Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

AxiaEuxine said: Im not saying accept the SE, you dont have to...I dont understand the hatred it generates. (I dont understand preferring the old trench battle to the new one either. Or the new Mos Eisley or the land speeder SPFX being cleaned up, the better Stormtrooper Dewback shot, Lift off from Mos eisley...but I digress :) to each his/her own)

I thought I explained this already.  Star Wars was a fantastic, academy-award winning 1977 movie.  As such, it is a cultural icon for the late-70s.  It also represented the state of the art for special effects at that time.  As such, every cultural, historical, and artistic sensibility that I know of demands that it be preserved in its original form.  Students of the history of cinema should be able to study it, for example.  IF a real preservation was done, as it should be, nobody here would mind if GL or anyone else wanted to make updates and release those too.  However, since GL is actively stopping it from being preserved, it is natural for film lovers to be angry.

With that in mind, as I've said many times before, it isn't that we "hate" the SE.  If anything, some of us sort-of "resent" it, because it has "replaced" the original iconic film.  The improvements would be way cool, if the original were also preserved.  This has nothing to do with what scenes I prefer, and everything to do with preserving historically significant film art.  Until the original is preserved, like virtually every other major motion picture is, the SE will serve as an annoying reminder of what still hasn't been done, may never be done, and the gap that exists in the cinematographic historical record.

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?

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?

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.

Well also the formatting on the crawls between the a new hope and regular star wars versions are different, many that created s sync problem?

I don't THINK an original crawl was spliced onto the front, but now that you mention it, I'll go back and see if there are splices, and if so specifically where. To me, things look pretty consistent throughout.  I think films from such vastly different eras (ANH vs original) would look obviously different in terms of their color, contrast, etc. after so much time has passed.

There is a countdown leader which I didn't include on the video I posted.

Everything you mention appears intact - but to be sure I will include the entire front end of the film on my next capture.

Someone asked about the splotchiness in the desert scenes.  I noticed that too, and don't know what it is.  I hope it's dirt, but I fear it's uneven fading.

It was Columbus Day today and the post office was closed.  The gates are packaged, and going out tomorrow morning.  It should make a huge difference, even should reduce the grain a little bit.

I should add that "Jaxxon" is actually not a friend - I've never met "him" (or "her") before other than through etherspace.  And the films are owned by Jaxxon's friend.  So I haven't the foggiest idea what these films have been through in their life and travels.  Eventually, Jaxxon may materialize and share more details.  For now, Jaxxon is simply, a legendary figure, from a long time ago and far, far away... sort of like Puggo...

negative1 said:

for fun, i synched it with the GOUT version.... there's a 6sec differential..

but the weird part is, the fanfare, logo, and crawl are out of sync, but

the actual film, from the stars, the battle, and everything else is perfect.

I found it harder than I was expecting to sync the sound.  (Remember, the sound came from one 16mm print, and the video from another.)  It leads me to believe there are some minor differences in the frames between the two prints.  Since one is the mono mix and the other is a mono version of the 35mm mix, I suppose sync issues are not all that surprising.  But I doubt I'll have the patience to compare the two prints frame-by-frame.

I fudged a bit on the fanfare and logo, but the crawl should have been close.  There was something strange going on ... it's possible that there is a chunk of film missing before the crawl - that is where the film is the most ragged.

Moth3r said:

Sample video looks pretty good. OK it's not going to match the GOUT DVD, but it looks like it will far surpass the quality of previous fan-made telecines. In that respect, this will be a fantastic reference to have for things like Greedo's subtitles, canyon sunset colouring, etc...

Couple of questions about the sample: Motion was a little jerky; I assume you will be removing the dupe frames to revert back to 24fps? Also, it looks a little over-exposed to me, can you do anything about that during the capture (or would you adjust it in post)? The black level looks about 10% higher than it should be (space is a sort of dark grey instead of black).

I was planning to go to NTSC, so I'll have to do some sort of pulldown.  If there's an appropriate pulldown flag I can set (as I did in the 8mm version), of course I'd rather do that than use duplicate frames.

I'll try to get the coloring [sic] as close as possible to what was probably originally on the film, but it is still likely to have some imperfections in that regard.

Yes I can lower the exposure during capture. The contrast isn't all that great on the film... I was basing my aperature setting more on the whites than the blacks - raising/lowering until the whites were white while still retaining detail. That seemed to bring out more color.  Although the 8mm Puggo had a few crushed whites, I don't think this one did.  I also don't want to lose the stars.  It might be that simply upping the contrast a little bit in post would help, or perhaps upping the contrast while fiddling with the contrast center.  I have to admit to tending to capture a tad bright - I probably should strive to be careful about that.

Were previous fan-made telecines taken off of 35mm, 16mm, or 8mm films?

