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NeverarGreat

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Join date
11-Sep-2012
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22-Dec-2025
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Post
#1414725
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

I feel like it’s similar to the trip to Alderaan in ANH; based on the events that happen on the Falcon, it feels like it takes maybe twenty minutes, but the ‘canon’ timeline takes hours at least.

Every change of location in the island scene is written to lead into the next, but there’s no reason that Rey couldn’t have had a bit of a sleep at some point while waiting for Luke to appear in the hut or the TIE to stop burning. In a perfect edit I would maybe try to cut Rey racing out of the hut to check on the TIE so as to better imply that she took her time and spent the night while waiting for the fire to die down, but that may not be feasible.

Post
#1414673
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s a full mockup of the Ach-To sequence, featuring a regrade by NeverArGreat:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UpnKp8-35PMwuWDXiv2ZjIvsZ93y0BE0/view?usp=sharing

I agree with everyone else that the nighttime and morning regrades look fantastic. Not sold on the evening, though.

Also, I find it somewhat hard to believe that Rey and Luke would be talking ALL night long. Of course, Ahch-To could have a shorter day/night cycle if we wanted to. But the impression for the average viewer is that she was there for about 10 hours. Meh.

Is it possible that when she is burning the Falcon it is night? That would not only make the timing make more sense, but also remove the evening regrade that doesn’t look as good.

The issue is that there are quite a few shots with a bright sky directly behind/through Rey and Luke. I masked those out and darkened them for an evening look, but I don’t know if replacing them with night would work at all, and if it did it might just look obviously day for night. It would certainly be harder than masking the door and window of the hut.

Post
#1414664
Topic
The Unpopular Film, TV, Music, Art, Books, Comics, Games, & Technology Opinion Thread (for all you contrarians!)
Time

As someone who didn’t know much about the historical events described in the film, I also felt like it was rather directionless and dull, but my girlfriend found it interesting because she knew a lot about those events beforehand so it was interesting when the narrative ‘went off the rails’ by the end.

I just didn’t know there were rails in the first place, and after being told that my estimation of the movie went up.

Post
#1414661
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

I can certainly give the scene another go, since I agree that the first bit is too orange and it probably doesn’t go dark enough leading into the hut.

As for a de-blued Luke, what kind of effect should we be going for here? Do we want the overall blue of the effect pulled back so that he’s more ‘ghostly’, or is the intent to bring out more of his natural colors so that it appears like a faded version of Mark Hamill?

Post
#1414594
Topic
Info: Fixing the TFA and TLJ Deleted Scenes
Time

Based on the discussion of the Kylo Falcon scene, I wondered what progress has been made in modern content aware filters so I did a test in After Effects and compared it to Telecine’s work:

https://vimeo.com/519372759

Password: fanedit

Keep in mind that Telecine probably used multiple approaches whereas I simply threw the shots into the machine and rendered the results. The settings were set to ‘object’ tracking, and I did a fade around the timecode of 5 pixels. I think some of these results are pretty good, all things considered. Of course, Telecine’s work is more seamless in most shots.

In particular, shots 2 and 4, the long tracking shots, are both improved in AE. There’s some trouble with both, but it’s not insurmountable. Also, shot 5 looks just about perfect to me right out of the can. This is good news to me since the moving camera shots are the hardest to work with in my traditional Photoshop approach. I think a combination of approaches would be ideal here, doing the more painstaking image replacement for static shots with elements moving past them, and content aware filters for moving camera shots.

Although, I wonder if the ‘surface’ option is better for static shots where objects move in front of the background. Used with the ‘reference frame’ option, it could be ideal.

So, has anyone else played around with this or other content-aware filters, and if so, are there any tricks you’ve found to get good results?

Post
#1414592
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

LesPaul32 said:

21C Peasant said:

Kylo Searches the Falcon - No time code

Most of it is not my work, but I did touch it up a bit.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zBPwVfzpl8kW58uNOWS5UPHgDklb3kMt/view?usp=sharing

On the topic of the TFA Kylo in the Falcon scene: 21C Peasant posted the above wizardry over in the “Info: Fixing the TFA and TLJ Deleted Scenes” thread a few months back.

For my money, this is the most polished version of the scene out there at the moment. It’s so close to being completely seamless, imo.

However pie-in-the-sky the idea may currently be, I would absolutely LOVE to see this Kylo/Ben moment integrated into TROS somehow.

That version is Telecine’s work with the first shot cropped to remove the timecode.

JEDIT: I have done some experimentation here, so I’d suggest moving this discussion away from Hal’s already burdened thread. 😃

Post
#1414563
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Hal 9000 said:

If I recall correctly, Sir Ridley helped remove the timecode as well. It was some advanced, painstaking effort and far from automatic.

That’s correct. SirRidley did most of the work on the Leia scene timecode and I just tackled one complicated timecode shot in that scene. It’s really painstaking, and this page details how I did it with moving objects in the frame:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Force-Awakens-The-Starlight-Project-WIP-WORKPRINT-RELEASED/id/54912/page/7

There might be better technology now which can better automate the process.

