Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation (Final Version Released!) — Page 14

Ronster said:

R2-D2 is not Cyan

And if a photo like that is really Cyan and green it’s not really reliable. But it is now a better indicator once you remove all the color that absolutely should not be there.

It’s also brighter because the smoke machine is not on. It’s clearly not the same take as in the film and the light is dimmer in the film.

Make the walls green if you want I don’t mind. but would it have been green when it was first struck and made very much doubt it. It’s probably gone green.

Things like that to me are just not worth the time of day. But I guess it’s fun if you want to watch a simulation of an old faded print add some dirt and flek and grime.

Sorry, but that’s incorrect.

Firstly, the photo is not reliable IF you assume it should not be cyan. Not every shot is filmed under neutral conditions, or color timed to be neutral. If the light is cyan, R2 will be cyan. If the light is white, but the walls are cyan, the reflected light from the walls will make R2 cyan. If the colors of the scene were altered in post-production to be cyan, R2 will be cyan. So, we simply don’t know how it was shot, or if it was retimed in post-production. The fact is both an UNFADED print, and a photo show a green tint. The green color was also confirmed by balancing the colors of a faded LPP (balancing a neutral scene, reveals the same green tint for the Leia/R2 scene). I go by the evidence, not presumptions.

Secondly, technicolor prints don’t fade, at all. They are known as “no-fade” prints, since if properly stored they last pretty much indefinitely. The Technicolor prints of Star Wars suffer from a green shift, but not to the extend, that a number of specific scenes shot with Leia in the corridor would turn green, but other scenes do not or far less green.

You say it’s not worth your time, but here you are…

DrDre said:

The green color is also not unique to the Tech print, and seems to have been in all 1977 prints. I matched the Vader arrival scene of the raw LPP scan used for the SSE to the Vader arrival scene of the Tech scan (which is a neutral scene), and the Leia/R2-D2 shot that follows looks like this (don’t mind the artifacts, the video I have is very compressed, especially in the dark areas):

This is definitely not green or even cyan light. Light does not act like this especially Green light. It’s not lit with a green filter I can tell you that much.

Ronster said:

DrDre said:

The green color is also not unique to the Tech print, and seems to have been in all 1977 prints. I matched the Vader arrival scene of the raw LPP scan used for the SSE to the Vader arrival scene of the Tech scan (which is a neutral scene), and the Leia/R2-D2 shot that follows looks like this (don’t mind the artifacts, the video I have is very compressed, especially in the dark areas):

This is definitely not green or even cyan light. Light does not act like this especially Green light. It’s not lit with a green filter I can tell you that much.

Like I said, the panels could have been green, which even when lit with neutral lighting would give the entire scene a green cast, and the green cast of the Technicolor print would exaggerate this effect. As noted before, the panels in the back look pretty neutral grey, so different color panels is an option. Secondly, the scenes could have been timed this way, either delibirately or by mistake.

nope the panels are not green, all of the green is at the bottom end of the color spectrum and green being the most luminous color would not act like this. If there was green light you would see more light on the front faces of those tanks on the wall and the red light would not pierce so precicsely through it.

by the laws of physics it’s impossible.

If they decided to make the whole bottom color range green either by accident or on purpose it looks like a mistake to me and a pretty bad one.

Thank god it does not look like that now.

Ronster said:

nope the panels are not green, all of the green is at the bottom end of the color spectrum and green being the most luminous color would not act like this. If there was green light you would see more light on the front faces of those tanks on the wall and the red light would not pierce so precicsely through it.

by the laws of physics it’s impossible.

If they decided to make the whole bottom color range green either by accident or on purpose it looks like a mistake to me and a pretty bad one.

Thank god it does not look like that now.

Sorry, but wrong again. The green is not at the bottom end of the spectrum. In fact the entire color spectrum is shifted towards green almost uniformly. If you substract 17 RGB units from the green channel, and add 10 to the blue channel across the board, this:

…becomes this:

Now, since you were arguing earlier, that this is fading, logic would dictate that other shots in the same reel would fade in almost exactly the same way. Hence the C-3PO shot I posted earlier would have to look like this with the same correction:

Does this look right? I don’t think so…

Ronster said:

nope the panels are not green, all of the green is at the bottom end of the color spectrum and green being the most luminous color would not act like this.

by the laws of physics it’s impossible.

You mean this color spectrum?

I don’t really mean to be antagonistic but, well, you’re being pretty damn antagonistic in this thread. I’m not sure why you’ve become a color expert overnight. You’re arguing about physics you surely can’t back in this thread, and you’ve started another thread where you stole the work from someone else’s color correction and claimed it as your own.

And this is coming from someone that agrees with you about the green. I don’t like it aesthetically, and I think it’s bizarre that prints look like they do. Hell, green and yellow color throughout SW 2.5 compelled me to spend a huge amount of my time tweaking it. But let’s not make claims we can’t back…

towne32 said:

Ronster said:

nope the panels are not green, all of the green is at the bottom end of the color spectrum and green being the most luminous color would not act like this.

by the laws of physics it’s impossible.

You mean this color spectrum?

