peter_pan said:
danny_boy said:
Baronlando said:
danny_boy said
My opinion is that when the original negative was washed back in 1995 it was re-assembled without the insertion of any new material
I hope so, but is that based on any specific info?
Unfortunately only my very literal interpretation of this statement!
That meant dissecting the original Star Wars negative, washing it, and then reassembling it. "That made everybody suck in their breath, " Kennedy says, recalling the stressfull situation. "Thankfully, Robert Hart, the neg cutter on the second and third films, came in to put the negative back together
http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/sped/ssws/pg1.htm
There is no mention in the above paragraph of any insertions of new negative(featuring CGI effects).
Also inserting new negative into the original negative would be counter productive----it would mean that you would have to run the entire original negative(with the new inserts) through a pin registered mechanism in order to print off a new 1st generation interpositive......running the risk of doing even more damage to that original neg.(much like the situation with the Godfather)
Much easier to go back to the original negs(that were not part of the original negative---confusing ain't it!) and use those for your new(as it would have been in 1997) special edition negative....combining these new negs(featuring the CGI) with 3rd generation internegative material.
Sorry I know it is infuriatingly confusing.....when I get time I will do a pictorial representation which should help to better illustrate the points I am trying to make.
Wasn't the O-neg washed and cleaned, scanned, CGI special edition adjustments made plus other elements that were also scanned, then this master digital file is then printed out to a new master negative?
This negative was then rescanned at 1080p to save compression problems from using the 2K digital file.
This 1080p scan is then what Lowry worked on ahead of the ILM coloring.
Correct me if i am wrong please.
Also I have been reading these forums for many years but only just started to post and add my two pence worth.
To scan the entire 2hr film back in 1997 would have been prohibitively expensive and logistically impossible given the relatively limited digital data storage capacities of the time.
Only the negatives that were to feature CGI additions were scanned.
And this is where the confusion can arise.
A lot of the negative that was used in the master negative for theatrical distribution back in 77' was not original negative.
here is an example:
Now this is 1st generation negative that was in the camera on set.
But because it was designated to have optical effects(Luke's saber)added to it then it could not be used in what would become the master negative to generate release prints.
Instead it went through one of these(an optical printer):
The other piece of negative film that will comprise this effect shot is the lightsaber:
The optical printer photographs both of these 2 seperate negatives to generate an optical composite(or duplicate negative):
Now due to the erratic quality of both optical printing and film stock this duplicate negative containing this lightsaber optical effect was grainy and not aswell defined as the original constituent negs.
But more importantly when such a duplicate neg was contiguouse to a 1st generation negative such as this(Han's reaction to Luke's training)
Then the difference in quality would be very prominent.
So Lucas and Co took 1st generation negatives such as the one above(Han's reaction) and reduced the quality by making a duplicate neg of it so as to make the quality more consistent.
It was duplicate negatives such as these that would comprise large parts of the so called o-neg in 1977.
To be continued: