Hey OMEN, hows progress going with your edit bud ?
I was watching Deleted magic last night and there was a scene in the empire Deleted magic trailer on there thats got lando rescuing luke WITH a sky cloud backdrop to the hatch scene I did'nt know existed, I'll post a pic here of the scene.
Hatch with Cloud backdrop...
Not saying it should be used just did'nt know if it .
Probably a production shot. They probably shot it against a bright sky and overexposed it to make it as bright as it is in the film. From this angle you wouldn't see clouds but the bottom of the city :-)
Hey Darf Muffy, the edit's progressing very nicely, been busy the last few days sorting out stuff for Christmas but now that's done, I can get back to this. First I have to finish off looking through Harmy's workprint for any possible inconsistencies, then later on today hopeful i'll post a new clip for you guys to check out and hopefully provide feedback on. :)
Thanks to Harmy for pointing me to this thread!
Omen, I love the idea you're doing here as i too felt that many of the changes were actually nice, but some, such as greed shooting first were way OTT. However I did like the Jabba scene in ANH. And i love the 97 end to Jedi. Still I can live without Jabba to get most of the cool changes.
That said, I would be interested in an 1080 MKV file if that is possible of these. I don't have the capability to burn BluRays but i am able to play the MKVs, so if you would be so inclined as to make these too it would be much appreciated.
-Terrasolo
Hi terrasolo, thanks for your interest in this project. :)
Like you, I felt that many some of the changes were actually improvements and definately worth keeping. The Jabba scene in Star Wars was definately not one of them IMHO. It is far more effective to leave him as this sinister shadow hanging over Han Solo in the first two films until he's finally revealed in all his grotesque splendour in ROTJ. His added scene in Star Wars just makes him seem like a clown that couldn't hurt a fly, especially the bit when Han Solo steps on his tail, causing him to cry out in pain. I'm sorry, but the ROTJ jabba we all know and love would have had him killed then and there for that total lack of respect to his person. Instead GL plays the scene for laughs and in so doing totally undermines the threat that Jabba represents to Han throughout the rest of the trilogy. Very bad move IMHO and if I could only choose one scene to remove from the trilogy, it would most likely be this one.
As for making a 1080p mkv file, I don't see the need. You can just open the .m2ts video file that's part of the blu-ray folder and you can watch the films just fine without writing them onto blu-rays, exactly the same as watching a .mkv file.
Okay, here's another clip, this time from ROTJ, when Leia first meets Wicket. In the blu-ray this scene has Wicket with blinking eyes and a creepy CG iris but i've used the hdtv streams to get rid of those and replace them with the original nonmoving eyes that don't scare the bejesus out of me each time I see them. Could you guys check this clip out and let me know whether you feel the parts with Wicket's original eyes taken from the hdtv fit in seemlessly with the blu-ray footage for you or not? Please feel free to comment on the brightness/contrast/colour grading as well.
Here's the clip:
You've edited that one nicely. I would never have guessed it was cut together from two sources if I didn't know.
Yeah, it fits together perfectly. I don't think there is a chance in the world that the German HDTV capture would not fit with the BD footage or the transition be even slightly noticeable - the German HDTV broadcasts were the same master and were such a really high quality that the Blu-Rays are hardly an improvement, except maybe in some fast moving shots or flashes and such and even there it would take a frame by frame comparison in order to discern any difference.
Now a different thing is when you start doing some heavy manipulation like You_Too and I did, then the compression that was hidden in the dark starts poking out in the HDTV broadcasts and it looks fine in the Blus. But with the kind of subtle changes you do to the colours, OMEN, I don't think you need to worry about the transition from BD to HDTV and back being noticeable at all.
As to the colours, they look quite nice, though I would personally go a bit warmer. But that is totally up to you of course :-)
Harmy, You_Too, cheers for the feedback! Yeah, it seems pretty seemless to me as well. The german hdtv stream does require pretty different grading to get it looking like the blu-ray though, its not as simple as just editing the two sources together (I wish), otherwise I wouldn't need to ask your opinion on whether its fairly seemless or not. That said Harmy I see what you're saying, they do indeed come from the same lowry 2004 master so they have very very similar colour grading albeit very different image dynamics.
Looking at that clip and the rest of ROTJ i've regraded, I think that the contrast is too high. I think this is because I increased the overall brightness while maintaining the same black levels but looking at your workprint and the blu-ray itself, I think its probably better to raise the black levels a bit to reveal more details in the shadows, but not enough that the blacks start to look a little grey. Would you two agree with that assessment based on this clip?
As for warmer colours, yeah, from having seen your workprint, you definately have a preference for warm colours, that's for sure. I prefer my colours and flesh tones to to be a little more neutral. Blues are allowed to exist in my star wars universe without being persecuted for being loosely related to the dreaded 'blue tint' hehe. All boils down to ones own preferences I suppose.
My Pcs died on me recently only just got it running again so wans'nt able to see the ewok clip till just now and after seeing it I have to say if the rest of the films are as seemless as that clip was then you are on a winner my friend, and the colour seems just right and natural looking IMO.
Brilliant work now looking foward to what youve done more so :] enjoy your Xmas peeps and hope to see your work in the new year OMEN :D
Thanks for the well wishes Darf, I hope you're enjoying your xmas as well! :D
I'm glad to hear that you like the colours. If you think that the colours look nice and natural in that ewok clip, I think you're going to really enjoy checking these out when I finally get them online. :)
These are very close to completion, the overall colour grading and editing for the three films is pretty much done. These should be pretty much ready to go after New Years as soon as I get my new connection. i'm just finishing off the final touches like lightsaber continuety and a few other things.
