BoingoBanshee

simps said:

TristAndShout64 said:

I’m sorry everybody- but I’m refunding everybody who I haven’t sent the scan to yet.

This project has gotten uncomfortably big for me and I am obsessively paranoid about copyright issues, so I don’t want the final scan to become as widespread as I predict it to become.

I have found a large chunk of people in this community to be incredibly rude, disrespectful, and entirely ignorant of how dangerous it is to share these sorts of things on a widespread scale, and I don’t wish to associate with it any longer except for in as private of a context as possible.

The leaks that happened not too long ago have eliminated just about any trust I have for the majority of this community, and therefore I am no longer comfortable sending this film to so many people. This is a big reason as to why I have been stalling ever since the print got scanned- though the busy nature of my personal life certainly hasn’t helped.

Also, I hate to say it- but with where I am in life currently, I do NOT have the mental capacity to deal with this caliber of shit. It has become more stressful than fun at this point. I raised far more money than I ended up needing, so I feel that this is ultimately the right thing to do.

I have already refunded everybody on PayPal (except for a VERY small, as in single-digit, number of people who I trust), something to the tune of $500 total. The full scan will not be sent to anybody who hasn’t received it already, and I don’t recommend DMing me asking if you can donate or get the scan or have your donation back or anything along those lines, because I’m not going to respond. Clips of the scan may be uploaded to YouTube at some point, but only to an extent that doesn’t potentially incur any wrath from a certain large, soulless corporation that happens to own the film and all IPs within it.

My apologies to anybody who is disappointed by this. I started out extremely excited about the prospect of doing this project and sharing it with everybody who helped out- and in the end, I am extremely satisfied with how the scan looks, and I hope to share it in some capacity in the near or distant future. A lot of you were really cool when I messaged you and have been super patient, so I’m sorry that this is the way it has to be. Still, I need to put my real life before my life on the Internet, and this has simply become too much for me, so I’ve finally decided that this is what I must do.

If you’re depressed about all of this, just remember- this movie has DOZENS of releases and rereleases from over the years- all with different visual appearances- and has still remained entirely unchanged in terms of story and dialogue. All of the wittiness, the charm, and the incredible heart that we associate with 90s cinema and classic Pixar is still intact- this movie is KICK ASS no matter how you watch it!

Perhaps a full 35mm scan of this movie (be it mine or somebody else’s) will publicly surface one day- but even if it doesn’t, Toy Story is still one of the greatest animated films of all time. That’s what brought us together in the first place- great movies! 😃

To everybody who offered their support towards this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- thank you for your passionate interest that you shared with so many other denizens here on the 'net. To my closest homies in this community- GOD BLESS YOU. #norbitrobbinscut 😎

~TristAndShout

Suffice to say, I am livid. This was the first project I donated to, and will likely be the last. To have us wait for so long and just be given that. You should’ve known better. If you donate and contribute to a scan project, donors should be given the scan, end of. Toy Story is one of my childhood movies, and to see a 35mm copy being hoarded, pisses me off. I don’t know what pisses me off more, the hoarding or the lies. While I did get a refund, it doesn’t make up for the fact that I was cheated and I’m sure everyone else feels cheated too. I may never send money to a scanning project ever again because you scammed me and all of your donors. The phrase “one bad apple, spoils the bunch” most definitely applies here. How can I trust anyone not knowing whether or not they’re just going to hoard it in the end ? While your project may have started with good intentions; the reason why I donated was to help you and so I would get a copy of the movie in 35mm in return. The fact you pull this shit is ridiculous and now comes off as you taking advantage of people that wanted to see a scan of this movie in 35mm. Especially given the alterations the movie has received over the years and hasn’t been theatrically accurate since the Laserdisc era.

The fact you say this :
“If you’re depressed about all of this, just remember- this movie has DOZENS of releases and rereleases from over the years- all with different visual appearances- and has still remained entirely unchanged in terms of story and dialogue. All of the wittiness, the charm, and the incredible heart that we associate with 90s cinema and classic Pixar is still intact- this movie is KICK ASS no matter how you watch it!”

You are pulling a George Lucas by saying “watch the movie as it is right now with all the alterations and that’s the definitive way to watch the movie and the original will be not available unless you buy an OOP DVD of a LD non-anamorphic transfer that has a ton of DNR.”

The right thing to do is give a link to the people who donated so they can download it.

lol.

SonnyGFunk said:

I’d be very interested in a project like this, the 4Ks look great quality wise but the teal tint is a bit off putting, and it would be nice to listen to the original sound mixes along with them.

I have found some projects who have synced the Laserdisc mixes to the 4Ks.

This is more of an inquiry if there are any solid fan regrades of the 4K masters of the Burton Batman films out there that removes the ugly teal and restores the original theatrical colour grading, as much as possible?

There are those fanedits by Double O Productions that do an excellent job at restoring the colour to a more authentic look, however those edits also do a ton of revisionist changes like digital changes to optical effects etc, and almost go into George Lucas territory. These edits are very well done and a lot of work is put into them, but it would be nice if the people involved offered an additional 4K encode that only has the fixed colour grade and OG sound mix, and none of the other changes.

What I find interesting is, as far as I’m aware from looking online, nobody else has tackled fixing the colours of the Burton Batman 4K masters, except Double O, who also unfortunately did a ton of extra revisionist changes.

imsorrydave2448 said:

FunkySi said:

I’ll donate $20 towards ‘Escape From The Planet of the Apes’ if you’ll let me?

Unfortunately right now I can’t split them up. I’m still about 350 away from being funded. You can donate at any time though, it’s no rush. This whole thing is going to take a little while to finish. In the future when everything is done and funded I might allow people to donate for specific ones.

I’m definitely interested in donating to specific scans in the future. I can’t afford to donate the full amount, unfortunately.

ifjg said:

Yeah, I don’t think much color correction is needed here. Excellent print. Really looking forward to this.

Yeah, agreed.

If only someone had access to a domesday duplicator and a NTSC VHS of the film, it’d be great to do a capture of the Space Ghost Coast To Coast Jim Carrey/Chuck Russell interviews from that tape which isn’t on any laserdisc/DVD/Blu release, as an extra. It’s such a funny segment.

Also a good master of Xscape’s Who’s That Man music video which isn’t on any release, and the official Youtube upload looks bad.

blakninja said:

I am not sure about color correction for the moment, this is pretty much untouched, people could do their own corrections if they desire. But it’s something I could consider in the longer run.

As for aspect ratio, yes I would do two versions, an open matte version and a 1.85:1 version.

That’s ideal to be honest. It looks lovely.

blakninja said:

Here’s a preview in motion 😃

This looks excellent. Absolutely worthy of the 30th anniversary. Will you be doing some colour correction, and offering a alternate matted encode (ala Dave’s Re-Animator scan)?

blakninja said:

Hi everyone!

Just sharing with you guys a very early sneak peak of the scan! It’s still very raw not much color fixing yet and not full resolution.

Cheers.

It already looks gorgeous raw. So excited to see this.

rwzmjl said:

little-endian said:

rwzmjl said: […]believe it or not, that’s an intended part of the image![…]

I read that argument often lately, but the word “intended” is a crucial premise here as in many cases, it isn’t really but rather a side-effect of technical limitations (which includes our visual system introducing retinal noise as well). Same goes for the stone age low rate of 24 fps only, causing tremendous amounts of temporal aliasing and making a subjectively stutter-free reconstruction difficult.

So while I can understand the sentiment for artistic reasons and preservation, technically, noise isn’t part of the original image which one tried to capture. Noise also limits — or rather defines — measurements such as the SNR.

I’m also entirely up to “preserve” it in terms of not filtering it out, as not only it isn’t possible to do so without losing information from the actual image anyway, but also because it may fit a certain desired look. However, so do noise and crackles on vinyl records which may be preferred emotionally, but shouldn’t be rationally.

One technical advantage of noise in the source shall not go unmentioned though: (self)dithering, enabling a theoretically smooth reconstruction of an unlimited number of shades (and not just 50 of grey) without ugly banding. However, dithering can be artificially added later during the A/D conversion as well in an mathematically optimised way even so even that is a rather far fetched argument.

Very much disagree with this sentiment, as a DP myself who shoots film (s16 for the most part). And it’s not noise (which is a digital artifact); it’s grain.

You are also forgetting that filmmakers had plenty of low grain options available to them if they wanted it, pre-digital-revolution. Especially in 1994. 50D of course, but even more so, the option of shooting Vista Vision or 65mm. In the case of the filmmakers desiring a grainless image but they couldn’t achieve it, that is because of budget limitations (either from the stock they could afford or the amount of light they needed). And is it the right philosophy when it comes to preservation to scrub supposed artifacts that stem from limitations of the production? That would mean redoing vfx, painting out wires, rerecording ADR, etc. No person seriously in favor of film preservation (i.e. not Lucas or Cameron) would opt for that.

Obviously this has nothing to do with shooting a new production. Shoot noiseless footage with an Alexa LF at 60fps if you want; that is no issue (though you might nauseate some audience members).

This.

blakninja said:

Hi everyone,

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who have donated in the past week. We have accumulated $382.16 to date. Just so you have an idea, the whole project cost an estimated $1025.

We should have an update on the progress of the scan in the next few weeks. Stay tuned. Cheers!

That’s amazing news!

little-endian said:

BoingoBanshee said: Actually, this IS real 4K. 4K isn’t strictly “the camera negative”; you can do 4K scans for any film element.

Well, the same way one can record any audio material at any given sample rate of choice, but that doesn’t mean the original carries that resolution in the first place.

For example, I’m well aware of those “Fake 4K or not” websites where, in the case of, let’s say, a 2K digital intermediate, they rightly criticize that no “Real 4K” performance may be achieved and thus the 4K (actually “UHD”) release is “fake.” However, that view is also a bit misleading and incomplete, as the assumption that film material automatically delivers 4K or whatever resolution just because it was scanned as such technically isn’t correct either.

In practice, some 2K-only productions (at least in parts, such as “Collateral”) may be categorized as “Fake 4K,” whereas some fuzzy “as good as it gets” film source, scanned in 4K, is called “Real 4K,” despite the fact that it may never reach that resolution either and never has. Many may be above 2K level, no question, just to make a point here.

One would actually have to measure the real spatial resolution of such sources (in MHz), and then one could derive the required or equivalent resolution in “pixels” (which theoretically is twice the analog bandwidth according to Nyquist/Shannon) to preserve the original without quality loss.

Back to “The Mask” - I admittedly have no idea what spatial resolution your exemplar comes with, and a 4K/UHD (and maybe even HDR) scan certainly won’t harm. So excitement is justified as the official BD release definitely is mediocre at best by today’s standards.

No denying a film print is nothing compared to a negative. However, if it’s a 4K scan of a film print or an interpositive, then it’s 4K. Saying otherwise kicks sand in the faces of labels like Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight who have done 4K scans of films like The Beastmaster where their negatives are lost and had to work with best surviving elements and those releases are gorgeous. Doing a 4K scan of a film print outside the studio system is something I would not look down upon or say “eh, it’s not the negative though is it?”. With Warner’s track record of their 4K scans where they actually have access to the negatives, they still end up screwing it up such as the Burton Batman films. So I’m very excited someone is scanning a print of The Mask…in 4K.

blakninja said:

little-endian said:

MrQuiche said:

Definetly interested too, i’ll wait for some preview pictures too but i’d love seeing this movie in 4K. Thank you in advance 😃

No intention of spoiling this great project, but you won’t see it “in 4K” with this either, as the film print will be far from that resolution level. It’s already questionable whether 2K/HD will be reached, as it’s usually a copy of a copy of a copy (which reminds me of “Fight Club,” which could also benefit from a long-overdue UHD release, but I’m drifting …).

This won’t be a real 4K as we are not scanning from the original camera negatives. But we are scanning the 35mm print at the highest possible quality to ensure that we are capturing all of the details available on the film. Scanning at 2K would be borderline and we might miss some details, and scanning 8K would be overkill and we just get a bigger image with not necessarily more details.

It will definitely have more resolution (details) than HD (1080p), at least for the non SFX scenes.

On top of this, the grading should be closer to what you’d see in theatres (not that the Blu-ray grading was too much messed with) and we get to see it in open matte.

Actually this IS real 4K. 4K isn’t strictly “the camera negative”, you can do 4K scans for any film element. Boutique labels have done 4K scans of interpositives and best surviving elements (Vinegar Syndrome’s UHD of The Beastmaster comes to mind) and I wouldn’t say they are not worthy of being “4K”. With Warner Bros’ iffy track record towards their 4K restorations, I predict this scan/encode will exceed the eventual official UHD because major studios always screw with the picture.

Donated 😃

blakninja said:

Yes, we could add the two audio commentaries from the DVD/Bluray. I would assume the track from the Bluray is higher quality.

The director’s commentary with Chuck Russell was recorded for the laserdisc in 1996. The second commentary is an assortment of producers, VFX artists, and Russell recorded for the 10th Anniversary DVD in 2004. Both of them are carried over to the blu-ray, so you could rip them from that.

Also, for more audio options, perhaps the two audio commentaries from the DVD/Blu-ray?

I will ABSOLUTELY donate.

Does the new streaming print open with any logos, or does it cut straight to the opening credits?

MJBenito said:

little-endian said:

MJBenito said:

Project is ready guys.

In terms of you’re finding the time to start it or that you’ve already finished it?

Also, how about the inclusion of the CinemaDTS as I suggested?

Project is ready means project is released. Feel free to remux the CinemaDTS track as I don’t have it.

I have the cinema DTS ISO’s. Message me for a link.

Can I have a link too?

Thanks! Definitely interested in seeing this.

mr_merrick said:

Was this project ever finished?

Not sure if it was this scan, but I did spot a 35mm scan of BATB very briefly on Archive, but then it got removed shortly after.

imsorrydave2448 said:

BoingoBanshee said:

Hello! I’m very interested in the open matte scans of Re-Animator and Napoleon Dynamite. I can donate for any additional progress you’re working on.

digitalhexes said:

I’d love to put my eyes on this if at all possible, one of my favorites.

I pm’d you both

The person who did the upscale has the raw uncompressed file. Let me ask him for a link for you.

Hello! I’m very interested in the open matte scans of Re-Animator and Napoleon Dynamite. I can donate for any additional progress you’re working on.

And for anyone curious about the European Cut in its open matte UK DVD master, I’ve posted the original untouched file on Archive.