Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

Adywan: Those adjustments look nice.  It's going to be great seeing what you've done with the PSB captures, and ROTP too!

Collector:  I don't know much about the genesis of various 16mm prints. I've heard that some of them were marginally even legal.  It will be fun to hear some of the observations of folks here after they've had a chance to watch the whole thing.  If there are differences, I probabaly wouldn't notice them as my knowledge of the details of these films isn't as encyclopedic as other fans.

Ranger: Yep, there are some blown whites and crushed blacks.  Capture is so slow, and realistically I only have so much time available for making multiple captures.  Even with doing that, some scenes won't be optimal. After your adjustments on the Jabba frame, I'm actually surprised it looks as good as it does, relative to the DVD.  Thanks a lot for your analysis and showing the settings you used.

Yes, I still plan to use the curved border. I also have to reduce the slight glow on the left hand side.  The workprinter does that to some prints.

Asaki said:

But then again, I'm of the opinion that a lot of you guys fuss and fret about the colors far too much. Especially when we have so few original colors to compare to, you'd think something like low-fade film stock would be "the source", instead of trying to tweak everything to look like the blown-out VHS sets we grew up on.

 

 

If you are talking about watching a projection of a 16mm film, then I would agree that the colors would be "source".  However, if you're talking about capturing that digitally, it's a different ballgame.  A video camera doesn't always interpret the colors how our eyes see them.  You have to set the white balance, brightness, etc. during capture, and often what you get digitally comes out different, and you have to tweak it back to what your eyes saw. The camera is simply a different and much more limited device than our eyes and brain, and most people don't realize that until they start doing some serious photography or film digitization.

This is why I was careful to ask Adywan (and he luckily was eager to comply) to limit his adjustment to finding a single adjustment applied to an entire reel, so that the original balance of colors from scene to scene remains largely original.  But without tweaking, the white balance on PG and PSB would be way off, unecessarily.  In the case of ROTP, it was so easy to get a good white balance (compared to PSB), because of the nature of scenes available to work with, that the initial captured colors are surprisingly good.  The only one that appears noticeably off to my eyes is the one with Vader/father at the end.  A bit of purple reduction would help, and thus needs to be done evenly throughout that entire reel to ensure that all the scenes were colored as they originally exist.  I think Adywan would do a better job on that than I would.

I'm still unconvinced that an 8mm transfer on a WorkprinterXP will turn out as well as a 16mm transfer on a Workprinter16.  But that's just a guess... I could be wrong.

More good news... Adywan has expressed an interest in doing the color timing for this one as well.  Here too, even though the color tweaks are more minor, I think having him dial them in will be a nice improvement.

I don't know nearly as much about the sound/dialog details of the movies as several other members here.  I didn't notice any differences, but I haven't been looking for them, and I doubt I'd notice one if it were there.  As far as dialog ... I'm just a capturer, and not very knowledgeable about such things :)

Yes, I still plan on capturing all of the Kenner reels.  I have them all, so it cerrtainly will get done.  It is slightly tedious because you have to carefully break open the cases, add leaders, and spool them by hand.  They also are curled backwards, so they want to unravel themselves, and they feed funny into the machine - you have to be careful with them.  That is going to be a really fun project, because I haven't even watched the other reels myself yet - I don't know what's on them other than the titles on the cases.

Regarding colors on ROTP... I'm curious as to people's initial thoughts on the colors of the screen grabs.  I found it MUCH easier to set white balance on ROTP than it was on PSB.  That's because there weren't any scenes in ESB that had a good balance of natural color, and because most scenes were shot under unusual lighting conditions. ROTP, on the other hand, had lots of great outdoor shots with R2 and Leia, where there were plenty of naturally-lit reds/greens/blues to key off of.  As most of you know, Adywan is finishing the color correction of PSB.

My first impression of ROTP is that the colors are pretty darned close right out the gate.  I'm considering just reducing the purple a bit, tweaking the brightness/contrast, and otherwise leaving it as captured. What do y'all think?

Yes I still plan a "faux-HD" upscale, probably for all three.  I'll probably finish the DVD5 first, so that I can include the explanatory doc, menu, etc.  Then the upscale should be easy for those who want to examine the mouse droppings more closely.

As to an ANH'81 capture, I hadn't thought of it before. I can't remember anyone offering to loan me a print. If one turns up, sure I'd consider it.  It would have to be an excellent print in excellent condition.  Those aren't cheap when they turn up on eBay.

Just when you thought you were finally free of mouse droppings, this thread appears!  Yep, the discussion of my telecine transfer of a 16mm widescreen (“scope”) print of the RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Unless someone comes up with a better name, I plan to call this edition “Return of the Pug”, or “ROTP” for short.

I have actually already been secretly working on this, to the point where I have completed the raw captures of the audio and video from the film.  As was the case for the Puggo Grande and for Puggo Strikes Back, I expect this to take a while to finish – at least a few months.  But I will post regular updates and screencaps here and on my website as work proceeds.

