After spending some time fine tuning the shot by shot regrade for 4k77, here are the same updates reflected in the SE regrade:
The Leia interrogation shots look wonderful, Dre, as does the new Antilles interrogation. I realize I am at a disadvantage seeing the shots static as apposed to live action and thus my shared thoughts may not necessarily be accurate to what is actually the case. My photography requires me to have my screen properly calibrated, so I do trust what I’m seeing to a degree.
Upon a second examination of your June 14th base grade compared to your newest base grade above, I do recognize the slight pinkish cast you mentioned in the original and do see the wisdom in removing it. And I do agree with your sentiments on NeverarGreat’s technicolor grade compared to your base grade—yours is indeed warmer and less green.
A few thoughts if I may:
What do you think about the screenshot comparison in the link below? It compares your June 14th base grade with your new June 25th base grade. Does it seem to you that the darkest parts of Vader’s costume and the shadows on him are perhaps too dark/black? I can’t seem to see the detail in the shadows of his costume quite as well as I can in your June 14th grade. Also, you may notice in the last shot of Leia holding her blaster that she seems to be darker in the new grade compared to your former grade. Again, I might be wrong since I’m not seeing these shots in live action, but what do you think? Many thanks!
Set 2: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/115775
Set 1: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/115776
I will make final gamma adjustments once I’ve seen the first reel in motion, although I don’t expect any huge differences.
The newer re-grade looks better on set 2, but I would say it’s a bit too green on the first set
The Tantive IV walls have a slight bluish/mint color, which can be seen pretty well in this production shot.
I do a agree the first set is a bit too cool in terms of the foreground such as skin tones and the helmets. I adjusted the first set and one shot in the second set to reflect this:
Here are a few more shots of the Leia interrogation sequence (in progress):
The base color grading has also been updated to remove some of the excess green in a few shots, particulary the Vader Antilles shots:
Here’s a work in progress on the Leia interrogation shots:
Dre,
Your “base grade” from June 14th was so legit (as was your “base with 70s light”). Those are my faves. Your newest iteration of the 70s light is noticeably more green by comparison and I would say is thus not as “true” as your June 14th 70s grade. Actually, your new 70s grade is closer to your June 14th green grade, but this new grade is now even greener/yellowish than the June 14th green grade. I’m just not a fan of any green—it seems to come across as “sickly” to my eye.
Your GOUT grades I’m definitely not a fan of. They look underexposed, washed-out, and grayish in comparison to your previous excellent work.
Your new “base grade” is noticeably more green than your June 14th base grade. I would say the new base grade is closer to your green grade of June 14th but that one had more of the 70s light than this one does.
When all is said and done, I say: “Long live the base grade of June 14th.” It can’t get any better than that because it simply is the most honest coloration balance you can get—it is that good. The colors are just SO balanced and even. It really does please the eye. The June 14th 70s light is simply a warmer version of the base which is great, too. If we can go back to those two versions, that would make my day. If you HAVE to have a green grade, as well, I would say go with your new “base grade” with the green cast.
P.S. I like the new removal of the green cast from the underside of the star destroyer when it reels in Tantive IV.
They can’t be, because they are exactly the same frames, since I updated the June 14th ones as well. I did adjust some of the frames, but that’s because some had a slight pink cast. I also improved the shot to shot consistency, because the earlier shots were more yellow than some of the later ones, so the balanced color grading has a little more blue for the early shots, but no green. I should also add, that the Tantive IV walls are suposed to be slightly bluish green, so the overall look of the balanced version will be biased towards this color. The base color grading is reasonably close to NeverarGreat’s technicolor recreation, although it’s still a bit warmer and less green.
4k77 base color grading set 1:
NeverarGreat’s technicolor recreation set 1:
4k77 base color grading set 2:
NeverarGreat’s technicolor recreation set 2:
There’s a nice video of the first few minutes of a projected Derann print on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fohpOUyZjQ
Here are a few screencaps:
Colors are really close to the base color grading I’m working on:
The colors for the corridor scene with Leia/R2-D2, as well as other dark scenes seem to have been adjusted for this release in terms of hue and brightness. The Derann preservation by TN1/poita/Althor seems to show these dark scenes have been brightened quite considerably compared to the theatrical prints, probably due to the fact that Super8 does not have the same dynamic range as 35mm.
Here’s a little experiment, where a single LUT is applied to the shot by shot color grading to approximate the colors of the GOUT. The final result is surprisingly similar to the GOUT.
4k77 color grading (projected print with 70s bulb):
GOUT approximation:
Didn’t some Techs have more yellow and blue, rather than green? The alternate Tech has pretty much no green cast. Almost every part of the image that’s green cast in the main tech is either straight up blue or is more yellow than green.
Neither tech is completely representative of how the film looks projected. The technicolor frames I have all show a noticeable green cast consistent with the Senator print photos.
As poita has posted these images, I will share one of my discoveries.
Poita’s scan:
PAL broadcast (“TB release”):
Poita’s scan colour-matched to TB release:
Japanese Laserdisc (Jetrell’s rip on Myspleen):
Poita’s scan:
PAL broadcast (“TB release”):
Poita’s scan colour-matched to TB release:
Japanese Laserdisc (Jetrell’s rip on Myspleen):
Pay particular attention to where the lightsaber blade meets the handle. The rotoscoping has been changed. I used Dr. Dre’s tool to colour-match the scan to the PAL broadcast, all screenshots are taken in AvsPmod (resize to 1080p) and are frame-accurate.
