American Graffiti Despecialized

I have begun work on a project that, for lack of a better name, I am calling “Yellow’s American Graffiti Despecialized”, after it was pointed out that calling it “4K73” implies that the primary source is a 35mm print scan, which it is not.

I have posted a proof of concept, which should show you a comparison of the visual quality of Despecialized compared to the 4K UHD Blu-ray and the 35mm Telecine scan. https://youtu.be/uz51bbOtXC0?si=QKv3NHJlCHCkjy1x

It is in the absence of an acceptable home media release of this film that I am starting this project, as while the telecine scan is a decent way of watching the theatrical version, it is still a very flawed source, with missing frames, plenty of dirt, and (the HD version) is an A.I. upscale of a 480p scan.

Let me know if anyone here would be interested in joining the project with me, or if they have any audio visual sources to aid in my efforts. Much appreciated!

13las said:

Is there a comprehensive list somewhere of the changes to the film from the original version?

The changes are:

• Digitally replaced sky in the opening credits
• Digitally redone opening credits titles
• Changed the date for John’s end card from June 1964 to December 1964 (to align with More American Graffiti)
• Added scenes: Toad at the car dealership, Falfa singing “Some Enchanted Evening”, Louie Louie song at the hop
• Audio: Dolby Stereo remix for 1978 theatrical re-release, 5.1 remix for 50th anniversary re-release, with revisionist sound effects and lowered music volume to favour dialogue clarity

SpacemanDoug said:

yellow05maze said:

13las said:

Is there a comprehensive list somewhere of the changes to the film from the original version?

The changes are:

• Digitally replaced sky in the opening credits
• Digitally redone opening credits titles
• Changed the date for John’s end card from June 1964 to December 1964 (to align with More American Graffiti)
• Added scenes: Toad at the car dealership, Falfa singing “Some Enchanted Evening”, Louie Louie song at the hop
• Audio: Dolby Stereo remix for 1978 theatrical re-release, 5.1 remix for 50th anniversary re-release, with revisionist sound effects and lowered music volume to favour dialogue clarity

Don’t forget the end credits were also altered to accommodate for Louie Louie and Some Enchanted Evening being added. Plus a Dolby Stereo logo was added to the end credits.

Thank you!–Good memory!

SpacemanDoug said:

There was also a minor instance towards the end whenever a crew member was digitally removed from a car window reflection on the 4K master.

Interesting! Will have to look out for this one so I can swap that out from the 4K source with the telecine.

Looking forward to this. How’s it coming along?

stretch009 said:

Looking forward to this. How’s it coming along?

Hey, it’s going well–in the time since I first created this thread, I have slowed down my progress unfortunately, but I aim to put out some sort of trailer or preview soon, in order to get some feedback on the project. Would really appreciate feedback when I have more to show. Cheers!

In the meantime, here are a few stills

SpacemanDoug said:

yellow05maze said:

SpacemanDoug said:

There was also a minor instance towards the end whenever a crew member was digitally removed from a car window reflection on the 4K master.

Interesting! Will have to look out for this one so I can swap that out from the 4K source with the telecine.

The BD timecode is 1:46:12, it’s the long panning shot showing Kurt in his car, the crew member was in the reflection of his passenger window. The shot is unaltered on the old BD, it was the 4K master where it was digitally removed.

Thank you!

SpacemanDoug said:

I do have to ask though, are you gonna be using the audio from the telecine transfer to restore the original mono track? Even the old 1978 stereo track had some new sound effects and completely different M/E levels next to the dialogue compared to the original mono. My idea would’ve been to use the telecine mono as base and in instances of missing frames, to downmix the stereo track to mono to fill in the gaps.

Yes, this was my exact plan: telecine mono as the basis, and patch in the missing audio with 1978 stereo track (mono downmix, sourced from Blu Ray)

I also plan to, when I have finished a first version of the entire film, create a version of the Making of documentary in 16:9 format, using Despecialized clips to replace the SD clips, which were both letterboxed and pillarboxed when viewed on 16:9 screens. The new version will keep the interview segments in 4:3 and keep the film clips in 2.35:1

SpacemanDoug said:

One thing of note, if you want an HD quality version of the original Universal logo from the 1973 cut, look no further than TwoLane Blacktop as it has the same logo in the opening.

Thanks! I’d previously been using this reconstruction, made up of a 70s Universal logo that had “presents” in a different font, so I’d just masked in the “presents” text from the 1080p upscale of the Telecine… I’ll have to find a Blu-ray or upload of TwoLane Blacktop and grab the logo.

SpacemanDoug said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_11xcVDXlTI

This is what it looks like in the movie just to get the right idea

Cheers, I’ll do a comparison later and ensure it lines up just right. Just going off visuals, it potentially feels maybe more cropped and compressed horizontally?

SpacemanDoug said:

yellow05maze said:

SpacemanDoug said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_11xcVDXlTI

This is what it looks like in the movie just to get the right idea

Cheers, I’ll do a comparison later and ensure it lines up just right. Just going off visuals, it potentially feels maybe more cropped and compressed horizontally?

It’s a bit more stretched vertically yes, but it was the closest I could find for that specific variant in 2.35:1

This is what I have put together for now. I stretched it to fit the proportions of American Graffiti’s logo, and found it was indeed very heavily cropped, so I used my previous Universal source to patch in the edges. It’ll take some further tweaking to resolve some of the colour and perspective inconsistencies, but alas I think it will do much better than my previous Frankenstein efforts!

I’ve uploaded a comparison of the opening credits and first scene. Would appreciate any feedback!
https://youtu.be/UI2J7iB4IAo?si=1jioP6KITvim1j-T

SpacemanDoug said:

First of all, glad I could help regarding getting a good quality version of the logo and good job at recreating how it looked proportion wise in the movie.

But about your opening credits themselves, that’s actually really good, looks better than the raw print file. One note I’d like to add, not sure if it’s really useful for anything but I just wanted to say, even though the DVD had the altered sunset as well, it did surprisingly have the OG opticals in place of the digital recreations that the BD/4K has.

Huh, I don’t know how I didn’t know that about the DVD! I’ll compare their quality compared to the print upscale, and see what I can do! Regardless, I definitely need to do more work on those titles, at least on those final ones… My mattes were fairly rushed and I never properly fixed the gate weave on them.