Making our own 35mm preservation--my crazy proposal — Page 22

I think it's safe to say if this project reaches completion, it will make a lot of people rather happy ;)

It's looking (very) good so far. Keep the faith, and keep those fingers crossed!

Yeah, I gotta see this pic.  I remember negatives project from a while ago, and getting the link to the private board, and then nothing ever happening.

Would love to know of any progress.

I've only recently begun venturing out into this section of the forum and I'm still in the process of reading this thread...

But, am I to understand based on recent posts that someone out there actually IS doing their own capture of a 35mm Star Wars print...?!?  I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it....

Yes.  Don't get too excited too fast, though - the print kinda looks like shit.  It's going to need a lot of restoration work to make it acceptable for general release.

ChainsawAsh said:

Yes.  Don't get too excited too fast, though - the print kinda looks like shit.  It's going to need a lot of restoration work to make it acceptable for general release.

 That is incredible.  Even with the amount of work it might take, it's a huge glimmer of hope.  Just a few years ago the very idea of doing our own transfer from 35mm seemed a pipe dream that was utterly unattainable.  Now, with someone out there making the first attempt, it's only a matter of time before we have something truly stupendous.  I mean, look at the evolution of the fan preservations based on home video sources...  This is likely our very big "first step into a larger world"...  Color me thrilled (and very patient). 

ChainsawAsh said:

the print kinda looks like shit.

I've gotta disagree with that statement - it just needs a lot of work in post to get the colour balance back to how it should be. In its present condition it still pisses over the GOUT, and it's in HD too by the looks of it... Nice natural level of film grain too rather than some digitally scrubbed monstrosity - it looks like a proper film again.

Keep everything crossed and praying to the film gods that this preservation eventually sees the light of day! Looks more than promising thus far...

Well, when I say "looks like shit," I didn't mean that it was a bad quality source, because it certainly isn't.

The thing is, I feel like a lot of people here expect a film print to be perfect, as in, we scan it, then put it on DVD, and it'll knock the pants off the SE DVDs in terms of quality.

The reality is that the print is heavily pink-shifted and dirty, and it will require quite a lot of work to get it to look good.

But I absolutely agree that it is far and away the best source so far for the OOT.

ChainsawAsh said:

The reality is that the print is heavily pink-shifted and dirty, and it will require quite a lot of work to get it to look good.

Said the guy with the Farnsworth avatar ;-)

Said the 65-year-old, toothless, cross-eyed man ;-)

Said the...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

But I am already in my pajamas ...

(okay, I'll stop - back on topic, everyone.)

If you think that looks like shit, I don't know how many private prints you've seen. This is pretty immaculate looking, I would say. The fade is fairly mild, with easily recoverable colours, there's very little damage and only mild dirt. It would be a lot of work to clean up, of course, but that is a given--most pro scans clean the film before they telecine, and if this print got a pro cleaning before telecine it would look as good as anything Criterion would do. The only thing remaining would be to hand-paint out the scatches, which probably would be a couple hundred hours of labour for the film, but something that could be completed within three or four months with some dedication.

zombie84 said:

If you think that looks like shit, I don't know how many private prints you've seen. This is pretty immaculate looking, I would say. The fade is fairly mild, with easily recoverable colours, there's very little damage and only mild dirt. It would be a lot of work to clean up, of course, but that is a given--most pro scans clean the film before they telecine, and if this print got a pro cleaning before telecine it would look as good as anything Criterion would do. The only thing remaining would be to hand-paint out the scatches, which probably would be a couple hundred hours of labour for the film, but something that could be completed within three or four months with some dedication.

I'd kinda prefer it with the scratches and odd flaw left in to be honest - makes it more of a genuine 'old school' kinda screening experience, though I realise I am probably in the minority here. I'd just like to see it colour corrected, and then left as-is. I think a decent colour corrected transfer of this print could then form the basis of whatever restorations people wanted to then work on.

It's just GREAT to see it as I remember it - a film that LOOKS like a film hahaha! Lovely natural looking film grain which hasn't been removed, then replaced by digital grain, or even rubbed away altogether! A genuine time capsule record of how Empire used to look!

Major league kudos for -1 getting it this far!

I didn't realize I was going to get so much heat for my "looks like shit" comment.  I was referring to how it looks in its current state.

I don't think it looks like shit.  I think it's the best source we have at the moment for a true theatrical restoration, better than the GOUT, any laserdisc transfer, or any hybrid SE/GOUT/LD project.  I do think people should be aware that the cleanup work on this is going to have to be extensive and time-consuming, so they shouldn't get their hopes up that this is going to be released soon.

"Looks like shit" = if it were released on DVD/Blu-Ray in its current state, with no cleanup, it would be unnaceptable.

I also think 3 or 4 months is quite optimistic.

Yep, pretty much.  But instead of DVNR smearing, you'd have very messed-up color instead.