ChainsawAsh

Yeah, but this isn't a fanedit, it's a custom DVD, which is why we can't say.

No, because you were wrong about both of them.  Where the hell did you get Times New Roman?  None of those are serif fonts at all ...

For the record, these were the fonts:

Lucasfilm Ltd. Old Logo
- Zurich Black or Zurich Bold (not 100% sure which one yet)

A Long Time Ago ...
- Franklin Gothic Book

Crawl Text
- Franklin Gothic Demi Bold

End Credits
- Another Franklin Gothic variation (but I have all the variations now, so I'll figure it out)

--EDIT--

Quck update - I've taken the original 20th Century Fox logo from MASH (the movie, not the show) and used it to replace the awful-looking GOUT version.  I had to brighten it a bit since it was a bit muddy-looking, but I'm pleased with the result.

I've also recreated the original LUCASFILM LIMITED logo and the darker-blue "A Long Time Ago" text - here's what they look like now:

I'm currently exporting a 1500kbps h.264 file of what I have done so far - when it's done, I'll put it up on YouTube for you guys as a sneak peek.

--edit--

Nevermind, I managed to find all the fonts after all.

Update:

- Ripped my anamorphic GOUT to an Avid 28:1 (highly compressed) file (around 5GB for the whole movie) - this is just so I can more or less match up Revisited to the theatrical cut
- Created individual bins for each scene's subclips (still nowhere near done subclipping Revisited)
- Added a video track for my compressed GOUT underneath the video track I'm editing with (this lets me easily turn off the upper video track so I can see if the Revisited video matches the theatrical cut)
- Imported mono audio mix (uncompressed WAV)
- Dropped mono mix into the timeline
- Began editing!

Now I'm partway through the stormtrooper/rebel fight aboard the Tantive IV ... and I had no idea how much Ady changed the editing of this sequence.  I quite like his cut, but I prefer the original - unfortunately, a lot of shots have sections missing from them!  I may have to forgo the repainted lasers and just use the AVCHD SE for this sequence (since it would be color corrected and the original cut) so it isn't a jumbled mess of Revisited and the SE.

Nanner Split said:

Since when has it been the trend to shit on the Back to the Future sequels? I always liked all three.

I liked II and III when I was a kid, and they are funny, but they're really very bad sequels.

First, they're rehashes of the first one, essentially.  While you can argue that II isn't, half the movie is literally retracing the action of the first one!

Second, the "chicken" thing.  It just makes Marty out to be a complete idiot, and makes no sense.  It wasn't even mentioned in the first one.

Third, once they get to 2015, the whole "Something's gotta be done about your kids!" joke now has to become a plot point ... and it ends up being something that really isn't a huge deal.  Hell, if Doc wanted to change that aspect of the future, why doesn't he tell Marty not to drag race so his kids don't turn out like pussies?  Why do they need to even go to the future to "fix" anything when it can be prevented in the present?  I know those are issues from the ending of the first movie, but that's because the ending of the first movie was never meant to be followed up with anything.  It was a one-off joke.

Point being, but I recently watched all three, and II and III just left a very bad taste in my mouth after watching them.  They're no longer in my collection - I sold the 3-disc set and bought the new (very nice) standalone copy of the first one.

Nanner Split said:

Metal Gear Solid immediately comes to mind. I've only played the first one, but if the rest are anything like it, then they definitely have some good stories.

Definitely.  The stories get a little bizarre, and they're definitely too epic to be contained in a 2.5-hour film (especially MGS4), but they're still very, very rich.

I'd also like to add Mass Effect to this list, though I still haven't finished the game :-(

The VHS version is the theatrical cut.  I have a widescreen copy of it.  I think the LD (if there was one, I don't know) was the theatrical cut as well.

No idea about a director's cut, but I'd welcome it - some aspects of the film feel truncated and confusing.

If I were the cinematographer, I'd have quit and not done the film since Mann only shoots on HD video now.  It looks like shit - it's not so much depth of field issues, really ... I can't quite put my finger on it, but there are a lot of blown-out bright lights and things like that.  And I read a review today in the waiting room at my doctor's office from the Chicago Tribune where the guy praised the "inky blacks" in some scenes, saying that the effect could not have been achieved on celluloid.

That is bullshit.  The "inky blacks" he's talking about weren't inky nor black - they were riddled with video artifacts, especially video noise, which meant the blacks had a layer of red, green, and blue noise all over them.  And anytime a character moved against a dark background, you could clearly see trails left behind.  It's just hideous.

I think part of it is that Mann was going for a grimy film look, but if that's the case then why the fuck did he use video?  I know it can look decent - look at Zodiac.  That was (mostly) shot digitally, and it looks halfway decent.  Not fantastic, but not awful.

And I used to have roughly equal respect for Depp and Bale ... now, as you said, what happened to Bale?  Depp's consistently fantastic, but Bale ... eh.  Hit or miss.

