Star Wars Episode I: The Rise of Naboo (v3.5 released) — Page 10

I think it looks much much better! Great job!

Thanks! Glad to see that it’s been improved!

I’m going to make one more adjustment. I found out that I’ve been color grading on the SDR Rec. 709 color processing mode when DaVinci’s HDR Wide Gamut color processing mode is the way to go! I’m gonna work on correcting that mistake, and hopefully, it’ll be the cherry on top!

Mistake corrected!

Here’s the previous Rec. 709 grade:

Here’s the Wide Gamut Grade:

The rest is in the spoiler tag below. Let me know about any issues with the Wide Gamut, but I think the color grading is pretty much complete for this one.

Bingo! Looks really great!

Happy to hear! All that’s left for me to do is work on the audio commentary, and I think Episode I will be ready! 😃

Okay, I’ve just come up with one more crazy idea for the color grading. I’ll probably decide to stick with what already works, but I like this other idea enough that I figured I’d share it, even if I may be going too far in a few places.

The most basic thing I did was adjust the black levels to a more teal blueish color. That’s pretty much it. The only other thing I did was amp up the orange look even further when the teal started taking up most of the film. I think this one might be the most cinematic looking grade I’ve come up with to the point where it might be too much. But out of curiosity, here it is.

We’ll start with the present grade:

Then, we have the black level adjustment:

As you can see, the two are very different from each other. I will most likely stick with the previous grade anyway, but if you feel this new adjustment improves on perfection, feel free to chime in and change my mind. It’s interesting enough that I’m willing to consider it. The rest is in the spoiler tag below:

Skybatman said:

i think is too green but it works in the naboo scenes

A lot of 35mm and even 16mm film has that sort of green tint, so it is intentional. Here’s one 35mm film trailer I dug up which has a faint but noticable example of the green:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezX-jxblFqc

Here’s another trailer that shows it a little more:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nasuYdPAuw

And here’s one that definitely has it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ReGqmIJT6gc

If it makes you feel better, I will most likely release 3.5 with the previous grade when it’s complete. However, I came up with this newer grade a couple days ago, and I figured it would be interesting to see what others think about it before I stick with what already worked.

Got a little bad news on the audio commentary. I lost my voice this morning, and I think I’m coming down with a cold. This means I’ll have to delay work on the commentary track until my voice comes back. Sorry about that! I’ll do my best to get well as soon as possible!

While I’m waiting for my voice to make a full recovery, I decided to make one last last LAST idea for the color grading. I was looking through some more 35mm movie trailers on YouTube, and I loved the film quality of this trailer for the 1991 film, Black Robe!

https://youtu.be/EjvQOkCDRF0

So, naturally, I want to try and get my color grades to look more like that! I decided to go back and rework my previous black level adjustment. I ended up having to lower the contrast for this reworking, so if that’s a concern for you, keep that in mind while looking at the comparisons.

Here’s what the color grading is like right now:

And here’s my reworked black level readjustment:

And yes, I’m still planning on sticking with the original grade for now. However, I like exhausting all possibilities first, so if you think this newer readjustment is better, feel free to speak up about it! As always, you can find the rest in the spoiler tag below:

I wasn’t expecting to be as impressed with this grade as I am. Everything looks a lot more real, a lot more natural, a lot more OT.

EddieDean said:

I wasn’t expecting to be as impressed with this grade as I am. Everything looks a lot more real, a lot more natural, a lot more OT.

This is the kind of reaction I love hearing! I have nothing else to say about the color grading other than “that’s a wrap!”

I have some bad news in regards to the quality. My computer is running low on disk space, and I don’t think I can keep uploading both 1080p and 720p files at the same time. So, I’m making a painful decision and releasing my edits in 720p, starting with v3.5 of this edit. This way, I can keep my computer from running out of room.

However, I want to throw a silver lining on all of this. Back in my Episode VIII edit, I released my alternative color grade, “in glorious blue!” in a very high quality 720p file. It offered a compromise between the 10.6 gb 1080p file and the 3.8gb 720p file at 8.32gb. For a 720p file, “in glorious blue!” was pretty darn good! I hope to bring about the same result with these future 720p files! I might even switch the encoding to “high” instead of “main” just for good measure!

