The girl I was seeing broke up with me.
I am so sorry to hear that, Jack. My first crush died in a car accident when I was 13, so I know way more than most how much it hurts to lose someone who meant the world to you. I wish you the best of luck when you’re ready to get back out in the dating world.
That’s…not a terrible idea.
It is when you visualize it.
TLJ has a very warm and very soft light appearance. Which I personally like, but I still completely agree that the film is visually too dark for the same reasons you’ve pointed out. My own suggestion is that the new grade ups the contrast too much - it’s making the bright parts stand out even more from the scenery, while also washing out the lighting gradient on people’s faces like they’re standing under fluro tubes. In my opinion, the lighter areas don’t really need to get much lighter at all, it’s just the mids that need to be brightened a bit. You’ll also be fighting against the theatrical lighting by going for a blue tint, which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do it (it would certainly be an interesting change), but it’ll be a lot more difficult.
I feel like that sounds overly negative, which isn’t my intention; I always like seeing your colour grading process.
No problem, Cap. I wouldn’t be posting a lot of screencaps if there wasn’t room for improvement somewhere.
I suppose you make a fair point on the contrast. I think I’ll try moving the brightest areas down from “as far as broadcast safe will allow” to “somewhere in the 75% range” instead, then raise up the gamma some more for the mids. I’ll see how that goes.
Anyway, Github blocked the second half of the comparisons on the previous post (probably because they exceeded the size limits), so I had to go back and re-upload the second half. I’m not sure if any new insights will be found, but if you want to see a few more warmer-looking scenes (Yoda’s scene, for example), or you want to see what Crait looks like, you can find those shots in the spoiler tag below:
Time to showcase the screencaps! 😃
Now, when I discussed the color grading on my TFA edit, I stated that I didn’t plan on doing too much to the movie, because the blu-ray was pretty good (Although I guess I did a lot more to it than I expected in order to give it a more cinematic look). TLJ, however, is a different story. One of the biggest issues I have with the blu-ray for Episode VIII is how shockingly dark the whole thing looks. Here’s an example of what bothers me:
I’m looking at this shot with the scopes that are installed on DaVinci Resolve. This shot in particular occurs in broad daylight. The sky is blue, as you can see in the background. The sun is shining (and if you look closely at the bottom left side, you can see Luke’s shadow). But even with all of that, the image is so dim that it looks cloudy. In fact, it might actually be darker. I know this because the brightest parts of the image are somewhere between the halfway mark to the 2/3rds mark on the parade scope.
I understand that this is Star Wars and it’s possible that the planet itself was intended to be darkly lit, but it looks so wrong. Like someone put a 25-50% opacity filter on the whole thing. And it’s not just Luke’s planet that suffers from this. The whole movie happens to be this dim. I feel like I have to turn off all the lights in the room in order to watch it appropriately (Although I’ll be fair when I say that I do watch most movies in the dark in real life. Still, for the general public, this is ridiculous). So a big alteration I’ve done with the color grading is brighten up the image. A lot. I raised the brightest levels of the image up to the top (and maybe a little over the top, but not by too much) in order to get something like this:
In addition to the brightness adjustment, I also wanted to make this one look more cinematic too, just like my Episode VII edit. Now, back on that thread, I mentioned that I was able to make three particular film looks. The orange look, the blue look, and the faded purple look. Episode VII ended up with the orange look, but I mentioned that my favorite was the blue look, and I’m happy to say that I think TLJ looks great with the blue look. I was worried that I might have to go with the orange look again because a lot of us associate TLJ with the color red. But I think the blue look really adds something to the film (I especially think the blue lighting on Snoke’s throne is a nice touch). But hey, I’m cuddling with the blue look, and I think it’s best to let everyone else decide for themselves. Click on the spoiler tag below to see the rest:
While you’re at it, reinstate the original audio of Ewan McGregor making lightsaber noises.
Better yet, don’t bring Ewan McGregor into this. Get some random nobody to do the lightsaber noises and have him say things like, “pew pew” every time a blaster or spaceship fires.
I’ve been meaning to ask - is your colour grade applied to the entire film with the same settings, or do you go in and tweak individual scenes/shots once you’ve got the overall grade figured out?
I would say it’s mostly applied to the entire film, with some scenes and shots tweaked on occasion. This is especially true with my Episode II edit, where I had to change the color scheme of certain shots in the Geonosis droid factory from blue to red, so that they would match. Otherwise, I like to take a more generalized approach to the color grading.
Starting work on screencaps for the color grading. Not to brag or anything, but I think the comparisons are gonna be dazzling.
Suddenly, I realize Poe would make a perfect host for SCTV’s Celebrity Blow-Up.