I love Road to Perdition, and think Hanks did a great job.  I'm a huge fan of Sam Mendes (the director) and Thomas Newman (the composer) - which reminds me, the music in Public Enemies irritated the shit out of me.  Way overbearing most of the time, and there were a lot of very bad music fades.  The sound editing in general was very poor.

Now, back to the state prison thing - for the hell of it, after my doctor's appointment today, I drove by the prison to compare the landscape to what I saw in the film last night.  I was correct - trees and hills everywhere, whereas in the film it was a dry, flat grassland with a dirt road and a gas station.  But I no longer wish they shot it in Michigan City at the actual prison, because after looking at its current state, that would have been impossible.  The prison itself now has a great many chain-link, razor-wire fences, huge parking lots, many CCTV cameras, there are always cars parked around it ... it just wouldn't have worked at all for the period.

But they could at least have gotten the landscape right ...

Star Wars
DISC 1 - Theatrical Version
- Full Restoration by Robert A. Harris
- Selectable Opening Crawl (1977 Star Wars or 1981 Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope)
- Default Audio: Uncompressed 1977 Stereo
- Optional Audio: Uncompressed 1977 Mono; Uncompressed 1977 70mm Six-Track (Dolby Digital 4.1 Surround - original was 4.2); 1985 Stereo; 1993 Stereo
- If there are differences between the 35mm/70mm besides the audio, then the 70mm Dolby 4.1 track would only be selectable on a seamlessly-branched 70mm version of the film (only the pre-ANH crawl would be available on this one)
- NO effects tweaks WHATSOEVER (this includes garbage matte removal!)

DISC 2 ONWARD - I don't care

Similar setups for ESB/ROTJ.  This is for Blu-Ray in 1080p, of course.

No, the Star Trek: TMP problem was that they scanned the film in HD, then downconverted it to 480p SD and did the effects at standard def.  So for the Director's Cut of TMP on Blu-Ray, they're going to have to re-do it from scratch.  The negatives weren't touched.  The Star Wars SE's were created with the intention of theatrical exhibition, so there's no problem there.

Interestingly, that's pretty much what happened with Adywan's ANH:R (though he worked from the SD DVD to begin with), and why that will never be in HD like ESB:R and the others will be (too much work to do it from scratch).

It's pretty good.  It's about on par with American Gangster, but doesn't hold a candle to The Untouchables, The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, or Casino.  Johnny Depp is fantastic, Christian Bale is serviceable.

So, back on topic:

Just saw Public Enemies, which was shot digitally, and man is that film ugly.  The only other time I've ever seen edge enhancement in a theater is on the IMAX version of The Dark Knight - it was visible on the 35mm scenes after they were filtered to look sharper to better match the 70mm senes (a mistake in my opinion).  But there were edge enhancement halos throughout this entire movie.

On top of that, there was intense ghosting during almost any motion, and there was visible video noise (I guess that's the new film grain, eh?  Too bad it looks hideous) throughout ... ugh I'm too tired to complain anymore, and I don't really remember the more specific problems I had with the image.  Maybe these problems wouldn't have been so pronounced if I'd seen it projected digitally, but the Kerasotes theater here in Michigan City doesn't have a digital projector (which I'm generally happy about).

At least the movie itself was decent.

Just got back from the midnight showing of Public Enemies - I thought it was pretty good, though Christian Bale's character had no depth whatsoever.

But what really made me start this thread is this:

The movie opens at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana.  I live in Michigan City (unless I'm at school, in which case I live in Chicago), and the location is very inaccurate.  I know it's supposed to be 1933, but even then it wouldn't have looked like that at all.

The movie depicts the prison (note that I have no way of knowing whether the prison itself is inaccurate or not, but I don't think it's right) as sitting in the middle of a wide open field of grass with a very straight dirt road in front.  In reality, the road is curved by necessity, and the surrounding area is not very flat and is more of a forest than a grassy field.  This completely ruined my suspension of disbelief, since this clearly was not Michigan City, Indiana.

Has anyone else here seen a movie where a scene or multiple scenes take place somewhere you're very familiar with, but it doesn't look anything at all like where it supposedly is?  And when this happened, did it take you out of the movie?  Because it sure took me out of this one.

Oh, and one important thing to note - this movie looks awful.  It really reminded me of what I hate about digital filmmaking.

bkev said:

I've read about Verbatim, are they that much better?

Yes.  Yes they are.  I've never once had a bad burn with Verbatim media.

PM me your email address and I'll send it your way (it's two 68KB files, TrajanPro-Regular.otf and TrajanPro-Bold.otf, so it'll send fine via email).

The menu font should be Trajan Pro - I have it if you need it, in OTF (open-type font) format.

Shit, I forgot all about this - I still need to finish my proofreading list for DFR & TLC ... guess I slacked off there, eh?

