On a recent edition of "Movie Guys", guest Joe Kraemer (composer for Jack Reacher) lists "Star Wars" as his favorite film... and guess what's his favorite version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JWpIV3_Kuk
Jump to 1:12:00 to find out :)
I was never a huge fan of ESB - thought the asteroid scene was contrived, and I didn't like that all the locations were claustrophobic. I had always thought that Yoda turned an average effort into a very good one.
UNTIL - after putting together PSB, I started to appreciate the filmmaking in ESB a lot more. Particularly the carbon freezing scene. The script, the acting, the grittiness, the humanity, the lighting and photography, and above all, the TIMING in that scene are all superb. Probably another case where the editing made all the difference. It is the perfect climax that turns a fun jaunt into intense cinema. It would have been fantastic even without the "I know"... but that (supposedly improvised) turned a great scene into a masterpiece.
I still think the Hoth scenes were a bit weak, however. Some slightly cringe-worthy lines in the script. That could be why my previous opinion of ESB was so meh... it got off to a questionable start. Although the walkers are cool.
And hey, it's a shame that coltonlolz and I were never formally introduced...
Sorry everyone for being incommunicado for so long. Brief story/excuse:
This semester I took on the task of teaching a new computer science course here at the college - Advanced 3D Graphics. Basically it's a course in shader programming in OpenGL 4.3 and JOGL. The hitch - I had never done any shader programming before. Heck, I'd never really even studied the fundamentals of 3D graphics programming, let alone shaders. And there are virtually no decent textbooks on shader programming (and absolutely none in Java/JOGL) -- well, there's one, the OpenGL SuperBible - but the latest edition which contains non-deprecated programming only came out in August and is full of typos and missing chunks.
Plus, as I learned firsthand, if you've never done any shader programming before, it is pretty much the hardest code in the world to debug. So I have been spending most nights, hours on end getting code to run, and in sufficiently presentable form for course material. I have had little time for anything else since classes started in early September.
I had other classes to teach too, and other normal university obligations.
Instruction just ended this past thursday. I'm very proud of how the class ended up and students said they enjoyed it a lot. They also said it was the hardest class they ever had, which is saying something for CSc seniors. We got through most of the fundamentals - buffers, textures, tessellation, shadow mapping, etc. The NEXT go around will be much, much easier and a lot more fun at least for me, now that I actually semi-understand it and have course materials laid out.
I should have some time between Xmas and New Years to finally have a look at the project files Harmy put together for reels 2 and 3. And I still have to send him two segments of reel 1 that will help him finish that portion. Of course, some other video projects have piled up too, in the meantime, but ROTP remains solidly etched in my mind and my near plans.
So everyone, rest assured the project is moving forward. And, with any luck, I'll survive finals week and return to the land of the living soon. At least presuming I get all these shadow-mapping projects graded.
Making a NEW star wars holiday special... now THAT is an idea that I could definitely get on board with. But only if George Lucas directs, and Justin Bieber stars in it. If CPY is also in it, it will be the greatest thing of all time.
Wow, just heard this on BBC News. Great news!! I remember I was in grad school when "Tomb of the Cyberman" was found. It was getting to where people had given up. What is so great about this find, is that it isn't just random episodes, but to complete stories. And they both sound great! And great that it is Troughton, because he was the most poorly-represented in available episodes.
Well, as people, yes they are crazy. I just don't find these particular posts crazy. In fact, they are among the most sane things I've seen written on TFN -- although that is not to say that I agree with them.... I don't. We write almost identical things in reference to 4-6 as opposed to 1-6.
What it does do, is illustrate that their mindset isn't that Star Wars can do no wrong -- it's that Lucas can do no wrong. Both of which are laughable, by the way.
I don't see anything wrong with the TFN comments. For someone into the "saga", I would have to agree that ROTJ pretty well wrapped it up. I'm just not into the "saga", and I think that SW is more enjoyable and more timeless as a standalone movie about Luke. The other movies being fun afterthoughts. If I were into the "saga" of it all, I'd probably feel as they do.
Bingowings said:
Maybe he was Try-Curious.
Best contribution to the thread! Well, other than the terrifying giant Jar Jar, which I will not proceed to have nightmares about.
