Any chance some kind soul could upload this to a.b.starwars? Dying to see this!
Mucho thanks :)
Damn our ISP doesn't allow downloading from several file-sharing sites, and it looks like megaupload is one of them - typical!
Hoping in time that some kind soul will upload this to a.b.starwars at some point (and yes, already lobbying parents to change ISP ;) )
Fanku kindly! :)
I don't suppose I could have one of them thar new-fangled PM things too could I?
This looks ace!
Dunedain said:
I know what you mean, the 35mm film print is just *beautiful*, there is no substitute for real film! :)
Amen to that - it just looks so crisp and sharp :)
From what I've see so far the captures look beautiful - here's hoping the sections which they changed in the SEs can be at least salvaged from these prints, if not the whole films.
@ Zombie84: Absolutely SPOT ON, Sir!!! Very well said indeed. The trouble is I think he gets irritated by the fact many people like the other 50% - the part that made compromises due to budget which actually made the films better - and he's basicaly trying to sweep that under the carpet. I really am of the opinion the George Lucas I loved in the 70s/80s never actually existed. That - for me - is even sadder than this whole SE nonsense he's inflicted upon us with each new release...
Wow that clips looks fantastic - great work indeed on the transfer!!!
Amazed how blue Hoth looks esp. in the wampa scene, after all the hooplah about the 2004s colour balance. Perhaps it was always meant to be that blue afterall! At any rate its grand to see Empire looking like a film again :) Plays perfectly using VLC on my Mac.
Not to nit pick, but I've noticed with both the Puggo Grande and the Empire clip that there is a strange sort of 'echo-y' effect on some of the music. Almost like a vibraphone in places! Is this sort of audio effect common on 16mm film prints?
Aren't you clever......
Sheesh the mental age of this place is going to hell.....
This is disappointing news, but as others have said it makes sense to still capture as much as the film as is possible/undamaged. Other prints will turn up in the future for the missing sections I am sure. Even if only one scene is usable in replacing an SE'd section that's still cause for celebration!
Let's keep a little optimism here ;)
I really think it's probably in the best interests of this project if we stop discussing it on a public forum. Some bozo out there might say something to someone who says something to someone else and before you know it too many people know about this preservation, and it won't be long before someone out there tries to shut this down.
All just in my humble opinion of course, but better safe than sorry...
Should we even be discussing all this on an 'open forum' as it were? I'd hate to see any hitches to this project because someone on 'the wrong side' happened to see this thread? I thought Lucasfilm were meant to be pretty ruthless when it comes to 35mm prints of the original trilogy? This is the closest we've ever come to a potentially untampered with preservation in very good quality of the Original Trilogy and I'd hate for anything to get in the way of it, and all the hard behind the scenes work -1 has obviously put into this so far.
Probably being Mr Paranoid here, but thought it was worth bringing up lol ;)
zombie84 said:
If you think that looks like shit, I don't know how many private prints you've seen. This is pretty immaculate looking, I would say. The fade is fairly mild, with easily recoverable colours, there's very little damage and only mild dirt. It would be a lot of work to clean up, of course, but that is a given--most pro scans clean the film before they telecine, and if this print got a pro cleaning before telecine it would look as good as anything Criterion would do. The only thing remaining would be to hand-paint out the scatches, which probably would be a couple hundred hours of labour for the film, but something that could be completed within three or four months with some dedication.
I'd kinda prefer it with the scratches and odd flaw left in to be honest - makes it more of a genuine 'old school' kinda screening experience, though I realise I am probably in the minority here. I'd just like to see it colour corrected, and then left as-is. I think a decent colour corrected transfer of this print could then form the basis of whatever restorations people wanted to then work on.
It's just GREAT to see it as I remember it - a film that LOOKS like a film hahaha! Lovely natural looking film grain which hasn't been removed, then replaced by digital grain, or even rubbed away altogether! A genuine time capsule record of how Empire used to look!
Major league kudos for -1 getting it this far!
ChainsawAsh said:
the print kinda looks like shit.
I've gotta disagree with that statement - it just needs a lot of work in post to get the colour balance back to how it should be. In its present condition it still pisses over the GOUT, and it's in HD too by the looks of it... Nice natural level of film grain too rather than some digitally scrubbed monstrosity - it looks like a proper film again.
Keep everything crossed and praying to the film gods that this preservation eventually sees the light of day! Looks more than promising thus far...
I think it's safe to say if this project reaches completion, it will make a lot of people rather happy ;)
It's looking (very) good so far. Keep the faith, and keep those fingers crossed!
Blimey - this all sounds VERY intriguing!!!
EDIT: WOWzers!!!
I'm with 'Video Collector' on the whole rounded edges issue, but I understand the issues you've outlined above. The aim of this is afterall to preserve the 16mm experience, and having those unique rounded edges there - to me - preserves that 'old skool' 16mm screening experience.
I got a real nostalgic kick from those screen shots you posted earlier Puggo. One of my fondest Star Wars memories was my 7th Birthday in June, 1980. I hadn't seen the film yet at that point (that treat was to be a Star Wars/Empire double bill later on in the month which just absolutely BLEW my mind at that age, and was the first time I went to the cinema also!). MY parents arranged for a guy to come around to my Birthday party with a 16mm projector. I seem to recall we watched a few cartoons, but the real treat was the trailer for Empire. I think we got him to screen it several times and we were all sitting their open mouthed especially during the few shots of the walkers! Ahhh good days!
