Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

I remember the orchestral theme music being quite good.

Holy crap, it went for $1558.00 (!)

That stands for “yet another 16mm film on eBay”.  This one is scope and pre-ANH… color looks excellent, supposedly some scratches.  I don’t plan on bidding, but if any of you are looking for a print, this looks like a very good one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260352871826

But be warned, bidding is already over $600.

Transferred reel 2.  Not as bad as I thought it would be.  The redness was not as severe as in the Swedish print, and was the worst at the beginning of the reel.  The colors are not as rich as for reels 1 and 3, but some compensation will be achievable in post.

So now that the basic transfers are complete, I will begin the even more painstaking assembly, sync, and all the experimentation I inevitably do to try and make it as watchable as I can.

got'em.

skyjedi2005 said:

I went back and watched the video sample from before and i love it.  I can't wait to see this!

And that sample was before any cleaning or a new gate to capture the full anamorphic image.

One of the major things about this project and why it is so awesome is because it will be much better than the non anamorphic widescreen 1977 xvid moth3r posted years ago.  And like the zoomed in on the center frame pan and scan 77 fan dvd will have the mono mix, just not the low crap bitrate.

Reminder - maintain reasonable expectations!  Cleaning didn't make much of a difference.  If videoFred's avisynth magic script doesn't live up to it's hype, PG is still going to be low-res, grainy, dirty, with lots of spots and scratches, and splotchy with uneven colors.  That said, it IS true that it will be real anamorphic, will have the real original crawl, the real mono mix, and best of all - the original "close the blast doors!".  Maybe I can figure out how to add some CG to get Luke to miss with the grappling hook, too... (just kidding)  :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120364096330

I’m planning to bid, with the intent to telecine the entire set.  If anyone here was or is planning to bid, let me know SOON so we can work something out.

More progress report...

Last night I cleaned reel #3, and repaired about 5 feet of sprocket hole damage.  I then completed the raw capture of reel #3.  Despite the sprocket damage, I think reel 3 looks a little better than reel 1.  (I decided to capture reel #2 last, because it is in the worst shape).

Updated the timeline on the website.  I still haven't replaced the frame grabs with new ones since changing the gate.  Will try to do that later this week.

Time to go back and answer a couple of questions that were left dangling:

skyjedi2005 said:

Do you Think this was a Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Print, and they just Spliced on the plain star wars crawl?

There are no splices in reel #1... at least not anywhere between the countdown leader and the desert scenes.

skyjedi2005 said:

Is the countdown Leader missing?  i have no idea where there would be missing film except at a reel change.  Do you think some of it was ate up in your friends projector?

The countdown leader is there, no splices.  However, it goes 10, 9, 5... (!)

skyjedi2005 said:

I mean the fox fanfare and cinemascope extension by alfred newman before the star wars theme is intact right? As well as the Lucasfilm and Fox Logos.

All intact and no splices.  Very scratchy, though.

Progress report...

I spoke with Roger at moviestuff about the difficulty I had aligning the camera with the new, enlarged gate, and the resulting discoloration at the corners.  He suggested that I experiment with removing the main lens and positioning it closer to the projector.  I did that - it required quite a bit of fooling with it, and then drilling some new screw holes in the mounting board - and it worked very well.

As a result, I recaptured reel 1.  I'm more comfortable now with this new capture, the image is solid and consistent across the entire frame out to all four corners.  So there is now no need to mess around with trying to fix the corners in post.

Besides, that's time better spent playing with videoFred's avisynth script that Mothr turned me on to!  I downloaded MVtools, and the magic script, and am anxious to see if it's for real.  Heck, if it really works I could even run the original Puggo edition through it, since it's still frame-by-frame.

The old sound sync should still work fine.

Moth3r said:

I saw the link on the Doom9 forum; more details, and the script he used, can be found here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271

Awesome, that really gives me some stuff to chew on.  Thanks!!!!

It appears that using the anamorphic lens isn't the only trick he is using at the projector end... he is also capturing with higher gamma than would otherwise be natural, to get more of the dynamic color range (which he then corrects in software). That is contrary to what I had learned, but I can understand the theory behind it and it obviously is producing superb results with regards to the final color.

