I agree with what has been said and there are a couple of the alien shots that need to be toned down a bit. I just compared the XVID that i posted to a quick MPEG encode i did and its surprising just how much the XVID compression has distorted the facial movements. I can see what Hal 9000 means by "underwater". I should have posted it with a higher bitrate encode but i needed to keep the filesize to a minimum because of the clips length. Apart from the 2 shots i'm redoing, i will be keeping the rest as they are now. You'll have to trust me that they look so much better in a better quality encode.
Originally posted by: Laserman
It is a normal part of the process, you put the effects in and you play it back and then after watching it a few times you start to tone it down, then after coming back to it after a while you tone it down further and eventually it becomes more natural.
Kind of like the SE's, at first viewing the extra saturation and detail has a wow factor, but on subsequent viewings the oversaturated and overly contrasty scenes start to grate on the eye. Slightly overemphasized effects can be the same.
i couldn't agree more.
Doing an edit like this it is going to be impossible to avoid some form of shot repetition because i have to use existing shots to create my effects. That Death Star sequence only uses the flip shot and then the final approaching stardestroyer from ESB so i wouldn't say that its heavy usage. All of the other SD's are stills of model shots not used in the films and 1 still shot from ROTJ. If you look at the OT there are already a few fimiliar shot repetitions. The sequence where the rebel fleet is about to go to hyperspace in ROTJ, the falcon does the same swoop pass towards the camera that it did in the asteroid field in ESB just in the opposite direction, The opening of Jedi mirrors the opening of ANH and even in the Death Star 2 battle they use an X-Wing explosion from ANH trench run, so things like this don't bother me too much. lol Also the number of stardestroyers will be staying the same in the final render. This is the lead up to the conference scene so i feel that there would be a few stardestroyers there because the officers have been summoned to this meeeting. You will see in the final edit that the next shot we see of the death star has only 1 stardestroyer and then when the death star leaves orbit and heads for Aldreaan then it is alone.
Originally posted by: Slumberland
The only thing I don't really buy is in the desert/sandcrawler scenes, with the sky replacement. The composite borders look far too blurry to be realistic. Is that just a feathering setting that can be backed off of a little bit?
It is a normal part of the process, you put the effects in and you play it back and then after watching it a few times you start to tone it down, then after coming back to it after a while you tone it down further and eventually it becomes more natural.
Kind of like the SE's, at first viewing the extra saturation and detail has a wow factor, but on subsequent viewings the oversaturated and overly contrasty scenes start to grate on the eye. Slightly overemphasized effects can be the same.
i couldn't agree more.
Originally posted by: tellan
my only nit really is the death star approach. I'd trim it down, right down. reasons
I know this is the big imperial intro for ANH but by borrowing the empire SD's so heavily, even changing the background means there is familiar shot repetition.
I like the opening. the ESB SD flipped. but I would cut down on the number of SD's around the DS and I would even probably eliminate the big background planet. just have the DS in space. the star destroyer is giving you your size for reference.
my only nit really is the death star approach. I'd trim it down, right down. reasons
I know this is the big imperial intro for ANH but by borrowing the empire SD's so heavily, even changing the background means there is familiar shot repetition.
I like the opening. the ESB SD flipped. but I would cut down on the number of SD's around the DS and I would even probably eliminate the big background planet. just have the DS in space. the star destroyer is giving you your size for reference.
Doing an edit like this it is going to be impossible to avoid some form of shot repetition because i have to use existing shots to create my effects. That Death Star sequence only uses the flip shot and then the final approaching stardestroyer from ESB so i wouldn't say that its heavy usage. All of the other SD's are stills of model shots not used in the films and 1 still shot from ROTJ. If you look at the OT there are already a few fimiliar shot repetitions. The sequence where the rebel fleet is about to go to hyperspace in ROTJ, the falcon does the same swoop pass towards the camera that it did in the asteroid field in ESB just in the opposite direction, The opening of Jedi mirrors the opening of ANH and even in the Death Star 2 battle they use an X-Wing explosion from ANH trench run, so things like this don't bother me too much. lol Also the number of stardestroyers will be staying the same in the final render. This is the lead up to the conference scene so i feel that there would be a few stardestroyers there because the officers have been summoned to this meeeting. You will see in the final edit that the next shot we see of the death star has only 1 stardestroyer and then when the death star leaves orbit and heads for Aldreaan then it is alone.
Originally posted by: Slumberland
The only thing I don't really buy is in the desert/sandcrawler scenes, with the sky replacement. The composite borders look far too blurry to be realistic. Is that just a feathering setting that can be backed off of a little bit?
I guess i was rushing getting the clips out for the guys who donated and after you mentioned it i noticed that i have used older footage and not my final effects shot. The matte was too blurry on that one but i knocked the feathering down to give it a stronger and more natural edge. So the shot you see on that vid is not the finished shot.
The colour correction is proving to be a total headache to do. Some shots are so messed up that its almost impossible to do anything with them to look as they should. The blue tint to these films has been added for one reason and one reason only.. To help mask the disaster that the restoration work has actually done to the colours in this film, and not the pathetic excuse that has come from lucasfilm. Creative decision my ass. lol. hell of a lot of the shots look like the old B&W movies that have been recoloured. There just seems to be no gradient in the tones.
Trying to match colour balance between shots is impossible so i can only do the best i can so please don't expect miracles. Bens cloak, for instance, in the duel scnes changes colour all the time and trying to match that it from shot to shot is impossible because doing so knocks all the other colours off and looks horrible. So i can't really say that this edit will have colour correction, more colour interpretation. Its never going to look the way we all remember it unless Lucasfilm do it themselves and if i attempt to do this i would have to create so many masks for each colour section, of each shot, that this release probably would never see the light of day until the 40th anniversary.
