logo Sign In

NeverarGreat

User Group
Members
Join date
11-Sep-2012
Last activity
4-Jul-2025
Posts
7,698

Post History

Post
#915465
Topic
Get ready for "Star Wars - Shroud of the Sith", a radical fan edit of "The Phantom Menace"
Time

One of the biggest problems with fanedits is that they can feel jarring and out of place, especially when we know how the movie is ‘supposed’ to play out. The Dooku appearance feels like that, but I think that the shots themselves are actually very well done. The trouble, as you said, is that we are essentially foreshadowing two evil characters at once. I’d suggest that the shots be reordered.
First, remove Dooku from the opening shot.
After ‘You will be a Jedi’, cut to the excellent panning shot of Palpatine, since he is already going to ‘watch [Anakin’s] career with great interest’
Then have the Jedi talking about the master and apprentice, and after this exchange have the opening shot duplicated and zoomed in, so that it slowly pans to the right and shows Dooku, and then shows him walking away.

It also seems strange that the big ending isn’t included. I wonder if the music could be changed to something grander, and simply have the entire scene dialogue free.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Again, really good work on the Dooku shots.

Post
#915412
Topic
Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation <strong>(Final Version Released!)</strong>
Time

Here’s an example of the changing color of the walls from the Blu-ray (uncorrected). This sequence has some horrible color smearing that seems to be on every version of the film from 77 onward, but it’s also clear evidence of the wall sections being painted different colors:

Death Star Walls

The wall on the left has about ten points more green than the one directly beside it, and neither are gray according to the blu-ray.

JEDIT: Yes, Mike has also said that the walls were painted different colors - see his discussion about the wall sections abutting the droid alcove across from the Falcon, which was intended as a more neutral gray.

Post
#914422
Topic
Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation <strong>(Final Version Released!)</strong>
Time

Very funny guys.

But yes, the shirts are blue, pants are grey, stormtroopers are white, Tantive walls are white with a very slight green tint, Death Star Walls are dark blue/green, lightsabers are reddish pink and sky blue, 3PO is coppery-yellow, R2’s metal dome is blueish grey, his panels are very dark blue/almost black, Tatooine is dusty yellow brown, etc, etc.

But here’s a question that I haven’t seen yet: What color is Tarkin’s uniform? As far as I can tell from behind the scenes pictures and other sources it’s green, but I’ve heard other people say that the Imperial uniforms are supposed to be gray or tan. I’ve always assumed they’re the green of Nazi officers, such as this yellowish green one here:
Nazi Uniforms
Here’s a costume photo from ROTS, the background of which I’ve balanced to neutral gray. Is this accurate?
Tarkin

Post
#914080
Topic
Star Wars Trilogy SE bluray color regrade (a WIP)
Time

I very much doubt that the look of Tatooine is because of fading.

from this article: http://www.wilhelm-research.com/pdf/HW_Book_10_of_20_HiRes_v1c.pdf :

“Based on the many Technicolor imbibition prints he has
examined in recent years, Robert Gitt of the UCLA film archives had this to say about the image stability of the process: If you took a Technicolor dye imbibition print and you projected it many times at a drive-in theater and put a lot of light through it, the dyes do fade a little bit — particularly the cyan — although not that badly. But if you are careful with Technicolor imbibition prints, and keep them in the dark and don’t show them a lot, they don’t seem to fade at all. I’ve never seen one that has faded if properly cared for. It is a remarkably good process. Technicolor imbibition on triacetate base is very, very good.”

Of course, the process itself can be (and was in the case of Star Wars) uneven in terms of color across shots, but I highly doubt that every shot is wrong. For example, many shots in the Death Star are simply too green, but among these incorrect shots are shots where the color is accurate, and it’s easy to tell the difference. With Tatooine, you say that every shot has these issues, so there are no shots where you can get a good idea of what it should look like on the print. I know that there are Tatooine shots without the pink shift, so my recommendation would be to simply take the most color accurate shot of Tatooine you have (the one that most matches the actual shooting conditions and/or other reference photos) and work from that as a basis for the correction - it’s what I’ve done with the Death Star interiors.

Post
#914068
Topic
Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation <strong>(Final Version Released!)</strong>
Time

The shot you mention is actually the first shot of reel 5, and is more blue than most of the surrounding shots. It does look nice in isolation, but there is a lot of variation in the color of print sources, and most of them have a strong green tint in this scene. I could still tweak the contrast, but I’m fairly happy with the color.

Congratulations on your first post! You have taken your first step into a larger world. 😉

Post
#913762
Topic
Star Wars Trilogy SE bluray color regrade (a WIP)
Time

dlvh said:

NeverarGreat said:

“I’ve finished this scene in my version, and the yellow is actually gone from entire shots (if you notice, the flowers in the lower left are supposed to be yellow as well). It’s a problem with hundreds of shots of the blu-ray, which means that I’ve had to pull these colors from other sources since they simply no longer exist in the blu-ray.”

And what did your shots of this scene look like, my we see?

Sure:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164143/picture:1

Screenshot Comparison has recently been increasing image saturation for some reason. I also may give it another look since Silver Screen was made available after I finished this scene.

Jedit: Now two comparisons at link

Dinner 1
Dinner 2
Reuploaded the images at more accurate saturation.

Post
#913697
Topic
Star Wars Trilogy SE bluray color regrade (a WIP)
Time

DrDre said:

Here’s another shot from the same sequence.