I'll send the gates off the Texas tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the film is preceded by an SE trailer.  I'll probably grab that too while I'm at it... although I'm guessing it will be of far less interest.

seventiesfilmnut said:

Sorry if this has alrady been suggested/discussed, but woudl there be an advantage at all to scanning the film as-is, and THEN perform the anamorphic adjustment in the computer domain? Might be more accurate and result in a slightly sharper transfer?

Er, that's what I'm doing...

skyjedi2005 said:

I wonder what your friend paid for this print, probably thousands of dollars.  I have seen screen grabs from the derann 8mm scope that looked in better shape. 

Your print looks about on par in sharpness and colors with your super8mm project.  Great Quality for a fan project.  But not near gout quality as you have said previously.

Too bad the Film Telecine Labs would not touch this and if they did it would be expensive as hell.  Still would a rank wetgate transfer get finer detail, i'm not sure.

To answer some of your questions...

- I don't think he paid anything for the print(s).  I think he is borrowing them from a friend of his who has had them for a long time.

- The film IS scratched, particularly at the beginning, and as I warned everyone all along there's no way it was going to compete with the GOUT.  I can't imagine anyone would seriously think that a Workprinter dub of a used 16mm could on any level approach a high-end transfer of a pristine 35mm film, which is what the GOUT is (despite the problems piled on later).

- A wetgate transfer would surely help with the scratches, but it's not going to improve the sharpness, color, or fading in the film.  And reel 2 is even more faded.

- Despite its flaws, I do think it looks considerably better than the 8mm scans.  A clean, new Derann print might be better, I don't know because I've never seen one. Rather I should clarify, a Derann print might look better projected - but scanned probably not.  Live projections generally always look better than telecine grabs.

- I have not yet cleaned the film.  Will do that before making the final scan.  I may also clean the Swedish print and recapture the audio.  But you know, there's only so much that can be coaxed out of an older 16mm film.  If nothing else, hopefully this 11-minute preview is helping to keep expectations in check.

Ok!  Thanks Moth3r... I did it according to your instructions:

http://www.hardbat.com/puggo/grandePics.html

The video clip listed at the top of the page is the first 11 minutes of my first stab at a capture.  Please, right-click and save a copy, rather than downloading over and over... I'd rather not pay extra by exceeding bandwidth limits on my account.

You'll notice it's cropped, especially at the top and bottom.

Roger at moviestuff walked me through the process of removing the gate and pressure plate on my workprinter.  Now I'll send it to them so they can grind it out larger.  As a result, I won't be doing any more scanning for a couple of weeks, until I get it back from them.  Then I'll start all over with the larger gate.

Moth3r said:

What exactly did you want to do? Put MPEG-4 compressed video into an AVI file?

No. I would like to post a compressed 10-minute video in a reasonably high-quality format of the readers' preference.

Keela said:

Why does SW/Lucas bashing have to permeate every possible geek friendly place out there? What is so darn polarizing about a series of movies that has caused the subject to come up even in something, for example, like a video game review of a 1st Person Shooter which has nothing sci-fi about it and wasn’t even made by Lucasarts?

Because I believe it is wrong that a great movie has been expunged. I would feel the same way about someone burning old books - even if they were burned by the author.  You've made it clear that you don't care, that's fine.  And I know he has the "right" to do it. But I'm still going to whine about it because it is morally wrong to delete historically important cultural artifacts.

AxiaEuxine said:

OK I have come up with a concept for the LAST edit of Star Wars ever needed so you can all stop whining about what they did to YOUR Star Wars. (BTW pretty sure it still belongs to Lucas)

To quote Yoda:  I am wondering, why are you here?

Ok, it seems there's no getting around having the upgrade done to the workprinter.  It means a delay (and another chunk of change), but without it the cropping is too severe.  I'll keep everyone posted.

In the meantime, any suggestions for free tool(s) for converting .avi to mpeg4?

bkev said:

Large amounts of cropping aside, I'd be interested in seeing how the raw capture turned out.  Can you still post that clip?

Sure, I suppose I could.  Give me something to do while I'm awaiting resolution on the gate.  Of course I'm not going to post an uncompressed .avi on my web server.  So, y'all prefer .wmv, mpeg-2, or ?

I'm not using the sniper, I'm using the WorkPrinter-16.  Regarding the cropping, I just traded a couple of emails with Roger at moviestuff, and it would appear that I may need to get a larger gate for the unit for the anamorphic film.  It's a wee bit costly if they install it - I will first do some research to see if I can construct (and install) it myself.

By the way, I prepared a film clip of the first 15 or so minutes of the film, with better aspect ratio and some other minor correction.  It came out great, but the cropping is now bugging me enough that I'm going to get this gate thing resolved before proceeding.  Then I'll start over and recapture everything again. I'll post my progress as I learn more...

bkev said:

is it just me, or does it seem slightly cropped? At least in the second to last shot.

