The Original Trilogy restored from 35mm prints (a WIP) — Page 12

dahmage said:

go ahead and do it! i already did

Excellent. And I just donated 50.

Poita, your paypal page has US Dollars as standard, but it allows us to select Australian Dollars too. Or maybe someone else has experience of this? Which should I send? I just want to make the right choice so there’s no loss your end with currency conversions.

poita said:

I normally don’t respond to that kind of thing, but to stop any speculation, here is Reel1 of the UK print with sprockets, soundtrack and audio.

https://infinit.io/_/37sQqAm

You ROCK Poita.

RU.08 said:
… what if we paid to fly him out to the scanner instead?

Dreamaster said:

poita said:

I normally don’t respond to that kind of thing, but to stop any speculation, here is Reel1 of the UK print with sprockets, soundtrack and audio.

https://infinit.io/_/37sQqAm

You ROCK Poita.

What a terrible Chewbacca.

Sasquatch maybe…

Just given $50 which is all I can afford at the present. May be able to sponsor a reel* in the new year.

*Great idea by the way. 😃

A quick note on colour and contrast, I’m not looking at a calibrated monitor, however, the German print looks very similar to (if not quite so blue as) Puggo Strikes Back, which I think has the best Empire colours I’ve seen.

poita said:

RU.08 said:

Question - you said it could be scanned if you brought the scanner to him - what if we paid to fly him out to the scanner instead? If that were possible it’d cost a lot less, but then again I suppose he may not be able to keep the film as check baggage which would an issue.

The issue is that he won’t take the film out of his storage room except to watch it, and then it goes straight back into cold storage again.

so wait for winter? :p

poita said:

SkyderHouseMafia said:

dahmage said:

poita said:

RU.08 said:

Question - you said it could be scanned if you brought the scanner to him - what if we paid to fly him out to the scanner instead? If that were possible it’d cost a lot less, but then again I suppose he may not be able to keep the film as check baggage which would an issue.

The issue is that he won’t take the film out of his storage room except to watch it, and then it goes straight back into cold storage again.

so wait for winter? :p

“Queensland” :p

Exactly.

Winter is not coming 😃

Hah. good point. i guess we wait to destroy the climate then.

yay!

poita said:

Thanks to everyone here, there is now enough to get Reel2 done.

Great news. 😃

poita said:

Reel2 has been sent for cleaning 😃

excellent 😃

Thanks brother…

Great news! Empire is finally getting the attention it deserves! Too bad about the Australian print. I understand his reasoning though. I wouldn’t want to risk losing a one-of-a-kind print in the shipping process either. At least the faded prints are salvageable.

Poita, do you know any details about the ultrasonic cleaning? I’ve heard of cleaning with filmguard to clean film and help offset vinegar syndrome, but not the ultrasonic cleaning.

One of the reasons the UK print might be less faded is just that a different lab with a higher standard of printing made it. I’ve seen Kodak prints that have barely faded because they were properly processed, fixed, and washed. Not Kodachrome or IB Tech prints. There were so many labs back in the day that weren’t keeping up with Kodak’s specification of quality control. Combine the fact that Kodak’s old stocks naturally break down because of dye stability, that so many labs might have had less than high quality development procedures, and that many people don’t store films properly in cold storage, it’s no wonder why so many prints are faded.
I know from C-41 still film color developing that the process is very exact and even running the developing solutions at the wrong temperature can produce what may look like an acceptable negative, but can have issues with dye stability down the road. Not to mention who knows if the labs were using diluted chemicals that had gone past their shelf life (color developing chemicals have a very short shelf life and need to be diluted and mixed fresh right before developing the film.

The Doctor Who restoration team has used ultra-sonic cleaning on the recovered film reels of missing episodes. These are B&W prints from the mid 60’s so a bit older than than film prints being used here and definitely with vinegar syndrome. It is safe and very effective. The results have been amazing. Definitely worth the time and effort for the OT prints.