0.6c per foot plus taxes and shipping, which equates to about USD150 per reel, which means a 6 reel film is about $900 or so.

I’d be happy to throw $50 into this project. If 17 contributors match that we’ve got our 900. Or 30 people could donate $30 each. Surely there are 30 ESB diehards lurking here who can spring three measly tenners to preserve (and own) this movie milestone.

What say you, gentlemen?

poita said:

We scan at 16bits per pixel, this means the total ‘colours’ able to be captured jumps from the approximately 16 million colours that a DVD can reproduce @ 8bpp to 281 Trillion colours @ 16bpp.
In practical terms it means each channel, Red, Green and Blue, jumps from 256 shades each to 65,536 shades each.
This lets us recover as much colour as if left in the print.
It would be better to have an unfaded print or negative, but, when it comes to Empire a partially faded print is the best we have available to scan, and generally only heavily faded prints turn up, and it is getting worse by the day.

Well I’m utterly astonished at the colour you’re able to rescue from a red faded print. It seems like some kind of alchemy to me, like turning beetroot into gold. I can’t wait to see the finished preservation.

Poita, thanks so much for sharing your work so far. It has certainly been educational as I was one of those laboring long under the delusion that much of the Hoth colour-timing had leaned more toward white then blue. I don’t know where I picked up this misconception - a stubborn memory of early low-contrast video transfers perhaps - but you’ve won the argument: it’s all there in living colour.

I will be happy to make some kind of contribution to help see this project to its conclusion. These rare Empire materials are endangered and time is clearly of the essence so maybe someone needs to be more aggressive about passing the hat around.

What’s the whole thing going to cost to scan and ship?

Who’s ready to chip in? Can we get a show of hands?

poita said:

In short, it will be how it looked in 1980, colour, neg dirt, grain warts and all. People later can make their own personal versions I’m sure, with less grain, a much better grade, removing the comped in dirt and so on, for what will be an improved viewer experience, but my goal is archival.

Music to my ears, Poita.

Williarob said:

Sorry to be so cryptic but Mike specifically requested that we “keep it in the pants” and I believe it is in everybody’s best interest that we comply with that.

“Keep it in the pants”? I think you know my feelings about that.

Well, as painful as it will be to go without frequent updates I’d rather 4K77 have the best chance at life - I’m assuming any movement toward an official release will potentially bring the hammer down on this project (?). I’ve said it before but as lovely as any studio approved remaster may be it will never recreate the special nostalgic flavour that these more home-brew preservations provide. I hope you may still bring this project to fruition and that I am able to remain in the loop. As always you have my admiration and thanks. 😃

Williarob said:

Swazzy said:

Oh no, I didn’t mean that at all. I was referring to him commenting on whether or not this restoration has the photography right, and the insight he might have that we don’t in terms of accuracy, etc…

That would be nice, but if Mike Verta makes any comment at all, it will probably be more along the lines of “Still looks like crap compared to Legacy”, “f**k Negative One” and “if you like it so much go masturbate to it”. Those were his comments on the Silver Screen Edition anyway (I’m probably paraphrasing the first comment, but the second two are direct quotes), so I’m not expecting much in the way of constructive criticism from that direction…

I feel confident in predicting that I will like 4K77 enough to masturbate to it.

That looks beautiful, Dre. The colour palette and contrast appear expertly balanced to my eye. This is Star Wars 1977. Kudos to your good self and to Williarob. Keep up the extraordinary work!

Williarob said:

For your viewing pleasure:

https://we.tl/hf7Rf86pTq

h.264 this time, presented in both 4k and 1080p, DNR and no DNR. The first clip was shots 18-40, this is shots 16-70 and I included Hairy Hen’s stereo mix. I also made a third cleanup pass.

The color is based on the latest LUT that Dre sent me (which was last weekend, so it’s obviously 30 or 40 generations old!)

Thoughts?

Absolutely beautiful. Bravo.

Edit: May I also say I think the saturation levels are at their most pleasing here. Again, truly phenomenal work. Thank you.

That’s a happy compromise in my book, Dre. Thumbs up!

DrDre said:

Perhaps it would be better to hold off judgement until you see it in motion. The sample video should be available tomorrow…

Of course. 😊 A 4K technicolor grade of the original Star Wars is a gift none of us would turn our noses up at. Thanks as always for your great work and for keeping a dialogue open.

Oh dear, sorry Dre but with all due respect for the amazing work you’ve been doing, my first reaction to these latest regrades is they look quite over-saturated and far from the naturalistic 70s palette you’d successfully evoked (at least to my eye) 3 or 4 tries back. I don’t know if my monitor is set wrong (adobe RGB) but yeah… this has stopped looking film-like at my end.

Anyone else having this reaction?