I don’t really mean to be antagonistic but, well, you’re being pretty damn antagonistic in this thread. I’m not sure why you’ve become a color expert overnight. You’re arguing about physics you surely can’t back in this thread, and you’ve started another thread where you stole the work from someone else’s color correction and claimed it as your own.

And this is coming from someone that agrees with you about the green. I don’t like it aesthetically, and I think it’s bizarre that prints look like they do. Hell, green and yellow color throughout SW 2.5 compelled me to spend a huge amount of my time tweaking it. But let’s not make claims we can’t back…

No I worked with Lighting for a lot of years. Green is in the middle spectrum right. Red is right up the other end of the Spectrum to the right. That means that it has no chance of Punching through the green light so precisely from a reflection. It would punch through if the light was pointing straight at it.

It could be lit a gentle cyan gel allowing a lot of white light through but definitely not green or any sort of Lime is a bit of a stretch there.

I am not being antagonistic at all sorry If I am coming across that way. I honestly think it’s a mistake. I am not a color correction expertise extraordinaire, but I am pointing out that it’s definitely not lit green. I am trying to be helpful. I don’t know if you like or agree with what I am saying though.

If you want to believe it’s lit green I don’t mind.

Was this not the same print with the mint green walls all over the Tantive IV?

So basically by this pattern of thought all the lights had green gels in them?

I mean by power of deduction I am not sure how this is debated as some sort of mystery for so long, personally I think it is a problem with the print. If everything is green it’s unlikely the LD decided to light everything green no matter what environment they were in?

I think you can reproduce the colors of a print for fun or you may as well just have a guess and go about trying to fix it and make it look acceptable and enjoyable.

I think that is really the solution.

I don’t know the answer it does not look right though. So it probably is not right. Hold on to that.

I mean by power of deduction I am not sure how this is debated as some sort of mystery for so long, personally I think it is a problem with the print. If everything is green it’s unlikely the LD decided to light everything green no matter what environment they were in?

It’s not a problem with the print. As shown above, the color shift in the Leia/R2 scene is uniform and much larger than any shift elsewhere in the print, that may be attributed to a technicolor green shift. The only way this scene will have a neutral color, is if every other scene in the first reel is a nice shade of pink. So, like Sherlock Holmes said: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Still, photochemical timing of these specific shots to have such different color, for whatever reason, is something that isn’t ruled out, right? Whether intentional or otherwise.

towne32 said:

Still, photochemical timing of these specific shots to have such different color, for whatever reason, is something that isn’t ruled out, right? Whether intentional or otherwise.

Certainly not. Maybe Lucas wanted a different color for these shots, because he wanted to differentiate between these scenes, and the ones involving R2’s and C-3PO’s escape, to make sure the audience wouldn’t presume R2, C-3PO, and Leia were still in the same location.

Tobar said:

You know, I might have just come up with an explanation for the green cast in that shot. What if it was lit with fluorescent lights? Back then fluorescent lights usually had a bit of a green tint to them:

Just a thought.

I’m pretty sure that’s just The Matrix 😃

I think most of us would agree it looks better without the green tint, but that doesn’t mean that’s how it looked in 77. At the end of the day, what’s correct is correct whether one likes it or not. In this case, green is correct. Exactly how much green is up for debate and should probably be informed by surrounding shots.

Williarob said:

(1978 Swedish bootleg)

I don’t doubt that it was a bit green in theaters. But the bootleg (as with any amateur video from that era) has a lot of color artifacts that look green even in the black bars. Balanced out it might look a bit more mild and really not too bad at all (I think some of the balances of people’s own colorations here can look nice too even when green).

Something like this is a distinct possibility in terms of the Lighting we can see in the film set. But there are no lights directly behind the camera.

I’m willing to concede that the flood light is Cyan and lighting the Corridor punching through the Red Lights making them look pink.

I don’t know if this is acceptable as you will argue that if you apply the settings I used here to another shot will mean that it can not be possible and by logic that this one is wrong because another shot will look the wrong color.

I think you need to accept that some shots in the film no matter what reel they are in depending on who filmed it are totally up the spout. That’s not an attack or anything A reel of film is assembled from many different camera shots and some of those a few particular offenders are wrong no matter what version of the film you watch.

But I am willing to concede that it could be Cyan from the floodlight no more than this as it is not possible any other way.

In all honestly If you apply the same logic to the Jumpsuits of the Rebel Pilots some of them are bright pink in the Original film no doubt in your Technicolor print too. So that means they put Luke in a Pink flight suit for Kicks for a few shots or they thought they would randomly swap the color of the costumes about for a laugh or something. I think you need to just accept it’s got issues with it and perhaps resolving them or reproducing them is a one way or the other approach.

I don’t know what the purpose is really or the point it’s either Green walls or not Green walls there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to accepting anything else but I’ll try and provide you with this alternative which no doubt you will reject.

Old Floodlights were always a very Cyan white so this would make sense it’s clearly a floodlight too.

I would say there is a similar Floodlight the other end of the corridor providing the light on the front face of the panels.

This is the only other option in my eyes. But even then it would not be that Cyan either and the floodlight has no Gel in it.