This was a previously unknown change. Everyone knew that the 1997 SE has done some new rotoscoping - but not that there two different versions done in 1997 - one that appears on home video and broadcast, and one that appears on the release prints. I could post some more screenshots if poita gives the OK, but these screenshots show the difference in rotoscoping quite clearly as it is. This is very exciting and shows there is still more to discover about the 1997 SE that has remained unknown to this date that poita’s scans are going to help uncover!!
I think you should also consider DNR was applied to the home video versions, that probably affected some of these shots.
Jason, I would reply to all of your queries but I feel you should ask them first to OutboundFlight, to whom I was replying to his “Kennedy could have said no to Lucas’s crazy ideas, but keep the good ones.” statement. Given the 4 SW movies created under Kennedy (where crazy weird ideas made their way into the final products in spite of Kennedy producing), I’ve got enough proof that this very statement is wrong. Then ask OutboundFlight this question:
If you do think Kennedy is a very good President explain why, if you do think she’d be a be a good co-lead with Lucas in an imaginary situation where they are both at the head of Lucasfilm and she and George bounce ideas off each other etc, then say why.
I would add that the only guy who could challenge Lucas is, to my knowledge, Gary Kurtz. Not even Spielberg can challenge Lucas. But Kurtz did that on 3 movies he produced for Lucas.
+1
It’s funny. I had not realized how yellow the current color gradinghad become, even the so called balanced color grading, which in reality isn’t balanced at all. You look at these frames over and over, and your eyes start to adjust to it, until you look at another source, and you suddenly take notice. Thinking about this a bit, I think it’s actually not very smart to do it this way. It’s actually much better to start from a truly balanced base color grading, and then adjust that to a certain look (technicolor green cast, 70s lightbulb or otherwise) once the base color grading is complete.
So, here’s the base color grading for the two sets of frames:
By adding a 70s lightbulb effect, the frames can be made to look warmer and adhere closely to the look and feel of an ideal projected print:
By then adding a green cast, the frames can be made to adhere closely to the look and feel of a projected technicolor print.
Here’s what will be the final update on these shots, at least for a while, as I will be working on other shots.
Technicolor grading (with slight green cast):
Theatrical color grading (balanced):
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/K7GPNNNX
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/F9ECNNNU
I’m going to do one final pass for the technicolor and balanced versions, and then move on. 😃
Here are the same shots for the balanced version:
Here are comparisons:
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/K77WNNNX
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/F991NNNU
I’ve decided to put back some of the green in the Vader/Antilles shots, because I think, it looks more authentic:
One final update before moving on to other shots:
Dre, I’m also curious about the balanced version… 😉
One humble suggestion on your final updated screen shots if I may:
It seems, particularly in shots 1 and 2 on line 4, that the stormtroopers look a bit too yellow as apposed to your June 8th Cpt. Antilles interrogation grade where they look less yellow and more naturally colored. Just a thought. 😃
I’ve made some adjustments, adding back some of the green for the Vader/Antilles shots, because I think, it looks more authentic. I’ll try to to work on the balanced version over the next few days:
The last reel is finishing up now. I’ll be transferring the files off (that alone takes 30 odd hours) and will be creating a ProRes proxy over the weekend.
I will have the version ready for checking early next week, thanks to the people who contacted me via PM, I will break up the reels so that you have one reel each to check. Please use the burned-in timecode to report any issues.
Thanks again for the help, I’d like to ensure we find any issues while the print is still available for re-scanning if needed.For the Pro-Res, how will you be encoding that? 12bit CINEON or another log curve?
For the proxy?
It is just a low resolution file for checking for lost frames or other problems, it is just a 720P 8bit Rec709 file to keep the file sizes down. For checking colour I am using the DPX files directly, or the ProRes 4444XQ 12bit file encoded from the DPX files, but at a TB per reel, the 4444XQ files would be overkill for checking for basic scanning problems.
Will you still be releasing a Grindhouse version with a LUT applied, such that we can see the theatrical colors?
Here’s an update of the regraded shots:
One final update before moving on to other shots:
Dear Dr Dre, thanks to your program Color Match v1_2, I started to repaint the movie the Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition.
https://vk.com/public167345612
https://pp.userapi.com/c846016/v846016749/6c0f3/q40lLMcO1FE.jpg
https://pp.userapi.com/c847219/v847219749/6ee8f/5PlfonIqRSg.jpg
That looks amazing! 😃
Haha, can’t figure out which, lol.
I see, thanks, Dre! I’m loving your work overall; much improved there with the interrogation!
It looks like you are color grading the current reel 1 that has been DNR-ed, is that correct? Or are you DNR-ing the non-DNR version of 4K77 yourself and applying your color grading? Just curious. 😃
No, this is the non-DNR version. The adjusted frames are the first and second of the fifth row. 😉
Here’s an update of the color grading:
I’m also working on some new shots. Here are two examples:
Good work, Dre! A few questions:
- I compared your June 1st Tantive IV Technicolor (green-cast) screen shots to your newest above and cannot identify any discernible differences. Just curious what you tweaked, if anything, there.
Well, at first I didn´t alter the first set, but now (as in a few sec ago), I altered two shots which were slightly more green in the mid tones, than the others. Try to figure out which? 😉
When I compared your new screen shots above of Vader’s interrogation of Cpt. Antilles to your June 1st Technicolor green-cast and balanced screen shots, there is a marked improvement in shots that were under or over exposed particularly in the skin tones, his jacket and the background.
Have you decided to abandon the “balanced grade” and “marry” it with the green-casted Technicolor version to create a happy medium, or are you still keeping both separate?
Yeah, the Vader interrogation shots were too green compared to the rest. They are more balanced now, but still tend towards green, as a sort of happy medium.
Here’s an update of the color grading:
I’m also working on some new shots. Here are two examples:
Great to hear Mike, best of luck!