If you get an AG-1980, do some research and learn how to properly clean the heads. Don't use a head cleaning tape, do it correctly and with the right kind of swabs. It's actually not that hard, but you do have to be careful. Cleaning the heads can also make a noticeable difference in the quality of the capture.
corellian77 said:
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Imagine the love scene with Carrie Fisher and William Shatner...
Actually, I was suggesting that we imagine them as they are today.
FWIW, I never thought any of them (Fisher, Hamil, Ford) were very good actors. But what they did have is on-screen chemistry - they weren't great individually, but they were fantastic together. It takes more than a good script to achieve that.
Objectively, the only really great actors in the OT, in my opinion, were Guiness and Cushing. Every time they were on screen they lit it up. And Yoda, but I'm not sure what that means.
Imagine the love scene with Carrie Fisher and William Shatner...
Please reserve the honor of the 10,000th for Harmy.
Could the light/dark cycle coincide with the circumference of the reel? If so, it could be an artifact of aging, if the reel ever sat on a warm surface for an extended period, for example. That I have seen before, but I don't recall if this movie had it.
Indeed, there are a few of us with AG-1980s here on the forum. So if you get stuck, I'm sure there are people here that can do a nice transfer. Believe me, using a better deck makes a noticeable difference in quality. Judging by what you have already gotten out of the SWHS tape, running it through a better deck is likely to make it clearly the best quality version yet found.
Incidentally, the AG-1980 isn't exactly a "pro" deck. But my read of the situation is that when VHS was the home video format, people weren't imagining a market for decks that maximize getting the most out of digitizing damaged, old, or inferior tapes. So, after the fact, people have gone back and figured out which decks seem to produce the best results for that application. The AG-1980 is one of those decks, even though it sits rather in-between the pro and the consumer genres. The "pro" market was more concerned with producing the best tapes, or maximizing the quality of dubbing pristine tapes, and as such may not do as good a job as the AG-1980 or the JVC-96xx series when digitizing less-than-perfect tapes.
I just realized I didn't answer one of your questions. The software that assembles the video from the captured frames is called Cinecap. It is essentially claymation software adapted for use with the Workprinter. It also does pulldowns. It is hard for me to believe that it could misalign the fields.
It also occurred to me that one of the causes of the alignment issue with respect to the syncronization of the film advancement and the image grab, could be a damaged sprocket hole.
Sorry I've been off the forum for the past 2 or 3 weeks -- crazy busy at work and it's going to be like that until late December.
AUDIO: Capture of the video is frame by frame using the workprinter, so it should be rock-steady. However, the audio was captured by running the movie through a normal 16mm projector (in this case an Eiki), and just routing the speaker output directly into a DAT recorder. Thus any wavering of the old projector will be reflected in the captured audio. Your having to do a lot of manual work to sync the two comes as no surprise to me, as that is exactly what I had to do for PG and PSB.
MISALIGNED FRAME: I'm not 100% sure what it is, but I think I know what it probably is. Setting up the Workprinter requires aligning the motor with the camera/computer setup, otherwise frame capture can happen during frame transition. I was very careful to align it with my chain as best as I could, and have not seen any frame-transition captures (which usually appear as streaks but can appear as other anomolies depending on where during the transition it happens to grab the frame). My best guess is that this is a frame capture that happened a hair too early (or late), just as the frame was starting to move (or just before it stabilized), and resulted in a double image. Hopefully there aren't many of them?
Similar analysis for the PT:
TPM - if you have a lot of midichlorians, you can do cool stuff and pick up hot older babes.
AOTC - chicks always fall for the jerks, and when it comes right down to it you can't really trust anyone.
ROTS - some people are bad and do lots of bad things. It is advisable to hide from them after they become powerful.
Timeless themes!
I remember when GP came out. I also remember it seemed strange when it switched to PG.
110 Mb per frame. Yowza.
TV's Frink said:
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Six hours of PM would probably induce necrosis.
But how about six hours of CPY?
Too dangerous to watch -- no way to tell what effect that would have on the human brain.
That is extremely clever! I'd have to think about how to automate the sync, but it's a great idea.
Wow, great news. After reading that article, makes me think that it's a wonder any film ever survives.
What's an upnaught?
