Theater Performance Preservations — Page 6

none said:

zombie84 wrote:

I couldn't say whether its the detail level or the softness on the edges, but something about this just looks like a 16mm print to me.

The softness/details level could be a factor of the digitization. The Moth3r source is ~9gb while Catnap is ~3.5.

It's not the softness of the transfer. The transfer itself looks quite good. Its the print itself. It's hard to define in a tangible way, but when you've seen enough 16mm you start to notice the 16mm "look." Also, the hairs on the cap of the 3P0 desert shot are obscenely large, so it would make sense if the frame was 16mm in size.

As to "why do bars, professional telecine, etc."...why not? The guy had access to a professional telecine machine. Maybe he worked at a television station or a lab, or knew someone there. It wasn't really feasible to do your own telecine without having access to the legit equipment. It is also standard practice to roll colour bars at the head of every tape, whether it is shooting to video or transfering to video. In commercial versions this gets edited out of course, but pretty much every professional video tape has colour bars at the head.

The blue shift, who knows, its pretty mild and its the sort of thing that can happen when copying different generations of tapes. Just look at the Starkiller tape, which is about 20 generations higher than this one, flesh tones have become yellow and all sorts of weird colour shifts are appearing. It could also have originated in the telecine, maybe it wasn't colour timed perfectly or there was some fading that they tried to counteract, and then the video copying exaggerated it a bit. Even though the tape quality is very good, this clearly isn't the original master, it's been copied from another VHS at least once. You should also check the reels individually and see if it is a reel-by-reel problem: if you pay attention to films, you will notice that each reel prints differently, with different qualities. One reel might be more yellow-shifted, the next more green-shifted, the next might have less contrast or more brightness. It's a subtle thing, but no two reels will ever print exactly the same.

Also, that smear mark looks like it's a gluestain, but not from a splice. It appears to be a torn frame that was patched back together. Normally you just cut these out, but I guess this one was small enough to be repairable.

Finally, as to disqualification of the (apparently) 16mm Catnap print, while obviously this isn't a "theatrical performance" (i.e. live from a theatre), this seems a bit harsh. Number one, none of the SW video bootlegs are from an actual theatrical performance as far as I am aware (unlike the audio recordings), they are just film prints photographed or telecined. You could argue that these prints represent what people would have been seeing on the screen, even though this doesn't actually capture that process live, but by the same token the 16mm is just a copy of these anyway, so it is virtually the same in a preservationist sense (at least when dealing with VHS quality). I realise there is a technical difference, but in a practical sense it is an "original 1977 film source", and I think that is the ultimate point of this collection, so if it does not qualify technically then it ought to qualify as a supplement.

zombie84 wrote:

Also, the hairs on the cap of the 3P0 desert shot are obscenely large, so it would make sense if the frame was 16mm in size.

This sounds like 'Strike 2' in the Case of 'Is Catnap 16mm?'  So now it seems more appropriate to ask a different line of questions to it's source.  Maybe we can learn 'when' this transfer might have occured which would be helpful.

Finally, as to disqualification of the (apparently) 16mm Catnap print, while obviously this isn't a "theatrical performance" (i.e. live from a theatre), this seems a bit harsh.

Agree, having the discussion focus on what can be learned from these sources over if they fill out some desired set is where i'd rather see discussion go.  This thread will most likely shift in focus, more on the annecdotal stories of people and their 'copies'.  Star Wars and piracy has fascinated me, and there are the Variety article horror stories, way back in the 70s, yet very few copies have surfaced and discussion of people having actually seen one is also limited.  Need to take this out of this forum into other places to collect stories.  that aside.

Comparing Satanika's pencil marked frame to the MeBeJedi/Starkiller one, the size stands out.  The MBD/SK reminds me of grease pencil or a paint brush with a mild acetone and it's de-colored the film.  But if this was an original full framed source, why mark it just for a video transfer?  The mark could have been done off frame.  Doesn't make sense to have transfered each reel to video then edit them afterwards using these markers as guides.  Does the mark size lead towards again a 16mm, as the hair does for Catnap?

And on the msycamore Puggo's "Stjärnornas Krig" - Swedish 16mm pict why blow out the burn?  The PuggoGrande has it similar to Moth3r's source, slight yellow ring.  I guess maybe the guy doing the subs might have chosen burns which were in darker frame areas and enchanced them?