Post
#1414560
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

BrotherOfSasquatch said:

NeverarGreat said:

Hey, I’m all for someone removing the timecodes and attempting to include the Falcon deleted scene in this movie…for totally selfless reasons of course 😉

Slightly off-topic but has anyone been able to successfully remove the time code from it? Or even from the rest of the TFA deleted scenes for that matter?

I do really love the Kylo Falcon scene and that was a deleted scene I couldn’t understand why it got deleted. However, I do think it would fit better in an edit of TFA rather than this TROS edit.

The only completely successful attempt was the Leia and Kor Sella scene for Restructured. A user named Telecene did a partial timecode removal of the Kylo Falcon scene, but every other attempt has largely just cropped the timecode out.

Eventually I hope to do the timecode removal of the Klyo scene and several others from TFA, but the time and effort required are quite daunting.

Post
#1413583
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Hal 9000 said:

Maybe Luke hallucinated a second Sun as he was dying from focusing so hard.

The novelization suggests that the Ach-To scene begins near dusk, continues overnight, and ends with the sunrise. If that can be realized well and without making the scene difficult to see, it could be a good way to imply a longer stay on the planet. Especially now that the 16-hour ticking clock has been removed. Yeah they’re in a hurry, but that specific element is gone.

RISE. Anyone feel up to the task? Obviously we will want to use jonh’s haircut footage once finalized, but the work done to the footage can be applied to this footage. This isn’t needed, but could be a nice alteration. I’d say better as subtle; I don’t want it to look like the theater’s bulb burned out. Just enough to convey the time of day using cinema parlance.

It’s pretty easy to make the first and last parts look like sunset/sunrise. Here’s a blanket grade I put over the whole thing pretty quickly:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/KGYZGNNX

The light would be reduced throughout the scene, with some power windows to keep the firelight and ghost effects bright. The trick would be to make part of it look like night. I assume the night would be within Luke’s hut, and would take some more dedicated power windows. Rey would be cast in shadow with a slight blue glow from Luke’s ghost and the bright sky outside would need to be darkened, but it’s possible.

Post
#1412607
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s what I’m leaning toward as far as placement: https://vimeo.com/515582857

It works fairly well.

That said, it would work far better if someone were to paint out the medal altogether. I don’t get the connection between the medal and Ben at all, other than it’s just Leia reminiscing about her past. But even then I feel like it cheapens the moment since it would then feel like she’s not focused solely on Ben.

It’s just weird.

Post
#1411032
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker Expanded Edition by Rae Carson: The Faraday Edit (WIP)
Time

jarbear said:

Anyone else find it weird that the Falcon crashed? even if the “landing gear” isn’t working … don’t these things land more like a helicopter than a jet airplane? lol.

You’re looking at this too literally, Jarbear. It’s an artistic and thematic message that nothing in the movie is able to fly.

Post
#1410923
Topic
<strong>Return Of The Jedi</strong> - a general <strong>Random Thoughts</strong> thread
Time

RogueLeader said:

Ooo, I’d like to hear more about this over on the script writing threads.

At one point I had an entire trilogy plotted out for a series that featured Owen and Beru as major characters, which I was toying with in this old thread:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/STARS-OF-WAR/id/15325

Of course, that one still has them on Tatooine. My ideas eventually diverged into two separate concepts for trilogies, the first being set within the existing prequel canon and the second being constructed as a replacement. Here’s a very rough idea of the three films:

In the first, Anakin is a twenty-something farmer on a fertile world who gets swept up into a galactic war because of his piloting abilities. After his first tour of duty he returns home a hero but Obi-wan realizes that his abilities could be used to revive the order of Jedi Knights to which he owes secret allegiance. He is hiding his true nature since the Republic refuses to allow the Jedi to serve as soldiers, but Obi-wan believes that the Republic is worthy of the Jedi’s protection.

In the second film, Obi-wan recruits Anakin over the objections of his brother Owen and the two go on to start a ‘damn fool idealistic crusade’ to bring the Jedi back into relevance by winning an increasingly desperate war against viscous robots. Anakin sees that he isn’t the first student Obi-wan has recruited. A tall young man from the core worlds flies for General Obi-wan’s command. He pilots an Invader class fighter and Anakin trains alongside him on a Defender class ship. The two become friends under Obi-wan’s leadership, and after winning some decisive victories and saving the planet Alderaan and its Princess from destruction, the Jedi Order is forced to admit that they can be defenders of the peace and warriors of the Republic. However, call-sign Vader perished in the final defense of Alderaan after Anakin prioritized the princesses’s life over Vader’s.

In the final film and after several more years of war, Owen and Beru come to realize that the Republic is being changed by the Jedi and the wars, which are increasingly looking like identical copies intended to serve as a threat to justify ever more Republic control. Their planet’s government is no longer autonomous, and they are forced off their land by robots built by the Republic’s new factories. Owen and Beru are now adrift in an unfriendly galaxy and must work at these droid factories to survive. Because of their jobs, they learn that the enemy is using the same parts as the Republic, fielding massive armies of these murderous robots, while the Republic gets only non-aggressive astromechs and load lifters to retain a flesh and blood Republic army and to disenfranchise workers. Of course, there’s the main plot with Anakin and Obi-wan but the Owen and Beru story ends with them trying to start a new life for themselves away from the Republic turned Empire.

But that’s a story for the screenwriting thread.