Yeah, I'm finding this film is harder to grab the complete frame from other films I've done.  I need to take a close look at this one side-by-side with some other regular 16mm films.

I started capturing the first reel last night.  It's a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. For some reason, capturing the anamorphic film just seems more touchy.  I had to transfer several times before I got it framed reasonably well. I'm beginning to wonder if anamorphic uses slightly more of the frame than normal 16mm films (this is my first anamorphic film capture).

And, although the color spread is not bad, getting a decent white balance is proving to be a challenge because the film has slightly faded in various ways depending on the brightness and hue of the scene. Also, the film is noisier and grainier than I had hoped.  As you can see, it isn't going to challenge the GOUT, but I'm still forging ahead:

http://www.hardbat.com/puggo/grandePics.html

Puppet yoda.  And I thought the lightsaber duel(s) with Yoda was a huge missed opportunity.  I was expecting him to be a master of efficiency and grace - a little move here, a slight step there, and his opponent would be rendered off balance. Instead he looked looked somebody plugged him into the light socket.

AxiaEuxine said:

I was over exageratting the quality of film in the late 70's to make a point which unfortuantly has become the focus of this debate.

Then lets look at the remainder of your "point".  You say that we "hate" the SE. That's not true.  There are people on this forum doing restorations of the 1997 SE.  We aren't the ones trying to eliminate films from history - that would be GL.  HE is the one that has made it clear that HE destroyed the original 1977 film, and that he will never release it. WE do not hate either film. We hate that GL will not preserve the film in its original form.  You might not care about preserving a piece of history - but don't begrudge those that are.

It might be fair to say that some of us "resent" the SE.  We love the original Star Wars, and the SE is a reminder that we may never get to see it again, at least not in its original glory.  I can't think of another major motion picture that the producer actively refuses to preserve, and even proudly claims he has destroyed.

If the OT was preserved, I would be more inclined to enjoy the SE for what it is, a rather cool edit of a great motion picture.

AxiaEuxine said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

AxiaEuxine said:

The quality of the playback on those old VCRs and the contiuing degrading quality of your VHS tapes should be pretty close to the quality you experienced in a theater in 77.

Let me guess... you weren't there, were you?

Wrong sir/madam, Im in my late 30's and I WAS there, Ive been a fan ever since they first hit the scene.

Then I am perplexed how you could possibly conclude that the original projection of this film in 70mm could be the same quality as an old VHS tape.  You must have seen it in a horrendously lousy theater.  The fact is, even the best blu-ray can't compare with a good projection of a new print.  In fact, the best blu-ray transfers are careful telecines of 70mm prints.

That is why people on this forum believe that the film should be restored properly - and preserved - in its original academy-award winning form, as is virtually every other major motion picture.  Then, if Lucas or anyone else wants to make fan edits like the SE, cool no problem. But refusing to preserve a window into 1977 Americana is an artistic tragedy.

AxiaEuxine said:

The quality of the playback on those old VCRs and the contiuing degrading quality of your VHS tapes should be pretty close to the quality you experienced in a theater in 77.

Let me guess... you weren't there, were you?

negative1 said:

didn't you support the Xo project? or the 8mm transfers? or any of the other ones?

Depending on what you mean by "support", since you mention X0, 8mm, and support all in the same sentence, I am compelled to make sure that things are clear:  Unlike the X0, the 8mm Puggo project did not solicit or receive any financial or material support of any kind - (unless you count Boba loaning me the films).

Erikstormtrooper said:

Let's not forget, when Adywan first showed up here, nobody knew who he was. He was just some "nobody" who wanted to basically redo what Darth Editous had done.

The way the original post was worded, I honestly thought the OP was joking.  Now that I see it's serious, sure go for it.

RidgeShark said:

I was wondering if you've looked into any resizing methods for converting the full-frame anamorphic print down to letterboxed anamorphic dvd video.  There are plenty of high quality options out there, but I would personally recommend Spline36Resize in Avisynth as the best for downsizing.  It retains detail beautifully and tends to produce an accurate, sharp image without using artificial sharpening.

Thanks for the tip.  I've been planning to start asking about this very thing, so you've given me my first suggestion and I will most certainly be checking it out!

Maybe you could add some CGI to the Puggo Grande...

Thanks everyone for the encouraging comments.  Indeed, optical noise sounds different than tape noise.  What I expect to do is pretty much what I did with this, a lot of nothing.  There are a few (surprisingly few) thumps that I'll remove or reduce by hand, and a couple of very short gaps that I'll need to patch.  But given the feedback, I'll otherwise leave it alone.

bkev said:

Wow, that's sounding good.  It feels like I'm WATCHING it in the theater!

Hmm, that makes me wonder what sort of theater you go to!  On the other hand, maybe you're refering to the sounds of the person behind you crinkling their candy wrappers. :)