Star Wars Prequels 35mm 4K Filmized Editions by Emanswfan (a WIP) — Page 23

DavidMerrick said:

Erik Pancakes said:

I like both, actually. Makes the shot feel more like a '70s/'80s matte painting and less like CGI.

Granted, it doesn't make the shot look realistic, either, but still - I like the matte painting look.

 I just thought of a silly idea for a fan edit--part of a fan edit, rather: putting fake garbage mattes around the various ships. Actually, it's got me thinking about ways one could old-ify modern effects.

 Hey, throw in some matte lines too and I'd be all over that :)

Now I'm just going down a deep mental rabbit hole: removing the CG characters from the picture, basically halving their animation frames, and compositing them back in so they have that stop-motion jitteriness. And yes, matte lines.

But now I'm getting sidetracked. This is about regrading the look of the prequels, not going full Ray Harryhausen on them.

So..... you know..... any update soon?

Sorry for not replying sooner.

Recently I've started to transfer my workflow from my 7 year old Windows computer (which was considered very powerful in its day) to my new high performance 15 inch Macbook Pro.  It's a gigantic step up in terms of performance, that I honestly REALLY needed for this project.  Apparently OS X's new version in the fall will also introduce a new graphics engine that should multiply AE's power quite a large amount as well.  CC 2015 just released the other day, so I'll see how that might improve things as well.

I've been busy with several official projects, that it has slowed me down a bit, but for now I seem to be relatively free, though I currently am on vacation atm.

After I finish reinstalling all the stuff I need on OS X and figuring out the best way of managing the storage necessary, I'll put out a new video clip for download, specifically in 4K to garner whether it would be worth it.

I am going to be trying very hard to get it accomplished by the release of TFA.

Also, I couldn't remember if I had asked this before, but are the PAL releases of PT deleted scenes are natively higher res, or simply upscales from the NTSC.  I misplaced my current DVD's, so I was going to have to get a new set, ugh.

Thanks for the update :D

Will be waiting for that clip :)

Hal 9000 said:

Good to hear. I recently moved from a 7 year old machine to a 15" MacBook Pro myself! 

So, are you hoping to finish your PT regrade by the time TFA debuts, or were you referring to test clips? 

 the entire PT regrade.  Much of what I've been doing over the last several months was making documents to cover notes on color issues, possible creative decisions, and intended looks and reference images from various films/etc.  This is so I can more easily assess the project as a whole, and allows various iterations to keep to a consistent goal.

Each movie has their own issues, and vary greatly in their color grades, which I am trying to equalize out as much as possible.

I hope that this project can be something that can satisfy people's thirst for SW while we wait, and hopefully these films feel completely different from the official Bluray releases.

One note is that I am trying to optimize the footage to simply look like something that was shot on film, and while there is plenty that looks better in OOT color, there are also lot of places where more modern grading actually makes stuff look better/more real.  I am trying to make a healthy hybrid, that simply chooses colors that work best for the scenes, and help to add some emotion to scenes devoid of it because of bland, uncreative, or innacurate colors.

I've said this before, but with all the work I've put into it so far, I find it extremely hard to agree with someone who thinks the PT looks beautiful, and especially has a good BD transfer.

Harmy said:

CC15 sucks! Hopefully, they will fix it in time but for now, I reinstalled CC14.

 Hmm, why you say that?  I'm just wondering, I haven't even downloaded the new update yet since I'm not on vacation right now.

I've taken a look at a lot of these examples and they're fascinating. Admittedly I did not look through each page - any video clips of finished scenes like this? I'd be particularly interested in the Naboo one from AotC that you said would look fantastic years back. The grain looks absolutely amazing. Grading is good and reminds me of that sort of almost oddly tinted look TPM had. I appreciated that look and its being on film/color is probably the main reason the CG looks somehow better than AotC, unless ILM just gave up with that one. I hope your hybrid look comes out nicely, as I feel many of the old changes while nice de-saturated or removed some character from certain settings and you seem to have made many revisions. 

I have been working on edits for a while now with RotJ and RotS having the furthest progress. Your work ethic with this is amazing - while I'm doing some color correction with RotS, I could never go to these kinds of lengths to give it a "filmized" look as the edit is self-contained, not merged with any other prequel, and unlike AotC with its horrible DNR the picture is great. Since I plan to merge TPM with AotC if I use any of it at all, something like what you're doing here will be absolutely necessary. I still don't know how a brand new transfer of TPM yielded a picture just slightly less blurry than AotC when it probably should have looked the best of them all, (the entire blu-ray set and the disparity between picture quality is confusing) but it nevertheless is distinctly film.

These screenshots look great! As a fan of the prequels (although I like the OT more), it's especially great. The visuals have been the main thing that I disliked about the films. I also have some minor ideas for visual changes if you don't mind. This would be changing the Imperial Guards from red to blue and to update the Star Destroyers to look more like they did earlier in the film, so it seems like there's less of a sudden change. Other things I could think of would be to change the line, "she lost the will to live" to "an unknown force has killed her" or something.

Not putting pressure or anything but... this will get done until TFA?

hundsdorfex said:

Not putting pressure or anything but... this will get done until TFA?

 I am getting this done at the most efficient pace I can.  When I first started this project ages ago, I had did not have much video work outside of hobbying.  Now, that's not the case anymore so my schedule can be a bit more busy.  I'm trying my best to get the project done pre-TFA, and if not by the theatrical release, at least by the DVD/Bluray release in time for marathon viewing with appropriate fan-edits.

Just a question, would people be open to reviewing workprints of the grades whenever that come to be?  They'd probably be 9gb 1080p mkv formats, to save online storage space (and quicker uploads/downloads) since they'd not be final.  I really want to make sure any discomforts with certain color aspects are resolved to make sure the final version is truly the final version.

I'm going to release the AOTC diner scene soon, once I can figure out some more tweaks.  It's probably one of the worst looking scenes in the PT, so I want to ensure people don't still have complaints about the look of it.  It's honestly been a pain working on that one, especially since the Blu-ray tint made it even more annoying.

Hal 9000 said:

Count me in.

 Me too!

hundsdorfex said:

Hal 9000 said:

Count me in.

 Me too!

 Messa threee! 

Me four!

The good thing about the diner scene is that no editor worth a damn is going to keep that in. I'm still interested to see what you did with it though.

I'd also be willing to give feedback on grades when the time comes.

Someone earlier in this thread said that you should try slowing down the framerates of CGI characters to make them look like stopmotion. If possible, I'd suggest you do that for Battle Droids exclusively, given their skeleton-like appearance. (Skeletons being the most famous stopmotion + live action characters ever.)

For the opening sequence, can you use the Despecialized Fox and Lucasfilms logos? That'd really change the mood. :P