a new hope, adding visual effects, emotion and more character (a WIP)

I’m a star wars heathen. no purist here.

Got some ideas… learnt some things from doing captain marvel. decided to experiment. using my bluray UHD source and regrading it to my liking. adding some visual effects.

I might introduce some deleted scenes if I can clean them up well enough for my liking. also, if I can figure out how to edit them well. the dialogue is a little aimless…

want to make Darth Vader more imposing and I want to make the characters more well rounded and more prominent, and want to reduce the presence of the droids. I can’t empathise with droids and I think it’s why I personally find this movie to be a bit boring.

in case you don’t notice some things…

• I’m colour matching the tantive IV interior to the scenes from Rogue one, which I plan to include.
• I added a sunset to the scenes in the moisture farm.
• I restored the mountains the the dual sunset. it was really sloppy of them to just remove the mountains, it was a really beautiful shot and they trashed it.
• I adjusted smarmy imp’s complexion to match the fact he is choking.
• I added smog/haze to mos eisley
• I did some stuff to try and improve the horrible CG closeup of a beast thing.
• I did some adjustments to Leia’s skin tone to try and enhance her emotions.
• I added mood lighting to the weapon startup sequence. so romantic now. 🥰
• made alderaan look somewhat hot before it explodes.
• gave the death star an actual shadow that is cast on hte millenium falcon as it approaches. .

May I have a link, please? I’m trying to do something similar with ANH.

I’m sorry what do you mean? this is a work in progress. 😃

these screenshots are highlights of the adjustments I’ve done so far.
after I’ve done a colour grade and fx pass, I will be moving onto editing.

Lol, I’m sorry, I didn’t read that. Anyway, interesting project 😄

I’ve prepared a video demo of the most notable parts so far.

https://vimeo.com/537227874

I’d never heard about mountains being removed from that shot, and a quick google didn’t turn anything up - were there originally mountains in it that they removed?

Yes there were ^^

this page documents all the changes from theatrical to bluray. https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMh7UH0DbCPGxQyEOdmfmYiFnh3lgoBNNLCPnHTQnvyCtXQnScSo8L_vR3x6A9y_Q?key=aDFfLXE3clp4SldVcndkalc3UjJ4UlU2ZUlDb0JB

Woah, I actually felt physical discomfort seeing Motti’s face go red as he was choked! In other words, what you were going for with that effect worked. 😄

Also, I never, after having seen this film a million times, ever noticed that the time of day changes from when Luke is at the dining room table to outside looking at the suns! 😮

Something I’ve learned from color correction is that even if you’re changing the time of day to be much darker, it’s important to retain close to full brightness in some parts of the image, such as with artificial lights or simply keeping the highlights at the same level while lowering the overall gamma. Without these considerations, scenes can quickly go to looking like there’s a mistake with the monitor rather than an intentional effect, something I’ve done many times. I see some of this creeping into the Lars dinner shots and the Imperial conference, for example. Finding some places to keep a strong light source would really sell these shots.

triadne said:

Yes there were ^^

this page documents all the changes from theatrical to bluray. https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMh7UH0DbCPGxQyEOdmfmYiFnh3lgoBNNLCPnHTQnvyCtXQnScSo8L_vR3x6A9y_Q?key=aDFfLXE3clp4SldVcndkalc3UjJ4UlU2ZUlDb0JB

This is fascinating to scroll through. I’ve seen the Despecialised Edition more times than I could count and I never consciously noticed the mountain.

Chase Adams said:

Woah, I actually felt physical discomfort seeing Motti’s face go red as he was choked! In other words, what you were going for with that effect worked. 😄

that’s so encouraging, thanks!!

NeverarGreat said:

Something I’ve learned from color correction is that even if you’re changing the time of day to be much darker, it’s important to retain close to full brightness in some parts of the image, such as with artificial lights or simply keeping the highlights at the same level while lowering the overall gamma. Without these considerations, scenes can quickly go to looking like there’s a mistake with the monitor rather than an intentional effect, something I’ve done many times. I see some of this creeping into the Lars dinner shots and the Imperial conference, for example. Finding some places to keep a strong light source would really sell these shots.

hmm… ok well this is hard to hear… because doing custom lighting is not easy!!! ok after a few failed attempts at simulating an indoor light shining on the cups etc. i came up with this idea. I think it works rather well! thank you for the tip!! any ideas for what to do with the conference room? to be frank, I want it all darkened due to Vader’s oppressive power.
!

TestingOutTheTest said:

Do you plan on doing the same for TESB and RotJ?

uhm… I’m going to say no, strictly on the basis that; if I were to say yes, or to entertain the idea at all, I am liable to start to feel very overwhelmed. That’s not to say I never will… Just need to focus on what’s in front of me right now.

I think a lot of the technical changes you plan for here sound really sensible.

Intending for this to be helpful feedback rather than criticism, however, personally I have a couple of issues with the colour grade which you might want to look into. Firstly, to me, your grading looks like it’s putting a brown/grey filter over everything, which I think is detrimental. Secondly, I think the filter is particularly affecting your human fleshtones, which I think look quite pallid, giving the characters pale skin and pinkness around the eyes.