Funny tidbit: on the print the food in the bowl is actually orange/yellow. Good ol’ George probably thought people didn’t like yellow food, so he turned it into gray goo for the bluray release. Some of these changes are just weird.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

I’ve finished this scene in my version, and the yellow is actually gone from entire shots (if you notice, the flowers in the lower left are supposed to be yellow as well). It’s a problem with hundreds of shots of the blu-ray, which means that I’ve had to pull these colors from other sources since they simply no longer exist in the blu-ray.

Post
#912307
Topic
Get ready for &quot;Star Wars - Shroud of the Sith&quot;, a radical fan edit of &quot;The Phantom Menace&quot;
Time

Sheepish said:

NeverarGreat said:

Some of the grading goes too far in my opinion, for example making mauls black cloak look green. But I like how you got rid of the purple. Very strange choice for Lucasfilm.

See, I’m not really seeing green. Maybe that has to do with the settings on my monitor, but if there’s green to that cloak, it certainly presents a problem, as I didn’t do any green level adjustments in that scene.

…though I did use a slight teal filter to neutralize some other colors. That may have done it. I’ll give it another look.

One way to check your work is in Photoshop, where you can get RGB info for any pixel. It’s showing higher green levels for the shadows than the other colors.

Post
#912293
Topic
Get ready for &quot;Star Wars - Shroud of the Sith&quot;, a radical fan edit of &quot;The Phantom Menace&quot;
Time

Some of the grading goes too far in my opinion, for example making mauls black cloak look green. But I like how you got rid of the purple. Very strange choice for Lucasfilm.

Someone (I can’t remember who) uploaded scans of an original trailer, and though it’s a bit yellowed, it has a much more pleasing tone to me. It’s also a good idea of how it may have looked on a release print:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/163375

Post
#911281
Topic
Star Wars Trilogy SE bluray color regrade (a WIP)
Time

DrDre said:

The problem is that none of the production photos I’ve seen seem to reflect a pronounced green shift. The JSC is pretty inconsistent in this respect, and so are the print scans. So, although it certainly off-white, if there is a green color, it’s a creme color with the slightest hint of mint.

That’s it exactly. By subtly green, I simply meant that the pixels have a few points more green than anything else, which is what this photo shows. 😃

Post
#910605
Topic
The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS **
Time

I liked everything about the final scene except for the idea of the scene itself, by which I mean that the movie is structured to be bookended by fanservice to the OT. The opening crawl teases Luke’s eventual appearance, and the final scene reveals him. Through the film we are given the idea that he’s a great Jedi and the Jedi are important and magical, but one small problem with this is that he’s reduced to practically macguffin status, like the Death Star plans. Luke’s power is never shown in the film, only told through exposition.

The bigger problem takes more explanation:

The enigmatic nature of Luke in the final shots most closely mirrors the end of ESB, where Luke is left pondering a big question regarding the nature of his father. Both films clearly lead into their sequels, but they are different in that the audience is given a clear problem at the end of ESB. Luke became a Jedi because of his father, so if his father fell to the Dark Side, he could as well. Also, he is expected to destroy Vader, and if Vader is telling the truth, Luke would be massively conflicted about his entire quest. This is the nature of the film’s end, a very precise obstacle for our hero to overcome.

However, the end of TFA leaves the audience with no revelation, no clear problem. Rey finds Luke and holds out the lightsaber. Will Luke accept it? Will Rey become a Jedi and confront Ren? Is Rey Luke’s daughter? Yeah, probably, is my answer to all of the above. But why bother thinking about it? There is no obstacle here for Rey to ponder. This is no second act reversal, but a first act victory like ANH, and in this case the film should have ended on the shot of the Falcon leaving the base. But TFA wants to be a mashup of ANH and ESB, so it has both endings, with neither being particularly strong.

TL;DR version: Luke is a not-so-interesting macguffin, and the opening crawl and final scene is the beginning and ending of ESB tacked onto a functional remake of ANH.

Post
#909326
Topic
Team Negative1 - Star Wars 1977 - 35mm Eastman Vs Technicolot Theatrical Version (* unfinished project *)
Time

Lasz said:

it’s funny how they made the bluray look NOT like film. It looks underexposed and the highlights get clipped very harshly. Almost like what you would expect from a cheap digital pocket camera.

As far as my knowledge goes, part of what makes film look like film is that it has a very gradual roll-off near the highlights, like what you see in the Tech and NOT in the bluray

The Tech almost seems to have more latitude in its dynamic range than the bluray.

As far as the highlights of the Blu-ray, there is almost no clipping in any shot if you look at the raw data in the file, it’s just that it’s severely clipped when it’s played. I can’t believe that it’s intentional, which means they just screwed up the encoding of the Blu-ray. I’ve been able to recover these highlights for Despecialized v3.0.

Post
#907073
Topic
DESPECIALIZED EDITION <em>QUALITY CONTROL</em> THREAD - REPORT ISSUES HERE
Time

McGayver said:

REPORT-SW-v2.5
chapter 47
01:46:49 - 01:46:50

there is a very sudden change in the trench after a flash of white light. It seems that the first trench is the original version of the film and the second special edition.

That looks like a mistake in the Blu-ray which has been carried over to Despecialized. In Silver Screen, the trench is well lit on both sides of the flash, whereas the Blu-ray crushes the shadows on the first part of the shot.