Got a little bad news on the audio commentary. I lost my voice this morning, and I think I’m coming down with a cold. This means I’ll have to delay work on the commentary track until my voice comes back. Sorry about that! I’ll do my best to get well as soon as possible!
I dislike the idea of chocolate Easter Eggs. It feels to me like consumerist nonsense and corrupts the true meaning of Easter.
Well, aren’t all holidays consumerist?
i think is too green but it works in the naboo scenes
A lot of 35mm and even 16mm film has that sort of green tint, so it is intentional. Here’s one 35mm film trailer I dug up which has a faint but noticable example of the green:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezX-jxblFqc
Here’s another trailer that shows it a little more:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nasuYdPAuw
And here’s one that definitely has it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ReGqmIJT6gc
If it makes you feel better, I will most likely release 3.5 with the previous grade when it’s complete. However, I came up with this newer grade a couple days ago, and I figured it would be interesting to see what others think about it before I stick with what already worked.
I’m still reading through all the discussion here (ROTJ is my favourite OT film, so I’m excited to pick it apart), but a tiny note: the subtitle font for the aliens is Franklin Gothic Demi Bold.
And if that font isn’t available, try Franklin Gothic Demi Cond as an alternative! I used that font for my prequel edits, and it looks almost identical to most Star Wars subtitles! Just a heads up for any other fan editors having this problem.
I don’t have 4k at my place, so it’s Harmy’s despecialized editions for me! I also have a soft spot for Puggo Grande’s 16mm preservations if for no other reason than to see a close approximation of what the trilogy looked like in a theatre. Plus, I like researching film prints and seeing what the colors actually looked like on film (or might have due to deterioration of the print).
Okay, I’ve just come up with one more crazy idea for the color grading. I’ll probably decide to stick with what already works, but I like this other idea enough that I figured I’d share it, even if I may be going too far in a few places.
The most basic thing I did was adjust the black levels to a more teal blueish color. That’s pretty much it. The only other thing I did was amp up the orange look even further when the teal started taking up most of the film. I think this one might be the most cinematic looking grade I’ve come up with to the point where it might be too much. But out of curiosity, here it is.
We’ll start with the present grade:
Then, we have the black level adjustment:
As you can see, the two are very different from each other. I will most likely stick with the previous grade anyway, but if you feel this new adjustment improves on perfection, feel free to chime in and change my mind. It’s interesting enough that I’m willing to consider it. The rest is in the spoiler tag below:
I don’t have as many ideas for how to “improve” ROTJ, but one simple idea I have in mind is to restructure the first half hour or so. In a nutshell, I would do a bit of a sequence rearrangement like this:
Sequence 1: Vader landing on the second death star
Sequence 2: Luke on Dagobah
Sequence 3: Jabba the Hutt
This would give the film more of a beginning, middle, and end, as the basics and rules of the plot are really explained on Dagobah. Starting the film off with Jabba the Hutt was not the best decision, because that entire episode had almost no set up for the rest of the film. The Jabba episode is better as a part of the second act, not the first.
The only issue that concerns me is how to explain Luke’s talk with Han in the X-Wing after the Jabba sequence ends. This is because the scene is a prelude to the Dagobah sequence, so getting it to transition to the rebel base could be tricky. Other than that, I think it’s an improvement.
Insert the Grass Skirt Chase music from Spongebob Squarepants when Han and friends are trying to get away from the Empire fleet in ESB.
As someone who has read almost every screenwriting 101 book out there (From Syd Field to Robert McKee to Blake Snyder), and as someone who has read Aristotle’s Poetics, I’m a strong believer in the phrase, “less is more.” For every movie that’s too short, I could name a dozen or so other films that suffer from being too long.