So thanks for rekindling those precious memories with those still captures, not to mention the prospect of actually being able to own 16mm capture at some point! That little kid inside of me is still sitting there open mouthed at those shots some 30 years later ;)
- John
Anyway, I agree with Dark Jedi and am only throwing ideas out there that may or may not help. I am very excited about this project!
That goes for me as well - it's such a treat to be able to see a 16mm print of these films transferred by someone who cares. Much appreciated indeed! :)
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Nerfherder said:
Ditto. Even though the source material perhaps isn't in the best of condition every bit of resolution helps. I was watching the Puggo Grande on a 110" screen last week, upscaled via an HD 1080p Epson projector. Whilst it looks fab and REALLY gives one the feel of seeing it 'for real' again (ahh those worn prints of the early 80s!) the blocking/compression in having to squeeze it onto a DVD-5 and the encoders freaking out over all the film grain and dust/scratches etc is really quite apparent. If you're going to the time & trouble of scanning in a film, might as well push the boat out with the encoding to make it as 'perfect' as possible instead of possibly having to do another transfer further down the road...
By the way, I ran a test for reel 1 of Puggo Grande last week at full SD bitrate (which would fit on a DVD9)... it's hard to say if many people would notice any difference. I was hard pressed to see any difference, but I think I saw some at the borders of horizon and sky in the desert scenes.
After I'm done with PSB, maybe I'll go back and make a HD upscaled version of PG.
It depends on how big the viewing screen is. On my laptop I didn't notice many compression artifacts, but on that 110" screen they were quite obvious. Encoders just hate constantly moving scenes, and I think those particular Star Wars 16mm prints are one of the worst examples out there with all the grain, dust, scratches and so on. It would be very cool indeed to have an HD upscaled version of the Puggo Grande to give those encoders room to encode every little spot and blemish without any artifacts - Thanks for considering it and I'll keep my fingers crossed ;)
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
If you want to adjust the color, brightness, etc. please be careful not to wash out the brighter or darker areas. It might be fine just to leave it as is and not adjust this at all, but you are obviously the best judge about that.
Definitely, I'm going to try and be extra careful throughout on this. My goal is to make sure that everything that made it from the print to the raw cap, is retained in the final version. Some color correction will be necessary, as it is pretty much impossible to find a single white balance on the camera that works on an entire reel.
I think white balance is very important. Parts of the Puggo Grande seem very 'blown out' (almost like too much light was being projected through the film?) as far as the whites are concerned, though I seem to remember you saying that was representative of the 16mm prints themselves. Those Empire caps look very very good indeed, and being as a quarter of the film is set on Hoth I think it's even more important to keep tabs on the white balance. As you said it's impossible to find a 'correct' balance throughout each reel so I guess this will fall into the 'eye balling' it category. I'd be tempted to try out a raw capture without any processing at all and see how that looks, otherwise one is altering the print. It's nice to preserve exactly how one would see this if projected, even though the temptation is there to keep tweaking the settings.
As others here have said, thank you so much for doing these transfers - you really are preserving an important part of the Star Wars universe and it's greatly appreciated indeed :)
- John
P.S. The Empire print looks in far better shape than Star Wars - much sharper. There seems to be quite a bit of colour bleed/spill on the 16mm Star Wars Puggo Grande print around some objects, but Empire seems pretty much free of that from those stills you posted. A slight bit of colour bleed around the opening crawl, but other than that it seems to be a far superior print. Bet it looks better and sharper still in motion!
Ditto. Even though the source material perhaps isn't in the best of condition every bit of resolution helps. I was watching the Puggo Grande on a 110" screen last week, upscaled via an HD 1080p Epson projector. Whilst it looks fab and REALLY gives one the feel of seeing it 'for real' again (ahh those worn prints of the early 80s!) the blocking/compression in having to squeeze it onto a DVD-5 and the encoders freaking out over all the film grain and dust/scratches etc is really quite apparent. If you're going to the time & trouble of scanning in a film, might as well push the boat out with the encoding to make it as 'perfect' as possible instead of possibly having to do another transfer further down the road...
All IMHO of course!
;)
Ah that's a shame. I'll just delete those files then (not much good without the password at any rate lol!). I purchased a 1080p HD projector a few months ago and (for a bit of fun) I'd like to try some (old school red & blue style) 3D conversions on the 'big' screen.
I might give this a shot - it has a 14 day free trial:
http://www.tridef.com/3d-experience/overview.html
Didn't you have a 3D scene on your Star Wars Revisited disc come to think of it? I'll get my copy out and give that a try this evening :)
- John
Nerfherder said:
If anyone's interested the 3D transfer mentioned above can be found by doing a BIN search for:
star wars ep4-3D.SBS.720p.jimbo69jones
Forget about the above search - it's passworded. Waste of download time :/
Wow fantastic cover - I like it!
Just to nit-pick though, it should read "features a unique prologue", not "features AN unique prologue"
;)