amazing work! id love to see this!
Thanks! I will send you a private message
This print is 1.85 unfortunately. I too love the open matte version and hope somebody out there will miraculously appear with an open matte HD+ scan. But I think this 1.85 scan will be great nevertheless.
aww man I did miss that detail on the thread’s first page. Sorry about that and thank you for clarifying. I still hope the scan makes it out to a larger audience someday. Regardless, it could be a nice improvement on the blu-ray and digital HD copies.
Hello. I’ve just registered here to enquire about a different project, but I realized I could announce my own while I’m here.
Wampyr is the alternative Italian edit and dub of George A. Romero’s 1977 film Martin. This version was released in Italy and other European markets in 1979 and was originally edited by Piero Bozza, frequent editing assistant on Dario Argento’s films of this period. Album-released music from Goblin replaces Donald Rubinstein’s score from Martin. The structure is also quite different from Romero’s original Martin edit, with story points rearranged or omitted, or otherwise altered with the help of alternate dialogue in the Italian dub.
This version of the movie has only been available in a few home video releases in rather sad quality. If not in old VHS quality, then still a bad print cropped to 16:9 (open matte 4:3 was Romero’s preferred framing and it looks so much better) and sped up to ~29fps PAL speed.
Using the brilliant new restoration of Martin from Second Sight Film’s UHD and blu-ray release, I have cut together a restoration that is very faithful to the original releases of Wampyr. Now in 1080p 4:3 framing and at proper playback speed.
The Italian dub audio track was taken from Arrow’s DVD release of Martin that included Wampyr on a bonus disc. I have also created a “remastered” audio track that is built on better quality releases of Goblin’s music and cleaned up other elements. This was my first foray into this kind of audio editing, but I took my time with it and I’m personally very happy with the results. Even if it’s nothing too fancy - just a cleaner track that makes light use of stereo separation.
Available in 1080p and 576p options. Both include the remastered audio and original Arrow DVD audio track and selectable English subtitles.
Also (god this description is longer than I intended), if you haven’t seen the original version of Martin, you should totes watch that original version first. I like the Wampyr version very much or I wouldn’t have made this, but I also don’t want to mislead - I think George Romero’s original edit is the superior version.
Screenshots are from the 576p version except for the first title shot, since I already had these made and easily on hand.
It’s still viewable on Paramount+. Not much of an upgrade over DVD in terms of detail, but the colors seem a little better.
Oh that’s cool thank you. It’s good to know an open matte copy is still sometimes popping up on commercial streamers. I wonder if I want to subscribe for a month just to watch it again…
I do already have the open matte on DVD and a 544p mkv. But an HD copy that can’t suddenly vanish or a scan will be optimal. (or a Criterion UHD is the dream, but them including an open matte on a hypothetical release feels like way beyond a long shot.)
Hello. I’ve just found this thread after doing a google search for “eyes wide shut” “35mm” “scan”, so I only wanted to add my (newbie, rando) voice and say I’d love to see this scan become accessible.
Eyes Wide Shut was available in open matte HD on MoviesAnywhere up until late last year. It was my preferred way of viewing the film, but then they sadly changed their copy to widescreen to match every other streamer’s copy. This sounds like a fantastic upgrade from that, so I hope it can be released someday soon. Thank you.