In all fairness, I believe that when you force a movie into a certain runtime, there’s a greater chance that the movie will be less than the sum of its parts. But not every movie that is three hours in length is automatically The Godfather, and while I’m about to generate some controversy for saying this, I have to say it. Not every Star Wars movie should be two hours or longer. In fact, I think this is what’s making Star Wars movies less interesting as of late. If you look at each trilogy and ignore the special editions, the original trilogy that is so highly revered is also the shortest one, with the longest movie being 132 minutes and also the weakest. The sequel trilogy on the other hand, is arguably the longest of the three trilogies and one of them is a whopping 2 1/2 hours!
Too many movies nowadays are bloated, and while there’s always a movie or two that gets away with a long running time (such as Avengers: Infinity War), I honestly wish more movies were shorter right now. Finding a movie that is only 90 minutes today is becoming an increasing rarity.
Eyepainter, your regrades are all getting really nice. You’ve got a real talent for this. Are they each a single universal regrade that you apply to the entire film, or are you doing it scene by scene?
Most of the time, I do it universally. Once in a blue moon, however, continuity does become a problem and I’ll fix the issue by clip. I had one continuity issue at the end of Anakin and Padme’s droid factory infiltration where the blues conflicted with the reds due to my own changes on the breaking of Anakin’s lightsaber. I went into clip mode and changed the blue tint to red, fixing the continuity error.
Other than that, the grade is on the whole timeline.
I think it’s time to discuss the color grading for my Episode II edit, as I think it’s in need of a boost! The last one wasn’t bad, per se. But comparing the color grading of this edit with the other Star Wars edits I’ve done, it’s beginning to stick out like a sore thumb. The color grade that is currently released is somewhere in one of my hundreds of USB flash drives, so I’m gonna be lazy instead and leave the link to my Episode II trailer, which features the same color grade:
In the trailer, you’ll notice that the grade is extremely yellow, and overly desaturated. This was my sad attempt to give Episode II a more cinematic look. Fortunately, I’ve gotten to that point where I’m close to perfecting the cinematic look that I want (If I haven’t perfected it already). I think v2’s color grading is gonna be a real nice change from v1. While I can’t get screencaps for v1, I can get screencaps for the blu-ray, so I will be comparing my latest grade with the blu-ray instead. If you want to compare v1, go watch the trailer in the link up above. It’ll give you enough of an idea.
Here’s my 2011 blu-ray:
…And here’s my latest grade:
Much like v3.5 of my Episode I edit, Episode II is also getting both the S-Curve treatment as well as the orange look. And I think it’s even more appropriate for Episode II because it’s such a warm movie, especially when we get to Tattooine and Geonosis. I’ll let the screencaps speak for themselves. You can check them out in the spoiler tag below:
I dislike that its still not available on a modern high definition format in its original form after all these years .
I know, right? On the bright side, though, there’s always Harmy’s Despecialized Editions on this forum. That, and Puggo Grande’s 16mm preservations for those who love seeing movies in a filthy film state. 😏
Happy to hear! All that’s left for me to do is work on the audio commentary, and I think Episode I will be ready! 😃
Mistake corrected!
Here’s the previous Rec. 709 grade:
Here’s the Wide Gamut Grade:
The rest is in the spoiler tag below. Let me know about any issues with the Wide Gamut, but I think the color grading is pretty much complete for this one.
I’m almost afraid to rewatch the Sixth Sense. Because i used to really like Signs. Rewatched it and found it was awful. I kind of used to buy into M. Night being a genius filmmaker. But now i’m not so sure.
Every director can have bad films. I’m not knocking him for After Earth and The Last Airbender.
But is there one movie he has done that proves he is this great auteur?
Gonna echo everyone else and say Unbreakable, although I think that movie is good, not great. I also think Split was a welcome surprise by Shyamalan. Also just good, not great. I strongly recommend watching Unbreakable first, though. I can’t say why, but trust me on it.
Thanks! Glad to see that it’s been improved!
I’m going to make one more adjustment. I found out that I’ve been color grading on the SDR Rec. 709 color processing mode when DaVinci’s HDR Wide Gamut color processing mode is the way to go! I’m gonna work on correcting that mistake, and hopefully, it’ll be the cherry on top!