As I say - not intending to criticise your work at all, merely offering that up in case it helps you tweak to achieve your desired effect.

Building on what EddieDean said, I suggest you should calibrate your monitor to a pretty good and somewhat accurate color-space if you are planning on color grading or color-matching shots. I feel like certain scenes make characters look really different, in the case of C-3PO, he looks more bronze than his gold colour. I’m simply giving constructive advice and hope for the best in what you will achieve for.

Artan42 said:

Maybe brighten up those recessed lights slightly and make them more blue than white. You’ll still have the darkened foreground but it might be easier to see into the room.

Thanks for the idea 😃
I’ve been very careful not to blow up the lights too bright throughout what I’ve done so far. I despise flat lights XD
In this scene too, I feel it would introduce too much contrast, where my goal was to keep the contrast at what I feel is a comfortable level. I have been thinking on this though and I realised that the only parts of this scene I have shown are those parts where vader’s power has caused the lights to dim. here is a screenshot of the very start of this scene. I hope this allays any concerns about the grade for this scene.

EddieDean said:

I think a lot of the technical changes you plan for here sound really sensible.

Intending for this to be helpful feedback rather than criticism, however, personally I have a couple of issues with the colour grade which you might want to look into. Firstly, to me, your grading looks like it’s putting a brown/grey filter over everything, which I think is detrimental. Secondly, I think the filter is particularly affecting your human fleshtones, which I think look quite pallid, giving the characters pale skin and pinkness around the eyes.

As I say - not intending to criticise your work at all, merely offering that up in case it helps you tweak to achieve your desired effect.

There’s nothing wrong with criticism, it helps us all learn and grow. 😃
Thanks for your view on this. I have to say first off that there’s most certainly a lot more work gone into this and I’m sure your intention was not to downplay that at all, but I feel I need to show the HDR source I am working from.

from the HDR source, I apply a LUT that feels right to me, then I grad from there based purely on my memories of a Ralph McQuarrie artbook I used to own and also based on my own artistic choices and knowledge of how light works in real life.

I’m not discounting your observation, in fact I have shared your concern at times. It’s a fine line to walk though. at occasions during this process, i put the theatrical release on and have a look and i also put on the special edition and have a look. I feel like the theatrical looks better and the special edition looks garish and flat in places. This could just be a matter of taste.

yes, in some places it will look somewhat brown, but usually this is down to ambient light. a desert is brown so ambient light will be brown. good colour balance of a photograph would require the other colours to be muted, to create a gentle aesthetic.
Up to this point I’ve shown a desert planet and a dark space station with cold lighting. I’m looking forward to getting to yavin as I will be dealing with a very different environment and some different colours.
I hope you understand my process and I’d love to hear any further thoughts you have based on this.

Dat_SW_Guy said:

Building on what EddieDean said, I suggest you should calibrate your monitor to a pretty good and somewhat accurate color-space if you are planning on color grading or color-matching shots. I feel like certain scenes make characters look really different, in the case of C-3PO, he looks more bronze than his gold colour. I’m simply giving constructive advice and hope for the best in what you will achieve for.

Thanks. yes calibration is important. I’ve gone to great lengths to calibrate my two screens. in actuality the TV has slightly lighter dark tones and a bit more saturation in the orange hues. to most people looking at a test card, the differences are imperceptible. I haven’t seen anyone mention the mask edge that is visible in that admirals hair while he is choking, as it’s not visible on my monitor but is visible on my TV it’s annoying, but when I look at calibration images, I literally can’t see the difference. It’s something I just have to live with.

About C3PO… he is gold and shiny and I don’t like it. I deliberately tone down the shiny yellow areas because damn it all, by my decree he will be dull. 😆
Lucas made the decision part way through production that the droids will be the main characters. I reject that notion, so I will attac C3PO and his bling. Sorry, this the way of the heathen ^^

triadne said:
Snip

Oh that’s excellent then, I’m very glad it’s artistic choice. And bringing it closer to McQuarrie’s art is a really awesome goal, because his art has that mystical/wistful/adventurous aesthetic that the execution has often failed to capture, or that the franchise aesthetic has tended away from since, so it’d be wonderful if you manage to achieve something closer to that.

Congratulations on all of the significant effort so far, and good luck with the rest!

sorry I couldn’t resist XD

https://vimeo.com/539695588

hi all,
I’ve completed the preliminary colour grade.
This is what I will be editing with and so is the general flavour of my edit going forwards. i will still be grading some more after edits, of course.

here is a gallery of over 150 images. https://imgur.com/a/D99vBRH

here is an image of the final scene.

Hi triadne - the link your imgur gallery doesn’t seem to be working.

(though love the vimeo link in the post above it - that works very well 👍)
 

Oh no! sorry about that!! it seems the upload completely failed.
I just uploaded all the images one by one, so hopefully this works now!

https://imgur.com/a/D99vBRH

Thanks ^^

thank you ^^

was there anything in particular you didn’t like about the later parts? or is it just a case of, they were fine or you didn’t bother to look that far (there are an awful lot of them XD )