Eyepainter

Atom-88 said:

I think the colour correction looks a lot better than the comparison shot, so I would say they seem just right mate👍.

Glad to hear! I’ve been a little busy recently due to the holiday season, but I’m gonna try testing the newer grade on my HDTV to see if any issues show up. If I’m lucky, I might release it just before Christmas.

Atom-88 said:

Good to hear Eyepainter, would love a link once completed 😁

Thanks, Atom. I’ll be happy to send it once I’ve finished it.

I’ve just about completed tweaking the black levels on the color grading. However, I have a few caveats. I’ll demonstrate by showing off some more screencaps.

Now, in a perfect world, I could just lower the black levels and the only thing being affected would be the black levels. However, that’s easier said than done. No matter how careful I am, the entire image follows suit by default, and the natural result is a darker image as you can see in the spoiler tag below. The top examples are the original grade, while the bottom examples are the tweaked grade:

Because of this, the tweaked grade is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, since darker areas now look more accurate. A curse, because this means that some of the details are too dark to see. The bushes in the example below reveal this problem:

The next few examples show how the black levels look during brighter scenes. Both for better and for worse.

These next few screencaps show what the black levels look like in darker scenes; especially those at nighttime. You’ll notice that some of the details are either harder to see or gone completely in the tweaked grade:

The asylum scenes were the first major red flags that the black levels needed to be readjusted. The first example looked like daytime on my HDTV. Hopefully, the tweaked grade has fixed that problem.

More examples of how the black levels are affected during daylight scenes.

The assassination attempt on Miles Dyson was the biggest reason I decided to readjust the black levels. Look at the nighttime sky in the top example. Yikes!

This particular shot has been quite troublesome. I’m not sure if it’s entirely my fault, because the Skynet Edition that I’m using also suffers from this. Take a look. This is literally what’s on the blu-ray:

I don’t know if the film prints were deteriorating at the time or if something happened during the telecine, but the dark gray nighttime sky definitely looks wrong. The bottom example below is perhaps the best reason for the tweak:

Look at Sarah Connor’s outfit in this example:

My last screencap is one that oughtta be familiar for the fans. It too shows the strengths and weaknesses of the tweaked grade:

That’s it for now. What do you think? Does it still need some readjusting, or does it look just right?

JackNapier said:

Replace every lightsaber sound effect with a loud sexual moan and a moist slapping sound. Also replace Darth Sidious with David S Pumpkins.

Don’t forget to add saxophone music to the fights. The circle would never be complete without it.

Just tested out the lossless 1080p version, and everything looks good with the exception of one thing. The picture looks too bright in places, particularly in a few night shots. I’m gonna go back to the color grading and tweak that up. Otherwise, I think the rest of the movie looks right.

Sound editing is done. Since I haven’t gotten feedback on which ending to go for, I’m going to stick with the theatrical ending for now. Gonna do some testing in the future to make sure all is well before I release it.

General changes announced. Here’s the list in the spoiler tag below. “–” means deleted, “/” means altered or changed, and “++” means added or extended, because a singular plus sign now looks like a bullet point, so I’ll be using a double plus sign until further notice.

/ Changing the opening crawl
– Removed some of the jokes
– Attempting to lessen the snooty british tone of the First Order fleet, especially General Hux
– Removed Poe’s bad blood with Leia
– Lessening Paige’s role in saving the rebellion as well as the overly patriotic tone of the scene
/ Changed Luke from murderous psychopath to a jedi who fell to guilt and self-hatred over his failure to train Kylo Ren
++ Added “Luke Has a Moment” deleted scene
– Attempting to remove the “flying Princess Leia” moment
– Removed Poe’s conspiracy subplot revolving around Holdo
/ Changed Holdo to a more heroic figure
++ Added “Caretaker Village Sequence” deleted scene
/ Altered and removed scenes and lines about Rey’s parents for consistency with Episode IX
– Removed all moments of Luke using his lightsaber on Kylo Ren in flashbacks
++ Added “Alternate Opening” deleted scene to introduce Finn
– Removed Rose and Finn’s romantic relationship
– Removed all of Canto Bight
– Removed DJ
– Removed all of Finn and Rose’s episode on the First Order frigate
– Removed Captain Phasma
– Removed Rey’s rejection of Kylo Ren’s offer to join
– Removed Kylo and Rey’s force fight for Luke’s lightsaber, including its destruction
/ Re-edited so that Holdo’s kamikaze run on the First Order fleet interrupts Rey’s decision
– Removed Kylo’s lie about Rey killing Snoke
– Removed most of Kylo’s angrier scenes during Crait battle to create a more ambiguous ending
– Removing Finn risking his life to stop the battering ram cannon
– Removed Rose’s “saving” Finn, as well as her line about “saving what we love”
– Removed most of Rey from Crait battle up until she has to move rocks to create a more ambiguous ending and tone
/ Soften up Kylo Ren slightly during his Luke Skywalker confrontation to create more ambiguity
– Removed ending scene with the jedi children on Canto Bight

Just looked at the two remaining versions of my edit, and my conclusion is this: Much of Finn and Rose’s journey together makes little sense without Poe’s conspiracy theory subplot intact. And because I’ve always intended to remove that subplot from the beginning, I have no interest in bringing it back just to give Finn some more screentime. I also think that Finn and Rose’s big showdown with the first order (and Captain Phasma) muddied up the story’s already messed up structure even further (and don’t get me started on BB-8’s hacking of a walker).