Moth3r said:

Example of what Avisynth can do to restore 8mm film:
http://www.vimeo.com/2823934

Very impressive.  It's hard for me to comment without knowing more details.  The motion stabilization is easy, and I'm assuming that some of the sharpness is a byproduct of his clever use of an anamorphic lens, followed by resizing.  Color quality is probably because the color was good to begin with.  There is a very good film-specific color-correction avisynth filter called CMYK that I am using for the Puggo Grande - it's doing wonders on the red shift (which most home movie super-8 film doesn't exhibit).  The motion smoothness doesn't surprise me, it's easily achieved with the Workprinter, deshake, and judicious deinterlacing.

But what I can't quite explain is how he has achieved such a degree of sharpening without artifacts.  I'd have to see the entire films at full size... most of his clips don't have much motion.  If they really look that good full size on a TV screen, then that would be a remarkable achievement, even in 16mm film.  Unless it just looks that good when it's small, or the artifacts are on the other segments of the clips :)  There are a TON of sharpening tools available for avisynth, and I've experimented with most of them.  Maybe he experimented more than I did :)

I might be able to make the Puggo Grande look that good at that size, but I wonder if it would be at a cost of it looking worse on a big TV.  Although I'm reserving a healthy dose of skepticism, I've bookmarked the page and will see if I can dig up any more details.  Thanks for the link.

Anyone going after this one?  I wasn’t planning on bidding, but if anyone here gets it, I can telecine it.  I have no idea if it is of any interest, or if it is already widely available:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150321179683

Holy crap, this is THE best thing I've seen so far this year!

Did lots of stuff the past two days:

- finished raw capture of reel #1.  Cleaning didn't provide any noticeable improvement, it's still got lots of scratches, splotches, and noise.

- did a temporary pulldown to 24fps so as to sync audio.  Synced the mono mix from the Swedish print - that took a few hours because of all the minor discrepancies in the two prints.

The new gate is a big improvement, pun intented.  To answer Mothr's question, the entire frame is full of image - no bars at all, barely even a border between frames.  So even with the new gate, this is a real bear to capture.  I have some little yellow corners that I'll have to fix in post, that were unavaoidable.

White a black levels will be rough, as before.  I tried to lean slightly more to the black, but there's just not enough contrast to avoid greyish whites and blacks.

It's still not the gout, and may never be, but it's a heck of a lot more fun!

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I've resumed work on the project.  Last night I installed the enlarged gate on the workprinter, and cleaned reel 1 in preparation for making a new capture.  I'll keep everyone posted as work proceeds...

Jambe Davdar said:

Just a quick post to say I have been contacted on youtube by some who has watched my 'Building Empire' and 'Returning to Jedi' films.  They are claiming that the Kenner 8mm Hand Cranked films have some different takes and alternate footage on them.  This could be the old childhood false memory syndrome, but I just thought I would enquire as to whether anyone has investigated this seemingly untapped area before.

I was actually planning to do those next, after finishing Puggo Grande.  Don't yet know if they have alternate footage... the actual films in every cartridge I've seen are severely deteriorated.  Maybe they used some super-cheap film stock?

Orinoco_Womble said:

PUGGO: TOOT = Two Out Of Three.

Wow, that's an incredibly cool idea.  Very simple, but if the captures were well aligned I suppose it could actually work.  The links to the tool seem to be dead, is such a filter actually available?

Orinoco_Womble said:

OK, so we all know TOOT is brilliant for removing rot & dropouts from 3 copies of the same video source.

What is TOOT?

negative1 said:

"overweight glob of grease"

"nearsighted  scrap pile"

"nerf-herder"

"don't send one of your twerps"

"walking carpet"

"old fossil"

"hunk of junk"

"sorceror's ways"

"hokey religions"

"fuzzball"

"flea-bitten furball"

"laser brain"

"bantha fodder"

give me a break... they're all just as bad if not worse..

What??  You must be joking.  The examples you list are excellent examples of "banter".  The original movies were and still are highly praised for their use of clever banter throughout. Many people at the time felt that SW was first and foremost the story of the droids, and their funny bickering was a brilliant device. "Nearsighted scrap pile" and "bantha fodder" always made me chuckle, and "sorcerer's ways" and "hokey religions" were great examples of how the force had become passe and looked down upon in a society run by the Empire.

