For watching movies on TV DVD is still the most common format. I'll probably release an AVI version as well, but everyone still seems to like DVDs. The source image was a DVD file anyway, so it's not like I'm going to achieve particularly better image quality with another format.
doubleofive said:
I was under the impression it was gaffer tape. Hence "Gaffer Tape" and his Leia avatar.
Gaffer tape would have only made the problem worse since gaffer tape is black, and as any girl will tell you, you don't wear a black bra under a white shirt (or in this case, black gaffer tape).
RoccondilRinon said:
During the making of ANH. It was the reason Carrie Fisher had to go bra-less under her costume, which caused certain... issues, resulting in having to tape down her breasts.
I heard that the bra strap was showing through the costume due to the thin material used, and so they decided go with tape instead (and for those of you who are unaware "tape" refers to athletic tape which is what women used before sports bras came along, so get those duct tape fetish images out of your noggins), but I was unaware of this being part of some canological "underwear doesn't exist in Star Wars" rule. The look of the costume would have been ruined if you could see a bra strap through it, and it didn't make sense to go back and re-design it when they could just ditch the offending undergarment. Maybe I'm wrong, but whatevs.
Also, I don't mean to be a prude, but I think that removing the underwear from Leia's slave outfit is unecessarily risque (even considering the costume itself, lol), especially since the movie is rated PG. A few frames of digitally painted on ass seems like a kind of frivolous change to make.
TV's Frink said:
Timstuff said:
TV's Frink said:
Akwat Kbrana said:
Well...to each his own, of course. But to me, it doesn't sound epic at all. More like I'm laying down to get a stress-relieving massage, which is nice of course, but not exactly epic.
I think it's perfect. After all the stress of worrying if those cute cuddly Ewoks will survive, the only thing that calms me down is a nice massage.
That's how I feel. The heroes have fought hard and long to defeat the evil, and now we are seeing them experience piece. The song is peaceful sounding, but still evokes a nostalgic feeling of "this is the end, and what was wrong has been set right." It seems wholly appropriate that the saga end with a peaceful sounding song, because unlike ANH this is not the beginning of something far bigger, but a winding down of decades of galactic conflict.
Er...that's not how I feel. 'Twas just a joke.
LOL, knowing that it was supposed to be a joke only makes it funnier. ;D
I still like the ROTJ special edition ending song, though. Also, it's tied to a piece of music from Episode I, so I think that it serves well in bringing the saga full circle musically.
darthmunky said:
doubleofive said:
Underwear removal? I'm not sure the "wishlist" is for those kinds of wishes. ;-)
It makes more sense to have them removed. What do you think those pieces of fabric are for? George Lucas even said there's no underwear in space... didn't he?
Did he? When, where, and why?
TV's Frink said:
Akwat Kbrana said:
Well...to each his own, of course. But to me, it doesn't sound epic at all. More like I'm laying down to get a stress-relieving massage, which is nice of course, but not exactly epic.
I think it's perfect. After all the stress of worrying if those cute cuddly Ewoks will survive, the only thing that calms me down is a nice massage.
That's how I feel. The heroes have fought hard and long to defeat the evil, and now we are seeing them experience piece. The song is peaceful sounding, but still evokes a nostalgic feeling of "this is the end, and what was wrong has been set right." It seems wholly appropriate that the saga end with a peaceful sounding song, because unlike ANH this is not the beginning of something far bigger, but a winding down of decades of galactic conflict.
IT'S DONE! All of the color correction and tweaks are finished, and I'm done with the finsihing touches on the editing in Premiere. The only thing left to do at this point is to put together a DVD. That's going to be the real kicker since I've never authored a DVD before, and I need to start researching how to do it. The release date is within sight, though! Again, hopefully I'll have a preview or two up in the meanwhile.
The song still sounds like a corny 80's pop song. IMO for the music to work it has to sound more otherworldly, or at least foreign.
I thought that the new ending music in ROTJ Special Edition was a huge improvement, BTW. Yub Nub was just downright ridiculous as was a very poor song to end the saga with IMO. If you listen to the album version it's even worse, because you hear just how ridiculous the vocals sound when there aren't party sounds drowning them out. That was one of the few instances of George Lucas noticing something he put in the movies was stupid, and decided to remove it.