It’s been a couple days, and my brain is still a pile of mush. So I guesstimated, and raised the contrast a little more. I also decided to do away with the green tint from the previous grade. Things started to look a little too green anyway. Here is a screencap of what I did before:
Here is a screencap of my readjusted S-Curve. I hope it’s on the right track.
I’ve posted the rest of the screencaps in the spoiler tag below. Let me know if it’s better or worse!
I feel like somewhere between 25% to 50% (maybe 33%) S-Curve adjustment would be the sweet spot. Maybe a little more on scenes that are brighter or have a heavier red/orange tint and less on the ones that are already blu-ish green or more neutral.
But it’s getting closer!
This is all good advice, except that my editing program (DaVinci Resolve) doesn’t do percentages for curves, Google isn’t being helpful, and my brain has turned to mush since my high school days! 😆 I’ll see if I can figure this out, but 33% S-Curve is a bit of a foreign language for me at the moment.
It is also weird Luke referring to Ben as Obi-Wan for the first time in ROTJ. I wonder if that is a writing error as well, or is it something that happened production-wise. For the past 2 movies and 30 years of Luke’s life he’s always been Ben to him, and then a couple of years after his death and when he has seen Ben for only 2 times after that, he starts to call him Obi-Wan? It just doesn’t fit into the story.
It’s been a while since I watched the OT, but I’m willing to theorize that the events of Empire got Luke shaken up enough that he started to call him Obi-Wan instead of Ben, due to feeling somewhat betrayed. My memory is hazy for tiny details like this one, but if Luke calls him Obi-Wan during the Dagobah visit in ROTJ, it’s a possible idea.
I love it when I get things done sooner than planned! I gave the orange look the S-Curve. I think it got the results I wanted, but I’ll leave that for others to decide.
One thing I will mention about the S-Curve grade. I had to adjust the tint because some of the skin tones looked a little too red, especially on Tattooine (I’m beginning to think Tattooine is going to be nothing but trouble). This is why the S-Curve examples look greener than the previous grade. If it looks too green, let me know. I can go back and readjust it.
Here’s a screenshot of the orange film look grade from the previous comparison:
…And here’s that same grade but with an S-Curve adjustment:
This time around, I managed to get screencaps from all across the movie rather than just the opening action sequence. I hope I didn’t overdo it, but I think this will give a general idea of what the grade looks like. You can find the examples in the spoiler tag below.
If there’s one thing that bothers me about the OT (aside from what’s already been excluded from this topic), it would be how they handled Yoda’s line, “No, there is another.” It makes even less sense because Leia is already under threat when Yoda says it. Worse, he doesn’t know what the future holds on Cloud City, so why would this other person be Leia?
If you’re asking me, a new character should’ve been introduced to take the role. Yoda would meet up with him/her, Luke could run into this other person, they’d join forces, and if we’re gonna go with a rebel victory for the ending, this other person could lead the rebels while Luke confronts his father. I’m not saying that’s perfect, but it would be a better ending for ROTJ than what we got.
I love a lot of ideas here. Cutting the entire negotiation at the beginning does seem to be a common thing tho which I don’t think would be best since it’s the only thing that shows what the Jedi’s main job is supposed to be (diplomats that are meant to resolve conflicts, hence why Mace says they’re “keepers of the peace, not soldiers”). I don’t see why so many people dislike it since it basically just turns into an action sequence, it’s not like you actually see the negotiation. I understand cutting down the opening act a bit since I do agree it goes on for a bit too long but I think removing that they’re there to negotiate wouldn’t be best.
I’m on the same boat. I kept the scene in my edit, although I shortened it a lot. Most of what I cut was stuff involving the Gunrays. Stuff like the opening “This invasion is perfectly legal” speech, mentioning the Neimoidians being cowards, lines and shots demonstrating that cowardice, etc. I also ended the scene with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan deciding to take separate ships instead of Nute’s discussion with Amidala. Taking a lot of that stuff out makes things go by faster while also removing a lot of the weaknesses of that scene.
