Info: - Greedo & Jabba subtitles, theatrical placement and fonts - — Page 2

Yeah, I posted some caps in Mielr's thread a while back:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Has-anyone-done-a-pure-04-DVD-GOUT-hybrid-OT-project/topic/8548/page/2/

but I thought it deserved it's own thread.

looks nice!

zombie84 said:

This is an obvious question...

...but do we know that the 16mm version Puggo transfered has the same subs as the 35mm version? I assume they just did a straight dupe from the 35mm source, but since this was actually made for commercial sale and was re-edited, there is always the distant possibility that they re-burned the subs for this version, just as they did for the VHS versions. Was Puggo's 16mm dupe ever checked against the 1977 telecine bootleg? I just assume someone did, but I never actually saw this mentioned anywhere.

I've checked them against the telecine and they're a perfect match in positioning, you cannot make it out if it uses exactly the same font as the quality of the transfer is very bad on it but it looks very much like it and I would be suprised if they just changed the font on the 16mm, so I'm 99% sure it's authentic but it's a very valid question though. You can see caps of the telecine if you follow the link I posted on top of this page.

Do someone know if the spelling of the word Wookiee in Jedi has changed through the years in the actual movie subtitles?

I've begun to work on the subs for Jedi now and I'm happy to tell you that they will be much closer to the real ones than I was able to do on SW, (that is if you want me to do them differently, dark_jedi?) cause the subs will be a little taller and appear more wide in the frame than the SW subs you have, I'm also wondering how important you think the positioning is? Because if I place them exactly as they appear on the four caps on the first page they will not be centered in the frame (don't know yet if this is a case of image cropping but I strongly believe it is, all four subs have the same positioning). The Gout Jedi has actually a little more picture-information on both sides when compared to those, haven't checked other sources yet. It could be more pleasing to the eye to have them horizontally centered, just a thought, tell me how you want it...

These are the lines I'm not sure about: 

This bounty hunter is my kind of scum... / ...fearless and inventive. Split up in two or not? if split up, should the second line have an ellipsis?

You may have been a good smuggler... / ...but now you’re Bantha fodder. Should the second line have an ellipsis?

Unfortunately I only have four lines as reference of what I strongly believe are the original subtitles. This is probably a long shot but I thought if I could compare the theatrical Greedo subs as they appear in Star Wars SE with the original Greedo subs and see if the line; Jabba's put a price on your head so large every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be looking for you... appear in one frame instead of it being split in two as it is done usually in the many video versions, and if that line match maybe the only thing they changed for the SE subs was the actual font and not the line-breaks. But then you'll need footage from the theatrical SE ;) dark_jedi said he should look if he could find something for me that could help, otherwise any info or knowledge about it is very welcomed.

dark_jedi said:

Well 1 thing is for sure, they will have to be centered in the frame, at least to me they would look terrible on 1 side or the other.

The difference isn't that huge, but if you want it centered you'll get it. I'll post a comparison for you soon... so you can see for yourself.

dark_jedi said:

So are you saying you can make the SW subs look better or no? because if so I have not done the rendering yet with the new subs, that is planned for Monday or Sunday night.

I can make a better match, yes. But then the subtitles will end up outside the safe TV-overscan area, and that is not recommended, if you're watching the movie on a regular TV the subtitles will be cut off at the sides. I don't know the details about overscan on modern TV's though.

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

I can check my SE Widescreen VHS tape of Jedi to see what the subs are like there.

-NJM

 Any help I can get is appreciated. ;)

They're not final yet.

A close match:

and centered:

msycamore said:

if you're watching the movie on a regular TV the subtitles will be cut off at the sides

Oh man, I still see that so often! :p

Oh, sorry NJM. I must've misunderstood your question. The home video subs cannot be entirely trusted in how those lines appeared in the cinema. I'll need theatrical reference, if not original the SE will do but I still don't know if they appeared on the '97 broadcasted versions or is available on any documentary from that period.

The reason I asked about the word Wookiee is that I thought it could be a possibility that the word was spelled differently back in '83, just like Jabba the Hutt was spelled Hut with one "t" before Return of the Jedi, Wookiee has been spelled with one "e" in the past.