How can any of your examples possibly compare these with the deeply cringeworthy: "And now that I'm with you again... I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you—I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... what can I do? I will do anything you ask."  The real agony is having to listen to this embarrassing dialogue... it sounds like it was written by a 3rd grade drama queen.

And by the way, "don't send one of your twerps" was NOT in the original Star Wars, it was wisely cut, and then unwisely re-inserted in the SE.

I actually thought that the Ken films had excellent color compared to most films that I transfer.

With regards to which audience the PT or the OT were aimed at... a good analogy is Bugs Bunny.  Those old cartoons enjoyed commercial success because of the overwhelming audience of kids.  And they were designed to capitalize on that.  But they were also made intelligently so that an adult could enjoy them too - they were crafted with general quality in mind.  They contained jokes that only adults would get.  The OT was like that... obviously their financial bread-and-butter was kids, but everyone could appreciate and enjoy them.  But when an adult sees a PT movie, they generally see that as a movie, it's crap.  I agree that the "it's for kids" is just an excuse.  Nobody tries to make crappy movies, even for kids.

Janskeet said:

For me it was after the first 20 minuets of AOTC when I realized this prequel story was going to suck. When was it for you?

I was enjoying ep.1 in the theater, probably assuming it was great because it was Star Wars after all, until the "midichlorians" came up.  At that moment, it all came tumbling down and I realized that the whole thing had actually been sucking.

The most universally obvious moment was in ep.2 when Anikan was calling out his mother's name in his sleep, and people in the theater started openly laughing.

OK, I'll play:
NOTE - these ratings do NOT refer to the special editions.

STAR WARS

Cinematography: 10/10 - Editing may be the best I've ever seen.
Plot: 9/10 - Very clear and some surprises, too.
Acting: 10/10 - Guiness and Cushing, case closed.
Dialogue: 10/10 - you can't beat the writing for C3P0 and R2D2.
Special Effects: 10/10 - Groudbreaking, believable. Everything looks real.
Score: 9/10 - Only not a "10" because ESB was at least as good.

     total = 58/60

ESB

Cinematography: 10/10 - Spectacular ideas fully realized.
Plot: 8/10 - A bit contrived. Yoda theme, strong. Vader as Luke's father, weak.
Acting: 8/10 - Yoda steals the show - others less impressive than in SW.
Dialogue: 9/10 - Without Yoda this would be a 7 or 8.
Special Effects: 9/10 - Fantastic, but a little less believable than SW.
Score: 10/10 - Amazingly, improves on SW.

     total = 54/60

ROTJ

Cinematography: 10/10 - Still impresses.
Plot: 9/10 - The emperor provides the backbone of a stronger plot than ESB.
Acting: 8/10 - The emperor steals the show - others are coasting.
Dialogue: 9/10 - Vader and the emperor have some really great lines.
Special Effects: 9/10 - Fantastic, but going a little overboard.
Score: 7/10 - Loses its way with the Ewoks - badly.

     total = 52/60

TPM

Cinematography: 5/10 - Ugh, repetitive pattern scene after scene.
Plot: 5/10 - a mess.
Acting: 7/10 - thankfully understated.  Padme unconvincing.
Dialogue: 4/10 - Not a single memorable line.  And then there's Jar Jar...
Special Effects: 5/10 - a mess, rarely believeable.
Score: 9/10 - The choral segment in the final sabre battle is genius.

     total = 35/60

AOTC

Cinematography: 3/10 - Double ugh. At least one-third needs to be cut out.
Plot: 3/10 - incoherent.
Acting: 3/10 - embarrassing. Only Boba Fett's father is believable.
Dialogue: 0/10 - Maybe the worst I've ever heard.
Special Effects: 7/10 - Some impressive achievements. And some crap.
Score: 5/10 - Nothing to write home about, but not bad.

     total = 21/60

ROTS

Cinematography: 2/10 - Triple ugh.
Plot: 1/10 - it just keeps getting worse.
Acting: 4/10 - some decent moments, but mostly cringeworthy.
Dialogue: 1/10 - Maybe the second-worst I've ever heard.
Special Effects: 5/10 - Some impressive achievements. And a LOT of crap.
Score: 5/10 - Nothing to write home about, but not bad.

     total = 18/60

C3PX said:

Somewhere along the line I began feeling like I was watching Harrison Ford.

Actually, in "K-19 Widowmaker" I lost track that I was watching Ford.