As for Jabba's Palace though, as RoccondilRinon said they just replaced one dumb dated sounding pop song for another, except now we had obnoxious CG muppets singing directly into the camera as if it were one great big troll on the audience. Lucas could have fixed the scene by making it less annoying, but instead he just made it more obnoxious than the original. :(
I usually say Episode IV. A New Hope is an OK title but it doesn't really roll off the tongue too well. Out of the 6 Star Wars movies the only ones I usually refer to by name rather than number are ESB, ROTJ, and ROTS.
So, how's the Max Reebo band's music in Jabba's palace? Personally, I think that it sucks in both versions. I know it's been discussed a bit before, but I figured I'd share my thoughts.
First of all, while I think that the 1997 version is far more obnoxious, what with these crazy looking creatures singing directly into the camera (really, WTF? Characters are not supposed to be aware of the camera unless it's The Office!), and downright cheesy music. I don't really think that the CG Sy Snootles looks so bad, because personally I think that the original puppet was a lot worse, and I'm all for having more alien chicks in the movie (and I'm even OK with Boba Fett flirting with them), but as I said, the scene is just way too obnoxious and a full musical number has no place in a Star Wars movie (and despite what the Head Ewok says, that doesn't make it "funnier," that just makes it stupider).
Basically, Max Reebo and co. should just be edited to just be something happening in the background, with a few shots making it into the scene but not being the center of attention any more than the butt head band from Episode IV was. There are a lot of different kinds of music that one could potentially go with, but I'd either go with something foreign or very experimental sounding, and it should work as background music to set the scene, not be the focus of the scene. I recall someone suggestign a while back that it could be a middle-eastern flavored music style, and that could work pretty well with the scene as long as it has enough of a beat to imagine Jabba having it as party music.
BTW, has any musician actually stepped forward with ideas for alternate music for that scene, or has anyone talked to one about it? I'd hope that if new music is going to be brought in from outside the franchise that it will be done with the artist's blessing, or better yet composed specifically for the film.
Maybe this question has already been answered, but I figured I'd throw it out there. I was talking to some classmates about ESB:R the other day with some friends at school, and after showing them a trailer they asked me if in the final version, Obi-Wan would be transparent like he is in Return of the Jedi. I didn't have an answer for them, but I hadn't thought bout it. In ESB Obi-Wan Kenobi looks solid, with the only thing separating him from reality being the glowing aura around him. In ROTJ, though, he appears more transparent. Will Obi_Wan be left unchanged, or will he be more transparent and blue looking?
Hmm, good find. I agree that the choir-less version might merge better with the rest of the soundtrack, and it could also help to make it sound less like a rehash of episode III's duel music and more like a reference to it.
Also, I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again... I really think that the scene where Obi-Wan ignites his lightsaber should be re-touched. I admire Adywan's initiative to adress the problem that the original shot had, but I think a better approach to it would be to try and fix the original shot rather than replacing it with a new shot that I felt was not an improvement in terms of how convincing it was.
The problem with the original shot is that Obi-Wan's robe "jumps" when he ignites the saber. It should be possible to fix this with a simple morph, though, along with a couple of other little tricks.
Maybe the fact that he was dying from electric shock and oxygen deprivation had something to do with it? ;)
I see no reason to alter Shaw's performance in ROTJ. I'm OK with the digital tweaks that Lucas made to his face, but I'm not at all in favor of removing his performance. Dubbing him would be an even worse disservice than replacing him with Hayden as Anakin's spirit at the end.
Subtle, I can live with, because I think it's OK for the shots to have a little bit of character in that way. It's the really gawdy, obvious tints that I wanted to escape from, and I think that I'm able to do that now.
Also, another comparison pic!
Adywan, my grays look AWESOME now! Thank you! :)
There were two shots early in the film where I had to rotoscope Qui Gon's saber because I couldn't keep the Cyan desaturation from messing up the core of it (I'm sure I could have avoided it if I was willing to fiddle some more, but I decided rotoscoping was the easy way out), but other than that I'm having great results. I think tomorrow I'll bring my HDD to school and render the movie file up on one of the workstations. I think the color correction is just about done! :D
Thanks Ady! I'd been doing my color correction using the curves tool, and finding the right balance was a pretty tricky process. I'll give your method a try, though!
After Effects.
