The Original Trilogy restored from 35mm prints (a WIP) — Page 9

Really?
To my eyes there is way more shadow detail in the German scan than in the grindhouse.

I cannot reveal the scanner used, but it currently sells for USD1.1 million, and has the highest dynamic range of any film scanner currently available. Each frame was ‘triple flashed’ to get as much out of the print as possible.
I wish we had a neg, but we have to make do with prints.

poita said:

pleasehello said:

I did a little compare with the TN1 Grindhouse and while this is not true across the board, in select shots it seems as though there is some more detail to be had in the dark areas. Take princess Leia’s hair below for example:

Is there any more range in the German scan to pull out some of those details?

Boosting the German image to Hoth take a look…

I’d say yes.
That scene should be dark with Leia’s face being the focal point, lit against the shadow, but yes, there is more detail in the print if you dig it out.

I agree that the corrected versions posted are leaning towards the yellows too much.

😃 I did some regrading for fun (I’m not a professional), trying to match a frame from Leia’s kiss scene to this frame from jedi1.net:
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191520 (I started with this frame)
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191522
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191523
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191524
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191525
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191547
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191526

I think it doesn’t look too bad, but I don’t know if it’s consistent as well: I’d like to see what it would look like with DrDre’s tool.

EDIT: I did another pass to make the regrade look closer to the reference’s.
EDIT2: I did another pass too!

Thanks 😃
I did another pass and I updated my previous post using a regrade closer to the reference’s. Again, I don’t know if it’s consistent, so I hope DrDre will give it a shot 😄

I agree it has too much teal. 😄 I hope poita won’t get mad for this, but I just updated again my previous post with a new regrade: this time I tried to boost the yellow level instead of pulling the magenta one, so it has much less teal by retaining its original blues wherever possible.

It’s great to see so many people interested in colour grading.
Looking at some of the examples being posted I’m wondering if people are calibrating their screens. I’d recommend grabbing a cheap colormunki or i1 probe at a minimum, there isn’t a lot of use colour correcting if your screen is adding a blue tint in the shadows, and a green tint in the highlights for example.
Other than having a bit of fun, correcting the video I posted would be an exercise in frustration, as it is pretty crushed. If people want to keep playing, I’ll post a non-crushed (but still colour terrible!) version that has more range to play with.

I haven’t the funds to get the rest of the reels cleaned yet, or even shipped, so Reel1 will be the playground for a while.

poita said:

Looking at some of the examples being posted I’m wondering if people are calibrating their screens. I’d recommend grabbing a cheap colormunki or i1 probe at a minimum, there isn’t a lot of use colour correcting if your screen is adding a blue tint in the shadows, and a green tint in the highlights for example.

I’m not sure if you’re referring to my terrible corrections, but I’ll take your advice 😃
But specifically, maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I did add blue to the shadows and green to the highlights on purpose 😄

You can get the colormunki smile for $60
http://www.ebay.com/itm/X-Rite-ColorMunki-Smile-CMUNSML-/142172525423

Or the better colormunki display is often on sale for around $100-$150
http://www.ebay.com/itm/X-Rite-Colormunki-Advanced-Display-Calibration-Model-CMUNDIS-/361826483732
I would recommend it, along with the excellent and free DisplayCAL
https://displaycal.net/

Or if you have the money, the CR300 for around $17000
http://www.shopfsi.com/CR300-p/cr-300-rh.htm

Spaced Ranger said:

poita said:
I’d recommend grabbing a cheap colormunki or i1 probe at a minimum …

Ouch! Just looking at those prices (of the “non-Pro” versions). Have mercy!

Couldn’t we just use the red/blue glasses from the movie theaters? 😦

BTW, those do look pretty cool. Ah, to dream.

Spaced Ranger said:

Whoa, thanks! Didn’t know they were widely available (beyond the specialty shops). Will definitely check out your recommendations (the cheaper ones, that is)!

If you can stretch to the Munki Display, it is by far the best option for the $$, but avoid the packaged software and use DisplayCAL.

The X-rite probes all seem pretty good, be careful 2nd hand though as they do drift over time.
Of course, they are at the low end of the market, but unless the probe is faulty, you end up with a much better reference point than not using one.
I’ll make some images up soon to show why it is so important, but I honestly don’t take feedback on board from anyone that has not at least got a basic calibration setup happening for their workflow, as you say, they are often commenting on things that are unique to their screen/OS/media player, and not in the actual files themselves.