Taking out Finn and Rose’s sequence on the first order fleet did a much better job at simplifying the ending, since all we have to focus on for the first ending is 1. Rey, Kylo and Snoke, and 2. The resistance escape combined with Holdo’s kamikaze attack. Taking out Rose’s crashing into Finn during the Crait battle doesn’t hurt, either. And because Episode IX ditches Finn and Rose’s relationship anyway, there’s no point in trying to keep that love story in.

Bottom line: I’ve made up my mind on how to edit Finn. I’m going to add the alternate opening deleted scene at around two-thirds of the way through the film (Just before the first ending begins), and have him do a few things during the second ending on Crait, including trying to stop the battering ram (and before you panic, you can rest assured that I’m still cutting out Rose’s “rescue” of Finn, and keeping as much of Finn’s sacrifice for the greater good out of my edit since there’s no way to resolve it now).

I still have to take care of a lot of small edits with this one, but now that I’ve decided how to handle Finn, I have the big stuff taken care of. So, I’m going to steal a page from my friend, CaptainFaraday, and release a general overview of the major changes first. Then, once I’ve taken care of the tiny things, I’ll release a more thorough and detailed changes list later on down the road. Be on the lookout. I’ll be releasing the changes list soon!

I’ve just scrapped the version where Finn doesn’t show up until near the end credits. Mainly because a lot of important bits during the Krait battle have Finn. So, instead of juggling between three different versions, I’m now juggling between two: One where Finn is brought back to life about two-thirds of the way through (and conveniently skipping the romance between Rose, Canto Bight, and the codebreaker episode altogether), and the other which has Finn’s theatrical journey, but heavily edited. I’m leaning more towards the first, but I’m gonna have to take look at both versions again before I come to a final conclusion.

Atom-88 said:

The new colour grade look really good and so much better especially with the blue tint gone, looking forward to seeing this edit👍

Thanks, Atom! I think I’ll stop playing around with the color grading and say that it’s done for now. Moving on to the sound editing sometime in the future.

Here are the demo shots as promised. One thing I should note beforehand is that I changed the color space settings, which changed the LUT somewhat. Here’s what it looked like originally:

That pic was posted at the beginning of the month, and since then, I’ve been playing around with the color space options to see what the results look like. I changed the color science from DaVinci YRGB to DaVinci YRGB Color Managed. I turned off automatic color management and set the color processing mode to SDR Rec. 709. Then I changed the output color space to Rec. 709 Gamma 2.4, to bring up a LUT that looks like this instead:

Besides that, and raising the midtone detail, everything else has been left untouched. I have placed the examples in the spoiler tag below. I don’t think anybody will mind, since everyone has seen the film, but because a few of the images contain spoilers, and because this post will get really, really long if I don’t, I’ve decided to place the demo shots in spoiler territory. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Get Beavis and Butthead to do a fan edit of Return of the Jedi.

Change C-3P0’s voice from a british accent to a russian accent.

EddieDean said:

I really like the LUT. Looks very natural, more like the OT. I’d be interested to see more demo shots with the same LUT.

You’re right. I should throw in more demo shots. I’ll get to work on obtaining some more screencaps (when I can find time in between moving boxes, of course) this week. Be on the watch. I’ll try to get 'em posted as soon as I can!

As promised, here are the screencaps I mentioned.

Let’s break down the process with an example shot.

Here’s what the movie looked like with just the LUT:

Taking notes from the YouTube video by Mononodes, I began the process by adjusting the offset printer lights. I decided to adjust the RGB values towards green and blue because T2 was never really that red to begin with. I then adjusted the contrast and pivot controls, but the results were barely noticable, so they’re both included in this screencap. Trust me. You won’t see a difference between the two if I turned off the contrast.

After looking at a few scenes on my 1080p HDTV, I noticed that the colors looked rather pale, so I raised the color saturation:

Finally, I worked on the standard color wheels. I wanted to really go all the way with the film look, so I grabbed my flash drive of Puggo Grande’s 16mm Star Wars trilogy and ingested all three movies onto DaVinci Resolve to study what they look like on the scopes. Episode IV had a much bluer color scheme than V and VI, so I decided to adjust the black and white levels accordingly. I tried the redder color cast from Empire and Return onto T2 to see what would happen, and it turned everything into a copper yellow. That finalized my decision. The black levels in Puggo’s Episode IV had a blue tint, so I raised the blue in the lift feature. The white levels, on the other hand, have a green tint, so I lowered the reds and blues in the gain feature. Finally, the midtones were bright on Puggo’s Episode IV, so I raised the gamma a lot. I tested it on my 1080p HDTV again, and the blacks looked way too blue and the whites looked way too green, so I readjusted the color wheels again to make the blue and green tints more subtle. Now the black levels are only faintly blue and the whites are only faintly green now. With that lengthy wall of text done, here’s the LUT with the powergrade:

