- Time
- (Edited)
- Post link
https://vimeo.com/845633728
https://vimeo.com/845756246
Hey everyone! I’ve always wanted to try my hand at regrading the prequels for years, but after multiple attempts, I kept finding myself brushing up against the limitations of 8bit SDR source footage. I’ve followed a handful of different projects here over the years and have always been really interested in the edits that attempt to regrade the prequels with a more filmic vibe. But I never really found one that matched 100% with the ideas I had in my head. So, with the recent 4K HDR release of these movies, I figured there was no better time than now to attempt this again. And I feel good enough about my progress so far that I wanted to share it with y’all!
My main goal with this edit is to give the movie a more dramatic and visually pleasing (to me at least) color palette. I was never really a big fan of the color grading done on the prequels (specifically AOTC and ROTS). One of the issues with AOTC and ROTS is that they were shot digitally and mastered at 2K (TPM was shot on film, but still mastered at 2K. And I believe the 4K transfer is still an upscale of the 2k master, just like AOTC and ROTS). The picture is just way too sharp imo and just further contributes to the “clean and sterile” look we often associate the prequels with. Using my 4K disc as a source, I ran the movie through Topaz Video AI to try and bring back some detail and de-alias the picture a bit. This also helped maintain details in the image after I then went in and softened it up a tiny bit.
I’ve also added some subtle effects throughout the movie. There’s some halation going on, light bleed, tilt-shift blur, chromatic aberration, a faint vignette, a barely noticeable flicker effect, film grain, and some other stuff happening here that help sell the look I’m going for.
The biggest issue for me with this project has been getting the skin tones honed in properly. I’ve definitely made some progress in that area, but I’m still working on that. I’m by no means a professional, so if y’all have any suggestions on what I can do to improve, my ears are open!
This is still very much a work in progress, but I threw together some videos with what I’ve done so far here:
https://vimeo.com/845633728
https://vimeo.com/845756246
Also I wanna point out that this video was exported in HDR and then uploaded to Vimeo, where it then gets converted down to SDR. So I’m not sure to what extent that affects the color reproduction in the video on Vimeo. The oranges look a little too red/pink to me when watching back on Vimeo.
I’d love to hear what you all think!