I’m getting old, aren’t I?
Just tested the edit and realized that the 5.1 audio track had a few hiccups (2.0 stereo is the default track on my editing program, DaVinci Resolve, so my mind didn’t register that the audio transitions sound different in 5.1). I’m gonna work on the sound editing for the 5.1 surround track and fix those issues over the next few days. Otherwise, everything else is looking good.
I guess I’ll throw this in, even though I think it’s already been mentioned before in the worst edit ideas thread. An oldie but a goodie:
Sounds like I’ve got a consensus. I think I’ll start testing the edit sometime in the future.
After Maul falls down the pit, dub in echoing dialogue sourced from TCW to indicate he’s still alive down there and is going to find a way off Naboo to get some robotic spider legs.
Or better yet, take a page from Austin Powers. As Obi-Wan is talking to Qui-Gon, have Maul yell out, “Someone help me! I’m still alive, only I’m very badly sliced in half! Hello there? Anyone? Can someone call an ambulance? I’m in quite a lot of pain!”
It took longer than expected, but I finally got those screencaps! I’ll try to keep this short and sweet, but you know the drill.
After CaptainFaraday’s suggestion that Starkiller base’s snowy weather looked better in blue, I decided to see if I could tweak the orange look that I had already done before. Here’s a screencap of the orange film look I did:
I decided to try lowering the reds and raising the blues just a little slightly, giving more of a bluish hue than the previous grade. Here’s a screencap of what’s new:
Finding screencaps that showed what’s different was hard. Hopefully, that’s a sign that I’ve done my job. There are still differences though, and I’ve tried to find screencaps that showed the biggest differences. Some of them are good. Some of them not-so-good. Jakku looks a little more faded this time around. Starkiller Base still looks mostly white, just with a hint of blue. However, I think this new one is a good all-around sort of grade. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.
As usual, the examples are down below in the spoiler tag:
My new monitor just arrived! I’m currently working on calibrating it and making sure that everything looks good enough. I’ll see if I can get the screencaps in either today or tomorrow!
Add a small little Yoda type creature to this shot….
GROGU! NOOOOOO!!!
EddieDean said:
4) The structure of the ending. It has to deliver the lowest lows followed by the highest highs, which is mainly an issue of ordering. (And personally I’d treat the Gungans as the least important plot there, so maybe cutting that down would be my second major trim.)
I personally like l8wrtr’s approach to the ending, although I think a few things needed better timing (Such as the way Padme’s failure is handled, which I feel should’ve been moved closer to the finish). Naturally, I tweaked it for v3 of my edit and divided it into its own three-act structure, complete with a lowest point followed by a highest point. Here’s my arrangement for those who want the rundown:
Setup
Gungan army intro
Palace siege intro
Space battle intro
Gungan battle begins
Darth Maul intro
Destroyer droid obstacle
Lightsaber battle begins
Anakin enters the ship
Conflict part I
Gungan battle continues
Lightsaber fight continues
“We don’t have time for this, captain.”
Anakin enters the battle
Jedi get separated
Conflict part II
Gungans retreat
Padme gets captured
Qui-Gon dies
Gungans surrender
Anakin gets hit
Obi-Wan fights Darth Maul
Padme meets Nute Gunray (With Padme’s comeback deleted)
Ending
Darth Maul dies
Anakin destroys the control ship
Gungans celebrate
At the end of TLJ, Luke faces the First Order. He pulls out a pair of digitally added maracas. Then, Cuban Pete plays in the background. Luke Skywalker shakes those maracas to the beat and starts singing…
To really cut to the chase and centre the movie around Anakin, you could begin on Tatooine, with the party having just met him. In order to pull this off you’d need to substantially alter the opening crawl to convey the events of the now-excised first act. Perhaps something like this:
EPISODE I
THE PHANTOM MENACE
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy
far away, Naboo was under an attack.
And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn
could talk the FEDERATION in to
maybe cutting them a little slack.
But their response, it didn’t thrill us.
They locked the doors and tried to
kill us. We escaped from that gas,
then met Jar Jar and Boss Nass.
We took a bongo from the scene,
and we went to Theed, to see the
queen. We all wound up on TATOOINE.
That’s where we found this boy.I’ve been managing to watch like, twenty minutes of the movie a day but keep getting interrupted. Once I finally finish I’ll post something that’s not a stupid joke.
This is perfect for the worst edit ideas thread.
Interesting!
And I like that idea a lot, Eyepainter.
While we’re on Maul, I wonder if it’s worth replacing his one line of dialogue? The Sith only reveal themselves to the Jedi insofar as it’s a secondary thing that happens in his pursuit of the Queen, and no revenge is had. The Clone Wars has a dearth of possible Maul lines we could work with, and it’s arguably his more canon voice since he’s got hundreds of lines in that as opposed to the single one here.