Now with that example out of the way, let’s go to the main attraction. I’m placing all of the screencaps under a spoiler tag so as to make this post shorter. Plus, there are actual spoiler warnings in these screencaps anyway (although I don’t think that’s gonna be a big issue since almost everyone has seen the movie by now). Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

nmxuci5970 said:

The final in the prequels looks awesome when you had Great changes with the shots in the movie especially some cut dialogues that weren’t that important to be sure by having mustafar duel scene and padme’s funeral into one.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

nmxuci5970 said:

I was unable to watch your 1080p version of the phantom menace edit. However, I was able to watch the 720p v3. I liked how you used different types of film techniques in different shot angles to make it look like a artificial environment when they travel to different Star systems. By the way this looks like a great piece for its kind. Nice Work

Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

CMMAP said:

Eyepainter said:
And here’s what it looks like when I added a DCI-P3 Fujifilm 3513DI D55 LUT using the technique described in the video above:

Although I do have my opinions, I’m curious to hear what others think about it. Keep in mind that the bottom example is the LUT itself. I haven’t done any color corrections to it at all, with the exception of adding a broadcast safe node and a node containing the Cineon film log Color Space Transform, as described in the YouTube video. So naturally, I’m not expecting it to be perfect.

I think, despite missing cc, it´s way to blown in the highlights and to bright overall. The light source in the upper region and the entry on the right of this scene wouldn´t accumulate this much brightness. Hence, i don´t think this LUT works.

In my experience, most LUTs are imperfect. With many being either too dark, too bright, too low in contrast, or too heavily saturated in color. So an overly bright LUT like this one is normal. My central aim with this LUT is to give a more cinematic look to the film, and judging from EddieDean’s comment on the screencap looking close to the OT, it sounds like I’ve succeeded.

Changes list is up!

Just cut out 1 or 2 more minutes, bringing the running time down to 118-119 minutes. I’m starting to run out of things to cut, so I’m ready to start worrying about polishing things up (as well as getting to work on posting a list of changes).

I have another update on the color grading. I’ve been fortunate enough to find this video on YouTube which I’ve been taking notes on for the last day or two:

https://youtu.be/mt4FMClxhbc

I went further down the rabbit hole and found the website from the creator, which I’ve been getting a lot of inspiration from lately:

http://www.mononodes.com/

I’ve also been working on the concept of powergrades, which is a major theme of this colorist’s work. I’ve been taking even more notes on this video, which has been insanely helpful so far:

https://youtu.be/PchQ0fWGUR0

I’ll still be using the LUT I’ve mentioned, as well as the adjustments I’ve already made, but I will be applying the powergrade on the individual clips themselves and seeing how it turns out. I will post some screencaps showing the differences between the LUT as is and the LUT with the powergrade in the future.

Hal 9000 said:

For that matter, stormtroopers now have a history of chattering and never coming anywhere close to slowing down.

This would explain why the storm troopers had horrible aim. They just couldn’t shut up.

Make a version of Rogue One where the heroes are portrayed as baby seals and the villains are portrayed as seal hunters.

Replace Darth Vader in the OT for Austin Powers instead.

Come to think of it, that’s not bad enough.

Digitally strip the stormtroopers down to their underpants through the entire original trilogy, so that the issues people have with their armor being weak are resolved.

Time for an update on the color grading. Since I’ve gotten no second opinions on the color grading, I’ve decided to go ahead with the Rec. 709 Fuji LUT for the grade. Several reasons. Reason #1: It’s my favorite of the film look LUT’s I have on DaVinci Resolve. Reason #2: It’s the bluest of the film look LUT’s, which works perfectly for T2 due to its already blue color palette. So, congrats Rec. 709 Fuji. You win by personal bias!

Smile for the camera, please!

So, with my LUT selected, I’ve gotten to work on the grade. I started off by changing the timeline color space from Rec. 709 (Scene) to Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2, which immediately fixed the brightness issue:

Rec. 709 (Scene)

Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2

It looks good, but there’s one thing that bothers me in this shot. If you look at the Rec. 709 (Scene) cap again, you’ll notice the power lines behind the T-800. Those details have disappeared in the Gamma 2.2. So, I decided to adjust the black levels using the curves. I tried adjusting the red, green, and blue channels separately, but this altered the color scheme of the film look LUT I was aiming for. So instead, I decided to combine the three channels together and adjust the Y channel, which is basically all three channels combined to make white. I decided to brighten up the black levels like so.

Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2 corrected

Next, I took on one of the biggest issues with my Skynet Edition blu-ray: the lack of detail. As mentioned in the blu-ray reviews in the main topic, this transfer suffered from the dreaded DNR that plagued a lot of blu-ray releases at the time. So I cranked up the midtone detail (abbreviated as MD) all the way up to 11. Midtone detail increases the perception of image sharpness, giving the image a fake ultra high definition look.

Before MD

After MD

I’m not sure if it’s an instant fix for more detail, but I will say that it does look a lot sharper. And in this movie’s case, that’s never a bad thing.

So, that’s the progress I’ve made so far. Let me know what you think about the above improvements.