Naboo has been added to the end celebration, and you can hear a Gungan shout "Weesa free!" - but you never see Jar Jar, nor is it even really implied that the Gungan you hear is Jar Jar.

There's a Dolby 5.1 track, but no DTS - but to my knowledge (and I could be wrong), the only difference between DD and DTS tracks on DVDs is compression (DD is more compressed than DTS).

Alright, I'm going to be posting progress updates as I work on this - mainly this is so if I fuck something up, I have a list of everything that I've done so I know exactly where the problem went wrong.

- Updated Avid to version 3.1.3 (while 3.5 is out, I have the education version of 3.0, which can't upgrade to 3.5 apparently)
- Mounted the ISO of the NTSC DVD-9 of Revisited, then converted it using MPEG Streamclip to an Avid 1:1 (lossless) codec - resulting file is 124GB, so a little less than 1GB per minute
- Imported file to Avid at 1:1 resolution (lossless) - this creates new Avid media files, which means I now have two 124GB copies of ANH:R on my hard drive, one that can only be read in Avid, one that can be read by anything.  I'll most likely delete the original MPEG Streamclip file to save space, but I'll save it for now in case Avid causes me any grief.
- Created 6 bins within Avid:
   AUDIO MIXES - will contain the WAV files of the 1977 Mono, 1977 Stereo, 1985 Stereo, and 1993 Stereo to work from (Revisited audio is included in the video file)
   DJ GOUT - will contain 1:1 lossless copies any footage needed from Dark_Jedi's GOUT (to save space, I'll only convert what I know I'll need)
   EFFECTS - will contain things like the new opening crawl and end credits
   REVISITED - contains the 1:1 lossless ANH:R
   SEQUENCES - contains the sequence for my edit (though nothing's on it yet)
   SUBCLIPS - where all the subclips will go (though I'll probably make separate bins for each scene)

And that's where I'm at now.  Next, I'll be importing the audio mixes, then subclipping Revisited.

I don't know if other editing programs do this or not, but subclips are something that you can do in Avid - you set an in point and an out point in your master clip (which is stored as multiple MXF files - there are 3 for Revisited), and make a subclip out of it, which doesn't actually create any new video.  It's a very good way of separating individual shots without having to actually cut up the master clip, or create any extra files.  It's a pain in the ass, though, which is probably why I won't really start doing that until I get more weed.  It helps with subclipping a lot.

Oh, and I'm not going to put my real name or ChainsawAsh on this - since I'm going to school for editing, and plan on working in the industry, I'd rather this not come back to bite me in the ass in the future, so this project will be done under the name "Charlie Barnes" (that's what I'll be putting in the credits, anyway).

More updates as they become available.

--edit--

Screenshot of my editing setup for those who are curious (this will look a lot more interesting when I'm farther along in the process).

Janskeet said:

Skyjedi2005, you're kind of becoming a broken record

Becoming?  I don't remember him ever talking about anything else for the past four years.  You get used to it, though - I'm at the point now where I can very quickly skim his posts to see if there's anything new in them, so it doesn't really bother me.

Bingowings said:

There really should be a Jar-Jar death on each and every Revisited installment.

He could be the Kenny of the set.

That's actually a great idea.  As long as they're in deleted scenes like ANH:R, and not in the actual films themselves.  Except for ROTS - I vote that Jar Jar should "officially" die in ROTS.  Or AOTC.

One thing you will have to watch out for is the combined video and audio bitrate - I tried for months to combine an anamorphic GOUT I made (not cleaned up at all, just anamorphic) with the uncompressed mono WAV, and I kept getting errors until I finally realized that the maximum bitrate was too high.  I don't think you'll run into this problem with 448 AC3, but it may still happen, depending on how high your video bitrate is.

I'm downloading the AVCHD right now, but as I work on a Mac, I don't know if I'll be able to convert it to a format I can use.  Otherwise, I'd love to use that for those scenes.

But I will need Dark_Jedi's cleaned-up GOUT for other scenes (like restoring parts of pre-SE Mos Eisley).

Episode IV Revisited will never be in HD.  This is because when Ady did Episode IV Revisited, he used the DVD as he had not gotten access to the HD versions at the time.  To make an HD version would require starting from scratch and finding HD sources for other things he used (like the Alderaan explosion, etc.) - not to mention the fact that the original Ep. IV Revisited files no longer exist, making it that much more difficult.

Only ESB:R onward will be in HD, and those will be 720p at maximum because it's too difficult for Ady to find 1080p-quality sources for new things (I'm reminded of an early test shot at 1080p with new Wampa tusks that looked pretty awful because Ady couldn't find good tusks at high enough resolution to work with).

But in the meantime, Ady is releasing color-corrected 1080p AVCHD editions of all six films - ESB was restored to its 1997 SE form, while ANH had the Han/Greedo scene restored to its 1977 original form (the rest is the 04 SE).  The rest will be out as he gets the chance to work on them.