The easiest thing to me, is to buy a cheap BMD output card, a cheap i1 probe and use the free DisplayCAL software and use the free version of daVinci Resolve to look at colour on a separate monitor/TV and be able to know 100% that what you are looking at is actually calibrated, without your player or Operating System or incorrect colourspace settings getting in the way. For a total of less than $200 you can have a truly colour managed system that you can trust, which is pretty amazing really.

I have to agree. This is for sure the best I’ve seen of reel1. I opened the sample and the grindhouse on separate monitors and had them playing at the same time. In a good number of shots the grain is distracting in the grindhouse, whereas it appears very pleasant or almost non-detectable in this sample! Specifically the scene right after Luke is in the bacta tank (where his sister kisses him;)) the sample really shines! Definitely worth the grading effort and without a doubt worth a cleanup! The gate weave is much less of an offender while watching as well, and the fact that this is cropped less than the grindhouse leaves room for adjustment which I like!

Keep it up poita

The only grade I will be doing will be to match it to the print. The reel posted is a little crushed, and the colour doesn’t quite match the print but the rough colour is correct.
I have watched the unfaded ESB print 6 times over the past year, and looking at this print, and another UK print that I have gotten a hold of I can say a few things with absolute certainty.
The cave scene is very blue in all prints, and most of the snow shots that are not in full daylight are also quite blue. e.g. Han finding Luke, Luke seeing Obiwan in the snow, inside the cave etc. The full daylight shots with the snowspeeders and the main hoth battle are much closer to white/grey with the slight blue tint that you get working in snow.

There is much less gate weave than in the Grindhouse, the scanner I use is rock solid locked to the sprocket holes, so the only gate weave left is from the original camera, not from the projection/scanning rig. I lock to the sprockets as to stabilise on the footage takes the risk of smoothing out shots that may have been handheld or slightly unstable on purpose. Lucas tends to shoot in a documentary style, so I want to preserve any movement that is on the film, but do not want to introduce any extra movement due to the scanning process.

I think for a new audience, they would need to regrade the film, both Star Wars and Empire have their timing all over the place. This isn’t surprising as in the late 70s and very early 80s, only MGM and MovieLab had realtime screen timers. All other labs were running a twin projector ‘Comparator’ that was hand cranked and it took around 5 hours or so to make the notes to time a 20 minute reel. The colorist or Front Line Timer/Head Timer as we were called back then, would sit and watch the film and take notes. You would write down the numerical adjustments that you thought each shot needed, so for the cave scene, the FLT would be able to see in their mind that to get the cold blue of the shot that the Director wanted, the adjustment would now be 12,12, 26 to be added or subtracted to the printer file. This would then go away and you wouldn’t see how it looked until a new print was made following the math you had done on the printer file.
So compared to a modern film ,the colour timing is, understandably, all over the place. It depended how good the FLT could imagine the required colour changes while watching the film in a cinema and writing down notes, how good the techs were that then did the new print, and how much money and time you had, each print made was up to 40 hours of time with the FLT watching and making corrections, and then the cost and time for a new print to be struck, and watched and re-timed again. With the time pressures and budgets of Star Wars and Empire, I would be surprised if a lot of time and money was put into the grade.

So the version I will be working on certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste, the black levels are all over the place on the prints, the timing is all over the place, some shots don’t match as well as they should, there is a shitload of dirt in many of the composite shots that was printed into every print, and I stabilise to the sprockets, so the camera weave will also be there.

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.

I’ve looked at the ‘Grindhouse’ and some of the grain is actually noise, so this print will look less noisy.
I also have access to a UK Empire print, I need to get it and the rest of the German print cleaned properly (ultrasonic and buffer cleaned) which is expensive (around USD700 for 6 reels ~ 2 hours of footage) and then scanned and stored. If you want to help out, check my signature at the bottom of each of my posts.
Hopefully any missing or badly damaged frames will be in the second print, so if I’m lucky I won’t need any other sources.
In the meantime I will continue to work on Reel-1.

poita said:

The only grade I will be doing will be to match it to the print. The reel posted is a little crushed, and the colour doesn’t quite match the print but the rough colour is correct.
[…]
In short, it will be how it looked in 1980, colour, neg dirt, grain warts and all.

I’m curious to know if this means that the colors we’ve seen in your uncorrected preview are also (roughly) representative of how they looked like in 1980. I understand you usually don’t take feedbacks from those without a properly calibrated monitor (like me 😄 ), but I have an unprofessional feeling that the skintons look too purple to be true, even for its blue grading, especially during Leia’s kiss scene. 😄 They look so purple (to me, at least), that in comparison it makes the 2004 DVDs’ notorious purple skintons look just fine, so I’d like to read your opinion on this: is it my monitor, the uncorrected preview or the original grading?

Thanks for your preservations efforts, it means a lot 😃