My kneejerk opinion is that I prefer the orange look screenshots to the kitchen-sink ones. I do like the greater contrast of the kitchen-sink screenshots and I think the color choices are good, I just get the urge to adjust the brightness or exposure on them because they look too dark to me in most cases. That is probably just me or something that wouldn’t be as obvious in-motion, I dunno.
No, I think your eyes are seeing it right. Because one grade is on a timeline, and the other is arranged by individual clips, it’s hard for me to make a clear comparison in the editing room without pressing a lot of buttons. Looking at them side by side in screencap form, though, I think you’ve hit the bullseye.
In defense of the kitchen sink, though, I do agree that the contrast is fantastic! The orange look and the kitchen sink grade used different techniques for the contrast. The orange utilized the secondary dials (Contrast and pivot), while the kitchen sink used what is known in the industry as an S-Curve. I think this test proves that the S-Curve is far superior.
I could get a best-of-both-worlds scenario by giving the orange look an S-Curve instead. I’ll play with that over the next few days and post screencaps of my findings.
Fun in Balloon Land is still the absolute worst movie I’ve ever seen (if it even qualifies as a movie) and probably will never be beaten, so it’s probably the worst movie I ever will see.
Oh God! I’ve only seen the Cinema Snob’s review, and even I can tell: That is one movie I don’t want to touch with a stick the size of a football field!
Ahhh… It’s good to go back after editing the sequel trilogy.
I continue to play around with the color grading yet again. This time, I’ve got two ideas, and I want to show some screencaps of both ideas.
The first idea is inspired by the work I did for color grading the sequel trilogy. A.K.A. the film look I keep talking about. For this movie, I had a toss-up between giving it an orange look and a faded purple look, and the orange look won out because Tattooine looked too reddish with the faded purple look. I’ll break down the process I used for the orange look in the spoiler tab below:
I will be using a shot of the droid control ship from the 2011 blu-ray to demonstrate what I’ve done.
Image 1: The 2011 Blu-Ray as is
Image 2: I adjust the printer lights
Image 3: I adjust the contrast and pivot controls
Image 4: I work on the saturation slightly
Image 5: I adjust the color wheels. This is where I create the orange film look, by the way.
Image 6: I crank up the midtone detail for a false 4k look. This is the final result.
The second idea is basically me throwing everything but the kitchen sink onto the grade. What it amounts to is me accumulating everything I know about color grading at this moment and throwing it into its own grade. This one takes longer and is a pain in the neck, but I do think it yielded some good results. Like the orange film look, the process I used for the kitchen sink idea is down in the spoiler tab below:
Much like the orange film look, I will also demonstrate with this shot of the droid control ship from the 2011 blu-ray.
Image 1: The 2011 Blu-Ray as is
Image 2: Same as the orange film look. I adjust the printer lights.
Image 3: I create an S-Curve to give the contrast a more cinematic feel.
Image 4: I adjust the exposure for the S-Curve.
Image 5: I add another node, and adjust the curves by color (A.K.A. Red, green and blue). Then, I try my best attempts at split-toning.
Image 6: I re-adjust using the color wheels this time.
Image 7: I adjust the secondary options surrounding the color wheels, including temperature, tint, midtone detail, saturation, color boost, etc. This is the final result.
Both looks are different and yield different results. I’m torn between the two, and I’d like to get some feedback from my fellow users. I’ve compiled some screencaps of the opening negotiations scene for now. This is the only scene that I’ve used the kitchen sink grade on. I have a long ways to go with it, and I’m not sure what some of the warmer scenes (such as Tattooine) are going to look like on the kitchen sink grade (Maybe I could get some screencaps when I have enough free time). It is what it is. Below are comparisons of the two grades. The top comparison is the orange film look. The bottom example is the kitchen sink grade. As always, you can see the comparisons in the spoiler tag below:
