Laserschwert

Harmy said:

Would anyone please care to comment on the picture I posted here? I'd quite like to know if you guys think I should use the new one.

I think only the Dewback's behind looks a bit fuzzier in the new version (the old version looks better and sharper in that area). Apart from that the new version looks slightly better though.

IF it works as a template... I doubt the layout and line spacings of the German credits will be exactly the same.

All right then, I'll re-work them once more, trying to fix any errors that are still there... hyphens, quotation marks and the new starfield. And while we're at "See Threepio", isn't the "O" in "C3PO" supposed to be a "0" (zero)? I've copy/pasted the credits from that BlueHarvest-site I've linked to above, and it already had a lot of typos, so this might be one of the more difficult to tell ones.

In case you didn't notice, I've added a slight twinkle to the starfield... is that working? Or ist it too much? The original starfields twinkled slightly because of exposure differences, I think...

As for the fonts, yeah, I've used Century Gothic for the Dolby logo's texts, so thanks for the correct one, I'll change it :-) Also I guess I'll just rebuild the "DOLBY SYSTEM" line with something like Eurostile, as I just took a Google image for that. Regarding the MPAA-font... no idea... it's way too small to tell. I think I'll try a font that's closer to this:

How about this one? (click for the full version)

It's from some thread on OT.com regarding either 35mm or 70mm prints (can't remember exactly). I assume that's where you got the LFL one as well? They were both rather crummy though, so I had to straighten it and fix some uneven letter thicknesses (due to different exposure, I guess).

Although instead of just stills I'd like to do the logos as videos including gate weave, a slight glow and the color changes during the fades as well (like my German ones).

The finished credits (now at higher bitrate and 25fps):

http://www.mediafire.com/?xrviof97oaz93ab

(And I guess I'll make some "sharper" versions of the LFL and "A long time ago" cards as well... after all I've already made them for the German intros)

Glad you like it :-) If Harmy plans to do new versions of TESB and ROTJ, I could probably deal with those as well.

Yeah, I've added the fade out :-) But even if I didn't, it wouldn't be so hard to re-render that short segment of the video in a couple of minutes.

But I think I've got all changes, corrections, fades and spacing issues covered now.

All right, I've implemented all the changes, now I'll render out the credits... this takes about 2 hours.

Wow, thanks for that! Damn, more errors than I thought :D I'll go about and correct them right away.

Timing-wise they do sync up as I've divided them into blocks of text which I've synched up separately. The only differences are caused by the original transfer being warped a bit, so that's when the two version slightly drift apart. But there's no reason to simulate the warping as well, as those are just "problems" from the transfer.

Is the MPAA logo fading out something that was in the original credits? I thought it was done by Harmy, because it looks strange that it just fades out midway to the screen...

I've already fixed the drop shadows on both the Dolby and the MPAA logo... they were too big and opaque because of some wrong settings, and are now the same size and color as the normal text.

Thanks again for checking!

"Dolby Sound Consultant: Stephen Katz" is too close to the Rerecording Mixers credits

BTW, the errors regarding spacing are really tough... as you might notice, due to the warping the spacing does match up once the text reaches the top of the screen. If I match up those lines, the lines further down won't match anymore. I guess I'll just move the offending parts closer to the next paragraph gap... they won't match up in other areas, but at least the line spacing is a bit more consistent this way.

It's not as much effort as taking on the whole film like Harmy did ;-) If each of us would tackle a specific part of the preservation it could be finished like in a day :-P

TServo2049 said:

Laserschwert, these look great. However, to help you make them look as accurate as possible, I'm going to compare your recreation against the real ones and look for errors.

Right now, I see that you put commas after the companies listed for Additional Optical Effects - this is inaccurate, none of them had commas in the original.

Good catch! I've corrected those. And thanks for checking... there shouldn't be too many other errors (hopefully!), as I've basically traced the original credits. But it can't hurt to get another pair of eyes look over them :-)

And about the starfield: It looks great, except the blacks are a bit noisy. I've removed the noise and will add a little touch of moving noise back in via After Effects, so that it's not static.

I told you ;)

So I shouldn't be using the starfield you've uploaded above?

Harmy said:

Really, isn't that gonna be huge? And I was hoping I'd avoid using After Effects - as an AVI, I could just import it straight into my editing program and only use a still of the first credit for the wipe.

Doesn't your editing program support PNG sequences? What software are you using? I was thinking PNG so that you have an uncompressed video to work with. But if it's enough for you, I can just export another Xvid with a higher bitrate.

BTW, your idea of taking a still of the first frame of the credits wouldn't work (or at least look slightly "wrong") as it wouldn't have the gate weave. But you can just take a 1 second snippet of the "Written and Directed by GEORGE LUCAS" credit and copy it enough times to cover your wipe.

Ah well, then it wouldn't matter at what framerate I give the file to you, because in AfterEffects you can just right click the file in the project panel, choose "interpret footage" and set its frame rate manually.

Do you have a PNG of the SE starfield? I would add it to the credits and upload the whole thing as a PNG sequence.

The gate weave's there... although not in the starfield. But I wouldn't blur it, since it wouldn't be blurred if this was an original transfer (just check Mike's sample again, which IS a scan of the film after all). I've already smoothed out the edges, so that it has more rounded corners (which is somewhat typical for an optical composite). Also, since it's 720p, it WILL get blurred once played on a 1080p device due to upscaling anyway.

But why 25fps?

Ah well, I once was a teenager as well, so I'm sure you'll lose the "Screw you!"-attitude once you grow up.

Anyway, since you've asked so nicely (loved the bow) here's the re-worked credits sequence: http://www.mediafire.com/?oh518fxqo8ecgmv

Of course it's nitpicking (or "detail oriented"), and thankfully it is!... I'd say that's what a successful project like this is about: Dealing with as many aspects as possible to get a product that's as close to perfect as possible. Hell, when I invest so much time in a project, I go the extra mile to fix the details as well... and Harmy working on a 1.2 of SW kinda proves that he feels the same way (even if the credits are excluded from that feeling ;-) ).

@ Dark_jedi: Somehow you always seem to be pissed off that your work (or in this case Harmy's, which utilized some of it) doesn't get appreciated more, and that people who point out flaws are ungrateful or something... what's up with that? There's so much creative power (not to mention ability!) around these forums, so why not listen to other people's ideas and suggestions, instead of feeling offended all the time?

Oldschooljedi said:

I'm really sorry to say, but there is a little Tippteufel in the ESB crawl:

The title says 'Das Imperium schlägt züruck'. I assume this wasn't in the original crawl? I'm asking because the original release of episode II for example had the title 'Angrief der Klonkrieger' printed on the DVD-cover.

Anyway, these are nice crawls. What videocodec did you use for this?

 

Obviously you're not THAT old school a jedi, as you nick claims ;)

As you must know the original German crawl to Empire HAS that typo. Even more: I am using the actual film transfer of that crawl (the Empire crawl isn't re-created by me... only the logo and the background were replaced by me), as it was used in the German HDTV broadcasts.

And since I've tried to re-create the classic German crawls, both that typo and the "belated" German logo for SW are included in these re-creations.

Replacing the credits isn't actually that much work... typing them all out (and formatting them) would be the main hassle here ;-)

Maybe they are all written out already somewhere on the web? Gotta check...

Edit: Alright, the scripts over at BlueHarvest.net contain the credits of the trilogy... I'll think about it :D

All three German intros are now finished and polished:

Krieg der Sterne
Das Imperium schlägt zurück
Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter

I know... that's why we're still not sure if we'll recreate the German credits for our German version of Harmy's trilogy ;-)

Still, to say that Harmy's credits look better than the sample Mike has posted is simply not true (and a bit ignorant)... just because Mike's a prick doesn't mean that his samples look bad.

Harmy said:

Yeah, I like mine better, Mike's look fake to me.

I wouldn't say that at all... no offense, but your credits don't look too good and suffer a lot from upscale artifacts. I'm sure it would be possible to rebuild them to look more like the original (and I'm sure Mike's images are legit).

I know that them standing still was in the original... that's why I've copied it. But that doesn't mean I like it.

At this point we're not really talking releases yet... First we have to get the thing together at all! (especially the audio)

Any estimates when your 1.2 of SW would be done? Ideally we would wait for that (and its improvements) before "Germanizing" it...

The smearing is just some encoding bug, but it's not in my work files, of course ;-)

Although I've stayed true to the theatrical crawl, two things still bother me: The logo standing still for a few frames (what a stupid mistake), and the long pause after the crawl disappearing.

I'm thinking about fixing at least the latter problem, which would be rather easy, as the crawl speeds up a bit in the end... if I keep the speed constant throughout the shot (by taking out the speedup), the text would stay on screen a little longer, thus shortening the gap of pure starfield. Fixing the logo is of course just a few clicks as well, but I guess my project partners (especially TK-949) would kill me ;-)