Relating to lightsaber continuety though, could you and others here please check out these very short clips of luke being presented by ben with his father's lightsaber. The first clip is the scene with the overall colour regrading applied but the lightsaber left untouched. I thought the lightsaber looked a bit dull for being made of pure energy with a yellow core so I experimented a bit with the lightsaber and came up with slightly different looks in the second and third clip. Let me know which clips you prefer:
First clip with overall regrading only :http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5B9IV0D6
Second clip with overall regrading + lightsaber regrading: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A2GIJ2R1
Third clip with overall regrading + lightsaber regrading: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YEJRF3KH
And the same thing with these two clips from when Ben draws his lightsaber in the cantina, the first clip being with overall colour regrading but the lightsaber left unchanged and the second clip with Ben's lightsaber also regraded so the lightsaber's less dull and there is colour continuety between the different shots. Please let me know which clip you prefer:
First clip with overall regrading only : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4046IVMQ
Second clip with overall regrading + lightsaber regrading: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V3HBF4C6
And in case I don't post back here until after the 25th, Merry Christmas everyone! :D
Hmm... regarding your light saber clips Omen for me their very subtle differences to make a strong choice either way but if I had to choose it'll be:
lightsaber3a - because the saber seems to be fuller & it might be me but I slightly see a kind of stronger glare when lukes swinging it that adds to the scene.
Also regarding that scene I wonder why in all of georges tinkering he didn't add a light saber reflection to C3PO in that scene over the sabre props stick shadow ?!
lightsabercantina1a - Now this is why my 2 pence worth can't count on this whole lighting thing because of this darker cantina scene the saber seems to not benefit from regrading as it seems to me to be too vivid for the whole dark canteena scene as a whole.
Sorry Omen best leave it to your judgement on this or someone with a stronger view either way :S
MERRY X-MAS ALL
Omen,
Just wondering how your project is coming along? I hope that all is well.
Hi delusions_of_grandeur, this project is going great, I just got a little burned out with everything Star Wars related coming up to christmas so I took a little break.
In the past i've found that it helps to take a few steps back and leave a project like this for a bit otherwise its easy to start going overboard with the brightness/contrast/colour adjustments and the films start to look unrecognisable.
After a little break its always a lot easier to see when you've gone too far changing things IMHO. Been working on the LOTR EEs since the new year and just finished ROTK the day before yesterday so I'm back to Star Wars all refreshed and ready to go! :)
I hear ya Omen, completely understand dissecting the fillms frame by frame and and the like plus the hours involved must take it's toll but your efforts are not going unnoticed keep in there once there out I bet you'll find it alll worth while ;]
OMEN!-_-! said:
Hi terrasolo, thanks for your interest in this project. :)
Like you, I felt that many some of the changes were actually improvements and definately worth keeping. The Jabba scene in Star Wars was definately not one of them IMHO. It is far more effective to leave him as this sinister shadow hanging over Han Solo in the first two films until he's finally revealed in all his grotesque splendour in ROTJ. His added scene in Star Wars just makes him seem like a clown that couldn't hurt a fly, especially the bit when Han Solo steps on his tail, causing him to cry out in pain. I'm sorry, but the ROTJ jabba we all know and love would have had him killed then and there for that total lack of respect to his person. Instead GL plays the scene for laughs and in so doing totally undermines the threat that Jabba represents to Han throughout the rest of the trilogy. Very bad move IMHO and if I could only choose one scene to remove from the trilogy, it would most likely be this one.
As for making a 1080p mkv file, I don't see the need. You can just open the .m2ts video file that's part of the blu-ray folder and you can watch the films just fine without writing them onto blu-rays, exactly the same as watching a .mkv file.
You make very good points there about the Jabba scene which make me not concerned about it at all now. I am looking forward to this project very much and can't thank you enough for going through all this effort that GL himself should have done for us.
Sorry for the late reply too, but the holiday season did take it's toll.
Hey guys, I haven't posted for a while so I thought I'd give you a mini update on this project for all those still interested. After carefully considering what Harmy has said about the Star Wars original trilogy being more yellow tinted than one would expect, I think i've pretty much decided on the overall colour grading of all six star wars films. I've brightened the three original trilogy films a little but have been careful to maintain the black levels and not let them become too grey.
I still haven't got my new connection yet for so for the time being, I thought i'd put up some comparisons to give you an idea of how i've regraded these films relative to the official blu-rays. I'll start with Star Wars and over the next few days will try to post comparisons of the other films as well.
Starting with the first half of Star Wars (haven't encoded the second part yet) Each of these links has multiple comparisons:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105271
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105275
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105277
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105280
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105287
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105289
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/105292
Though I'm pretty happy now with how it looks overall, let me know what you think. All opinions, whether positive or negative, are very much welcome.
It's a definite improvement, well done!
Harmy said:
It's a definite improvement, well done!
Glad you like it! :)
I've regraded the other two films in the original trilogy in a similar vein. I've made the yellow tint stronger on tattoine though so the rest of the film when they're off tattoine is not so yellow.
I always thought of han stepping on jabbas tail as a way to cover for the fact that george had planned jabba to just be a human originally. in the original footage han walks behind the human jabba without stepping on anything. but if you change him to the new jabba there is no way han could have walked around him without encountering his tail so lucas covered for that with a lame special effect of displacing the image of harrison ford that looks almost like a jump cut.
just more proof that the guy was making it up as he went.
Where's my damn medal?
Hey Omen, everything is really looking great i'm so glad that someone is working with the blu-rays and editing and releasing them in high bitrate like they deserve. I take it you figured out how to take the DTS-HD Master and make it a PCM file? So if you did i'm sure that you used eac3to software?
I also look forward to The Lord of The Rings that you regraded as well. Are those going to be uploaded any time soon?
Thanks for all your hard work!
This made me laugh out loud :-)
It almost made me laugh, but then the misquote made me wince. So I did this:
Much better :)
DE