Added Starkiller and PuggoKrig to the Reel Change picts:

http://fd.noneinc.com/Reel_Changes/Reel_Changes.html

Not apparent from the screen caps, the Starkiller brown markers have a sense of motion to them, so thinking might they have shoved a pencil quickly into the frame, so we're seeing a shadow?

Some of the Starkiller markers share the blown out PuggoKrig pattern:

Starkiller 5-6 In

Starkiller 5-6 Out

So is the blown out/expanded/redrawn burn marks a sign of 16mm?

On Puggo's version there are only three reels and reel 3 begins in the trash compactor and goes all the way until the end of the film. I assume that all 16mm prints must have had the same reel numbers and lengths, right? I haven't seen the Swedish version yet. Is it confirmed that this a reel change, or is it just damage? If it is not a new reel, then the ones on Starkiller wouldn't be 16mm changeover marks. In fact, they almost look like holes punched through the film the way they are white like that. Are they in the exact same spot for multiple frames? Changover marks are printed in and will remain fixed, if that just appears for a single frame each it's more likely print damage (the shape of the "hole" is even different in those two screenshots, and it looks very organically shaped, rather than the more deliberate cue marks you usually see).

Are they in the exact same spot for multiple frames?

Same location, multiple frames, but there is variation (of this white feature) between frames.

Right now this Extra Whiteness marker occurs in:
Starkiller - Reel Change 4_5 & 5_6 (the other change points have the brown thing)
PuggoKrig - Reel Change 5_6

*EDIT*

Reading the wiki entry on 'Cue_mark's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark

an 'unverified' tidbit about the 'restored' SW.  Which I guess means SE.

In the days of Three-Strip Technicolor, and successive exposure Technicolor cartoons, where separate silver images were available, it was not uncommon to apply two punches, one being larger and circular and the other being smaller and "serrated", with these being done in contrasting colors. In perhaps an homage to Three-Strip Technicolor, when "Star Wars" was restored, its conventional circular cues were replaced by "serrated" Technicolor-type cues on selected reels by the restorer.

*EDIT*

Going off of the suggestion in the next post:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.tech/browse_thread/thread/caab4a2cd02e9d9/f63f5a1ee0b87405?hl=en&q=star+wars+cue+marks#f63f5a1ee0b87405

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.tech/browse_thread/thread/d3caf9fea50e1aa2/2bde61e8188dbe11?hl=en&q=star+wars+cue+marks#2bde61e8188dbe11

~ Remember, the cue is elliptical because it got stretched
~by the lens, too.  It's actually a "star" shape.  Cues
~on old Disney animation used to be that way, too (I recall
~seeing such cues on FANTASIA in 1990).

The "Star" cues were unique to Technicolor prints.  They were usually
magenta in color as they were etched into the magenta (of YCM renown)
record.

The technicolor star-shaped cue marks are identified in Usenet posts from 1997 where multiple people say they noticed these.

zombie84 said:

Finally, as to disqualification of the (apparently) 16mm Catnap print, while obviously this isn't a "theatrical performance" (i.e. live from a theatre), this seems a bit harsh.

I actually think that it only should be disqualified if it is a modern telecine. I believe that if the Catnap is indeed an old telecine and one that was bootlegged in the late 1970's/early 1980's. then it shouldn't be disqualified from this thread. If it is a modern telecine, I would disqualify it on the basis that you don't see the more modern telecine preservations in this thread, such as the Puggo Grande. Just my two cents...

Ripplin said:

skyjedi2005 said:

Or the scenes from that ben burrt documentary redone from a new hope in imax by ILM, done in 70mm using a special camera by Dennis Muren.

I would love to see the whole thing again but i'm starting to think it'll never be played again!

You're probably right. There seem to be quite a few things that we'll never see again (or at least until the distribution rights for Star Wars are no longer controlled by Lucas)... this, the Attack of the Clones IMAX cut, the Empire Strikes Back 70mm version (although this could feasibly pop up as a 16mm version somewhere), and of course the version of Star Wars that showed on opening day that many people claimed had a certain grappling hook missing...(though I don't necessarily believe this actually existed). But, I digress...