I personally deleted that scene in my edit, and my reasoning is because it didn’t offer much to the film aside from looking pretty. I may have to watch the scene again, but from what I remember, most of it is pretty much bad guys saying saturday morning cartoon lines. I think the reason it was kept in (theatrically) is because it’s one of the few moments where we see Maul and Palpatine together, but most of the exposition isn’t all that important in the long run. Do we really need to know so badly that Darth Maul will find the jedi quickly? Or that he’s after the queen? Or that he’s well-trained? For me, that stuff is explained already in other scenes, so it comes across as repetitive.
Change Darth Vader’s suit color from black to pink, and then digitally add painted rainbows and unicorns to his suit as well.
Well, I’m late to the party. I guess I’ll throw in an idea from my own edit (or at least from v3 and beyond).
One thing I did to fix Episode I’s structural problems was pull a switcheroo. In the theatrical version, we had two scenes that threw the second act off. The first was Amidala’s final conversation with Palpatine on Coruscant, and the scene after is the jedi council’s rejection of Anakin. I decided to switch these two scenes around. Anakin gets rejected first, and Amidala decides to leave for Naboo next. This makes Anakin’s rejection by the council the film’s lowest point. However, it does come with a bit of a caveat: the nighttime skies aren’t very consistent anymore. First, you have the extremely dark blue night during Anakin’s rejection. Then, we go to Amidala’s conversation with Palpatine, where the sun is only just setting. Finally, we arrive back at the landing pad, which is extremely dark blue again. I think there might be a way to fix this through color grading, but I suppose it would be interesting to ask someone who might be more of an expert on this than I am.
I liked your second, not-blue grade from the 18th January post the best. It is quite warm, but that warm look + green shadows reminds me of technicolor prints of the original movie, like 4K77.
I agree, Sade. And hopefully, the differences between that grade and this new one will be minimal. The main reason I’m fixing it up some more is so that the snowy weather over at Starkiller Base is more blue than white, As per Captain Faraday’s suggestion.
Which leads me to some bad news. A friend of mine cracked my monitor while I was away. Fortunately, he’s generous and offered to pay for a new one. I’m gonna have to wait until the new monitor arrives, though. My hope is that it won’t be too long thanks to the evil empire known as amazon.com.
And yes, this is why the screencaps are taking so long to be uploaded.
While I’m still accumulating screencaps, I have to throw in an update to the editing changes.
I’ve removed another piece from my edit, and this one is painful, but I think it’s necessary for the direction I’m going with this.
One issue that I have with TFA’s execution is that it’s united around the search for Luke Skywalker which, for me anyway, was more epilogue than climax. The real ending of the film, IMO, was the moment Rey snatched Luke’s lightsaber away from Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base. So, I wanted to place more focus on uniting the film around that instead.
Which leads me to the difficult choice I’m about to make. I’ve decided to cut out the late Max von Sydow’s opening conversation with Oscar Isaac. The main problem with this scene is that it orients the film around finding Skywalker too much. It also gives off the implication that only a jedi can solve this problem, which throws things off for Finn, who isn’t a jedi but gets a lot of screen time along with Rey. One dynamic I find interesting about VII is that we don’t know who the main character is. A risky decision, especially since the prequels tried that and failed, but it worked in this film’s case. It kept you guessing who was going to lead the charge against the First Order. It could’ve been Rey, Finn, or possibly even Han. But by having Max von Sydow’s character say “Without the jedi, there can be no balance”, it kinda foreshadows things too much in Rey’s favor. I don’t want to cut this scene out, especially since Max von Sydow was a ridiculously talented actor, but I think it has to be done in order for the edit to work.
So now, the only bit that remains is Poe’s “Well, she certainly is that.” when BB-8 barges in and alerts Poe to the upcoming First Order assault. This gets us into the opening action sequence more quickly. I suppose the drawback is that it might make the opening even more like Episode IV, but I think getting into the opening battle sooner does a good job of drawing you in more. On the bright side, Max von Sydow’s conversation with Adam Driver is still in (although edited).
Just gave it a try. As expected, it didn’t work. However, I’ve come up with another idea. I took the orange film look and made it just a little less orange-y. That is, I lowered the reds in the color wheels slightly and I raised the blues in the color wheels slightly also. The difference between the two is small, but noticable. I’ll post some screencaps when I find the time.
Hey, guys. It’s me, the real Yoda. ‘Sup?
Yousa not the real Yoda. Meesa the real Yoda! Meesa teach you the ways of the force!