So should I have those four lines centered or not?

msycamore said:

Do someone know if the spelling of the word Wookiee in Jedi has changed through the years in the actual movie subtitles?

I remember hearing that the DC laserdisc has a misspelling somewhere (not sure if it's in the subtitles or the close-captioning).

msycamore said:

These are the lines I'm not sure about: 

This bounty hunter is my kind of scum... / ...fearless and inventive. Split up in two or not? if split up, should the second line have an ellipsis?

You may have been a good smuggler... / ...but now you’re Bantha fodder. Should the second line have an ellipsis?

My old LD to DVD transfer, which had subs based on the 1995 VHS, does have the ellipses at the beginning of the second lines.

I've mentioned this before (see here), but we believe that the UK TV broadcast of ROTJ had the theatrical subtitles. I've lost my tape, and have so far not managed to find anyone who still has a copy to stick around long enough to grab the required scenes.

And it has also been suggested that some versions do not have a subtitle for the line "I want fifty thousand. No less." (Thread here).

Double post, but I've just had another thought.

Thinking about the AviSynth script, and the sample of the Greedo subs that was posted - although the font, drop shadow and positioning are great, don't you think that the subs themselves look a little too "clean" when compared to the rest of the picture?

For a true simulated theatrical experience, do you think that the subs would look better "dirtied up" with a little added artificial film grain over the text?

Moth3r said:

My old LD to DVD transfer, which had subs based on the 1995 VHS, does have the ellipses at the beginning of the second lines.

I've mentioned this before (see here), but we believe that the UK TV broadcast of ROTJ had the theatrical subtitles. I've lost my tape, and have so far not managed to find anyone who still has a copy to stick around long enough to grab the required scenes.

And it has also been suggested that some versions do not have a subtitle for the line "I want fifty thousand. No less." (Thread here).

Thanks for the links, very interesting... that guy haven't been logged in for a long time :( maybe someone still have that recorded somewhere around here, it would be fantastic.

I'm now pretty sure that the line "You may have been a good smuggler..." were split in two in the cinema as there's a cut from Solo to Jabba in that scene that corresponds to the dialogue, it would be very unusual if they opted to have it as one continous line overlaying the two cuts. I've also noticed that the timings are way of in both the Gout video and the ones g-force and squirrel used when compared to the Empire of Dreams footage especially the line "I shall enjoy watching you die." I don't know if they took their timings from the LD's or Gout but it confirms that the video timings are not the same as the theatrical.

Moth3r said:

Double post, but I've just had another thought.

Thinking about the AviSynth script, and the sample of the Greedo subs that was posted - although the font, drop shadow and positioning are great, don't you think that the subs themselves look a little too "clean" when compared to the rest of the picture?

Yes, indeed. That's one of the reasons why I used the slightly muted white color to make it blend better with the picture, but no matter how you do it, it doesn't seem to look as it is a part of the film. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the font and drop shadow, but it turned out quite good and much better than I initially thought, if you take the rather primitive method I used into consideration. ;) It would be great to make an exact match with self made bitmap subs sometime but it seems to be too much work.

Moth3r said:

For a true simulated theatrical experience, do you think that the subs would look better "dirtied up" with a little added artificial film grain over the text?

It would be great, I don't know how I would do such a thing though as my avisynth knowledge is minimal.

Another reason it doesn't blend so good is that the quality of the Gout is so damn shitty... I'll see what I can do. The idea of applying artificial film grain to the subs sounds like a good idea though, Thanks for your suggestions.

The premise is quite simple, although it will take a bit of messing around with AviSynth's Overlay or Layer functions.

The way I see it, there are two approaches you could try:

Starting with the output from the g-force script, run it through a very strong denoiser to completely scrub all grain - but generate a "difference" clip from the source and cleaned video. Apply the subtitles, then overlay the difference clip. This is essentially adding the grain that was removed back in, only this time it will be on top of the subs.

or

Add the subs, then add simulated grain (from a filter such as GrainFactory3) using a transparency mask so that the grain is only applied over the subtitle text.