Well, here is one thing I noticed. That green tint is not only the lighted areas, but the shadows. And there is a huge difference between the still from the film and that on set photo. In the still from the film, the set behind Leia and R2 is more neutral. In the on set photo, the set is the same color as the foreground. It is also not lit the same and the smoke machine is not on. That means it was from a very different take or a rehearsal.

What I think has happened is not that the original shot was intended to be so green, but that there was a slight green cast to it and the process of O-neg to interprositive to internegative to print and the process of O-neg to color separation to Tech print both amplified the green cast to those scenes. That would explain why the interpositive struck in 1985 and used for the LD DE and GOUT lacks that green (not that they corrected for it, but that it wasn’t there).

So, for those after what the prints originally looked like, the green must stay. For those after what the interprositive and first generation prints would look like, the green is an error. The green also only seems to affect the darker and grayer colors. An adjustment to the green curve reduces the green (including in Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers guns in nearby scenes) and looks much better. So it isn’t an overall green tint, it is in a very specific range and it is in more than just these back corridor scenes as it impacts other dark features as well. So if you correct for the green in the dark areas only, it does not turn the corridors of the Tantive IV magenta.

Also, as to the color of red… today we have an abundance of LED lighting. Red LED’s are not necissarily the red we are used to. Incandescent red was never pure red. It has sort of an orangey cast to it. It is basically a slightly yellow light behind a red filter. All the red lights, such as instrument panels and wall details, should have that orangey tone rather than leaning toward the magenta like the Blu-ray does. From the reflections, this shot of Leia and R2 should definitely be more orangey red.

NeverarGreat said:

I should also mention that this part of the film has been completed and rendered for quite some time, so it’s not like I’m going to go back and work on it again. You’re welcome to continue debating the intricacies of color grading and production lighting in this shot, but I don’t really see the point now. 😃

I think there are interesting points on both sides, and we have pretty much said all that needs to be said. Though it would be interesting to hear from Poita or Mike Verta (if he ever came back) about these shots.

I’m more interested in the blue Rancor at this point anyway. 😛

Oke, here we go. Here are four frames of different scenes in close proximity of the raw scan of the LPP used to create the SSE. For those that don’t know this, this is not a technicolor print:

Now, even for the raw scan, that is clearly blue shifted, it is pretty obvious, that the Leia/R2 corridor scene is green. However to make things more clear, I balance the Darth Vader shot (no match to the technicolor print), such that the stormtroopers, and the walls are white, and Darth Vader black (remember Mike Verta maintains the walls are slightly mint colored, so I’m actually overcompensating for any green shifts):

Now I use the color balancing LUT to correct the other frames:

I rest my case. Delibirate or not, the Leia/R2 corridor scene was definitely green for 1977 prints, technicolor or otherwise.

Ronster said:

R2-D2 is not Cyan

And if a photo like that is really Cyan and green it’s not really reliable. But it is now a better indicator once you remove all the color that absolutely should not be there.

It’s also brighter because the smoke machine is not on. It’s clearly not the same take as in the film and the light is dimmer in the film.

Make the walls green if you want I don’t mind. but would it have been green when it was first struck and made very much doubt it. It’s probably gone green.

Things like that to me are just not worth the time of day. But I guess it’s fun if you want to watch a simulation of an old faded print add some dirt and flek and grime.

There is a very definite problem with fluctuating color hues at least at the end of the film. Not sure about this part the lights Red anyway.

That almost shows me they wanted the scenes graded with a bit of green or they might have actually used a green light.

Taking Towne’s comment into consideration I removed a bit of green to neutralize the black bars then adjusted the gamma of the image of the swedish bootleg:

2nd Edit: Just read Neverargreat’s comment. Sorry! Since it was seemingly changed for the 1997SE release really one could say both colors are “official”. 😃

It looks fine being green walls and dark. They don’t look very green at all they are in the shadow.

This is a case of something being over bright I don’t understand the fuss now at all. I thought you were saying the walls should be bright green?

Like in the Technicolor print…

With the stills you posted previously now you post these and I really am struggling with where this is going.

I am sorry Neverar Great I agree with the Grotbags lighting witches and so on. But now It’s very clear that it’s shadow green from the Cyan light.

I think you could just as easily leave the shot uncorrected and I personally would not notice too much difference between what is available today and the print you just posted uncorrected on that shot. There is very little difference at all. A bit of green in the shadow.

If however it looked like the Technicolor print well do you think the technicolor print is over bright?

it certainly looks that way then to me and that would explain things or at least clear this up as green shadow from cyan floodlight yeah no problems.

Williarob said:

It was green in '77, but revised when the telecines were created for home video. Then we watched it this way for the next 35 years so that’s how we expect it to look - interestingly, the 35mm 1997 SE print has the same revised color timing on this shot as the home video releases:

But it wasn’t like that in Theaters:

(1978 Swedish bootleg)
When you correct this image for the black levels, the green goes away and the set looks gray with yellow discoloration. Definitely more yellow to this image than green. And the Technicolor samples I have match this trend when you correct for the black levels and account for the known green hue. I think the 35mm scans should be greenish, I just think they are far too green.