So yes, my apologies for the inconvenience this may cause, but I’ll do my best to make those pixels count! 😃

Got my voice back! My illness is getting better! My lungs are hurting, but otherwise, I’m recovering. Time will tell when I’m ready to come back to the commentary track, but I believe that it will be soon, possibly within a day or two! 🥳

Eyepainter said:

Got my voice back! My illness is getting better! My lungs are hurting, but otherwise, I’m recovering. Time will tell when I’m ready to come back to the commentary track, but I believe that it will be soon, possibly within a day or two! 🥳

Glad to hear you’re on the mend!

GMatias said:

Eyepainter said:

Got my voice back! My illness is getting better! My lungs are hurting, but otherwise, I’m recovering. Time will tell when I’m ready to come back to the commentary track, but I believe that it will be soon, possibly within a day or two! 🥳

Glad to hear you’re on the mend!

Thanks, GMatias!

Returning to the commentary track! 🥳

It’s taken forever to get done with my comments on the pod race, but I’m reaching the final stretch now! Now to get to work on the second half of the commentary track…

I have a bit of a minor announcement to make! I just bought all nine soundtracks for the Star Wars franchise on eBay (yes, including this installment)! I’m waiting for the soundtracks to arrive in the mail, but when they do, I’m gonna see if I can use them for the sound editing! I’m not sure how much of a big impact they’ll have on my edit, but I’m nevertheless excited!

Just reached the halfway point on the commentary track!

My Episode I soundtrack just arrived in the mail! Gonna see if I can convert the tracks into .wav files.

In other news, I have successfully gotten myself onto fanedit.org, and I’ve posted a thread for my Episode I fanedit! I’m excited about that, and hopefully, my time on fanedit.org will be useful in taking care of anything that needs work before I submit it to the academy.

Speaking of which, due to some of the rules on fanedit.org, I will be working on changing the title. I haven’t finalized my decision on what my Episode I edit is going to be titled yet, but I’m thinking of calling it “The Rise of Naboo.” Not sure if that’s already taken, but that’s the first thing that’s popped out of my head. I will change the title of my thread accordingly when I’ve decided on my title change. Starting with v3.5, you won’t be seeing “The Phantom Menace” in the opening crawl.

Turns out, buying the soundtrack was a good idea! I just added the first few seconds of “Jar Jar’s Introduction and The Swim to Otoh Gunga” to the jump cut I made to Gunga City as per Mrebo’s criticisms a couple pages back, and while it is a little frustrating given that there’s another musical score playing in the background, I think this extra musical cue works very well. I think I’ll see if there are any other places where horsing around with the soundtrack is a good idea!

And I guess this might be a little late now, but… Thank you for your criticism, Mrebo!

In other news, I’m talking with a user named ArtisDead over the poster art on fanedit.org. We’ve been discussing the title change a bit, and since “Star Wars Episode I: The Rise of Naboo” hasn’t been taken (as far as I know), it looks like we’re gonna be going with that for the title change. I’ll be updating my title thread very shortly.

Thanks to the work I’ve been doing for my Eyes Wide Shut fanedit (and on fanedit.org), I’ve been learning some color grading “tricks” as of late. And while I did declare that my color grading is complete, I’ve been thinking of trying it again. So for that reason, I’ve compiled this small sample because any improvement is always a good thing.

First, my official source, the 2011 blu-ray:

Next, my color grade as it currently stands:

And finally, here’s what I have in mind:

What are your thoughts? Is it an improvement, or should I stick to my original grade?

I think the bottom is my fave of the three as well. It certainly has the most detail revealed. It almost looks a little too green (or well in the yellow range and heading towards green) that I’d keep an eye out to make sure it didn’t go any further in that direction. Nearly-yellow green has a kinda sickly feel to it that something closer to the bluer end of the spectrum doesn’t, at least for me.