Anyway, when you go about de-saturating grays there's a lot of problems you can potentially run into, especially since the original film print did not look like that. It's one thing to remove the blue tint from the OT DVDs, since that's not how the looked originally (and in all likeliness was just a transfer problem anyway), but it's another thing to take a movie that originally had more cool looking grays and trying to suck the color out of them, because you're going to suck the color out of a lot of other things as well.
Since my goal in this edit was to provide image quality that was more faithful to the theatrical version, I'm not going to try and desaturate the grays, especially since I lack the technical skills to do it without making everything look washed out. Someone else might be able to do it and make it look right, but for me I just don't feel like it's worth the hassle.
To me, that looks like sepia. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
I see it as the lesser of two evils. No matter how much I tweak it it's going to be one or the other, so I figure it's better to err on the side of the color that isn't as hard on the eyes.
Also, part of it is an optical illusion. Putting a pink image next to a gray one is going to naturally make the gray one seem green. It's same reason why someone's skin in a blue-tinted image looks like fleshtone, even though it's actually more of an off gray. If you look at one of the images alone though I think you'll find that it looks a lot less green looking than your mind may be telling you when it's next to the pink version.
I just finished putting together a new compilation of screen shots for your enjoyment, one of which is a revisit of an earlier one to show how the project is looking after some fine tuning. Once I got over the intial "ZOMG IT'S NOT PINK ANYMOAR!!!" reaction, I was able to start looking at the color with a much more discerning eye, and I've rolled back the color correction quite a bit to so as to be more subtle and not accidentally go too far in the opposite direction, which would result in green, blue, or yellow looking images, and I'm also doing it on a scene-by-scene basis since each scene has its own individual needs.
I'm getting close to being able to call it a wrap on the color correction, and once that's all squared away I'll be able to get the whole thing rendered up and then put it back into Premiere for the final edits. Once it's back in Premiere, I'll be able to put out some video previews to tide y'all over until the DVD is ready.
Also, all the rotoscoping is done, unless for some reason I think of something else that I want to change (I almost hope not, lol). While going through the film I noticed that a couple of holograms weren't monochrome, and I fixed those since in the PT color holograms haven't been invented yet (as you can see in the Palpatine comparison). Also, someone at school told me how one of their pet peeves with Episode I is that Darth Maul's lightsaber hilt disappears when he dies, so I digitally added one falling down the shaft with him. I'm no Adywan so don't expect much else from me in terms of fixes, but those problems just seemed so glaring to me that I had to do something. :P
That was just the initial, "blanket adjustment." Since then I've started going into the individual scenes (and shots, in some instances) and giving them individual TLC. I'm making sure to avoid trading the pink tint for a green one, even though the sweet spot is a very fine line to walk. I'll put up some new screen shots later today, hopefully.
Thanks for the feedback! Obviously, this is still a WIP, and I appreciate having a fresh set of eyes looking at what I've got to see how I can make it better. :)
Miller!Palpatine is awesome! :D
Anyway, according to The Force Unleashed Palpatine had a throne room on the first Death Star that was located on the superlaser dish, so I'd assume that that's where it would be on the second death star as well.
You can now see some screenshots of my edit in all their de-pinked glory! Check the first post.
Those props look amazing, Ady! And I wouldn't fret too much if some bits on them aren't "perfect." As long as they right on film, that's what counts. I LOVE arts and crafts and seeing you make actual props for this edit blows my mind! :D
I need some feedback on the opening crawl for the "canon cut" of Redemption. I think I'm close to what I want, but I need some fresh eyes to look at it.
Episode I
THE PHANTOM MENACE
Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The greedy
Trade Federation is amassing
weapons of war.
Hoping to deter sanctions and
fines against its franchise, the
Federation has entered the
peaceful Naboo system with
a blockade of deadly battleships
to demonstrate its authority.
While the Republic Senate
debates this alarming chain of
events, the Supreme Chancellor
has secretly dispatched two
agents to settle the conflict--
Jedi Knights, the ancient
guardians of peace and justice
in the galaxy....
Now, compare to the original:
Episode I
THE PHANTOM MENACE
Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The taxation
of trade routes to outlying star
systems is in dispute.
Hoping to resolve the matter
with a blockade of deadly
battleships, the greedy Trade
Federation has stopped all
shipping to the small planet
of Naboo.
While the Congress of the
Republic endlessly debates
this alarming chain of events,
the Supreme Chancellor has
secretly dispatched two Jedi
Knights, the guardians of
peace and justice in the
galaxy, to settle the conflict....