I have added an ROTP page to my website (see link in my .sig) containing an initial set of raw (unprocessed, uncorrected) screen grabs.

The print was again provided by Jaxxon, the same individual who provided the prints used for the Puggo Grande and for Puggo Strikes Back.  I’ll leave it up to him if he still wishes to remain anonymous.

The quality of this print is excellent - similar to the print being used for PSB. Color on all three reels is superb.  There is a fairly deep scratch on the left side through much of the movie, but it is not overly bothersome, in my opinion.  It may even be possible to repair.  Other than that, there is very little patching that will be required.

As was the case for the PG and PSB, I am using a WorkPrinter-16 to transfer the video.  For those of you unfamiliar with the PG or the Workprinter, it is a very clever machine manufactured by Roger Evans of MovieStuff (www.moviestuff.tv), that enables frame-by-frame capture. It isn’t scope, however, so I cheat on that, adjusting the aspect ratio in post and then setting the anamorphic flag to fake scope projection (same as I did for the PG).  I also will use the pulldown flag rather than doing pulldown in post. The capture is SD, and I am still using the Sony TRV900 camera that I used for the PG.  Yes it’s old, but it has very good low light performance which is helpful for this sort of application.

No I can’t afford to do an HD capture.  And no, pointing an HD camera at the WorkPrinter doesn’t work.  There are more expensive products that can do that, this SD capture is all I can do and all I am going to do.

I am also still using the ELMO 16CL for capturing the audio.  Synching the sound with the workprinter capture is painstaking, as the slightest variations in speed on the elmo make it lose sync quickly. It has to be stretched and shrunk by hand scene by scene.  I haven’t done that yet, but the audio is strong and will sound great, albeit in mono.  The audio will require a few very brief and minor patches.

Here is what I have done so far:

- transferred the raw audio from each reel into .wav files.
    - transferred the raw video from each reel into .avi files.

I made one capture each of reels 2 and 3, but I made THREE captures of reel 1, since that reel includes both the Jabba scenes and the Sarlac scenes, with radically different brightness levels.  There will be a lot of cutting between captures to get a decent, moderately-even watchable brightness level throughout.

As always, I will warn everyone that captures like this will be loaded with scratches, grunge, mud, dropouts, hangnails, shakes, dead flies, fuzz, crinkles, holes, HEAVY grain, lousy cropping, and as promised… assorted mouse droppings.  It cannot compete even with a stabilized GOUT, much less a despecialized HD multi-layer Harmy-ized blu-ray.  However, much to my surprise, some of you honestly seemed to not only tolerate but actually enjoy watching the Puggo Grande, and I think those folks who still have functioning vision after watching that may enjoy this one too.  Or at least it will finish off what few diopters you have left, and keep your optometrist in business!

Adywan's color-corrections are done and will be back in the states shortly.

Remember, there are still fuzz balls, dust bunnies, and assorted mouse-droppings, so however those square with "magnificent" will naturally be in the eye of the beholder :)

Too much information!

That's a good idea, I can do that.

By the way, Adywan is almost done with the color corrections... just one small fix for which I need to send him a small patch from the other capture.

Things in the print.

Another byproduct of Adywan doing the color correction, is that he is spotting some little things that I hadn't noticed.  That will make for a more interesting "making of" extra :)

Just got an email from Adywan.  He has started working on the color correction for reels 2 and 3.  I'll be sure and post as I hear more!

Still awaiting adywan's color-correction of reels 2 and 3.  I traded emails with him a couple of weeks ago.  He apologizes for the delay, but promises to get to it soon.

But CPY (creepy puppet yoda) is really the only truly scary character in the film!

dwsiddall said:

The revision to the Star Wars movies come in three categories.

First, and most acceptable, are corrections of special effects shots and other technical type corrections.  These enhance the film and are welcome if done correctly and unobtrusively.

Second are additions that Mr. Lucas thought would enhance or re-invigorate interest in the movies.  These are innocent, yet annoying additions, such as the establishing shot for the entrance to Mos Eisley with the bucking Ronto and the silly Pit Droids.

etc...

Well, I find none of the above acceptable, at least not in the absence of a proper restoration of the original.

Part of what made Star Wars so groundbreaking, was the special effects.  If you go back in and change the effects 20 years later, you lose that window in time, and along with it the artistry that went into creating them.  It also paints over some original artwork done by great masters.

JohnStewart said:

Lets put it this way..if you say you can remember EXACTLY how bright the stars were from the film as we saw it in its first run from memory then yes I will call you or anyone else who makes that claim a liar!

lair

That is really cool.

IF Lucas properly preserves, restores, and releases the OT, then I wouldn't care if he [also] made a special edition that replaced Luke with a CGI Justin Bieber.  Until then, the thought of more changes to the OT is just upsetting.

The movie was made in 1977 and represents the state of the art in 1977. Why can't some people just accept that?  Do want to "improve" King Kong (1933) too?  And for that matter - of all things in ESB, YODA not good enough??

Tomorrow I'm doing a table tennis exhibition with Adoni Maropis (Abu Fayed from "24"). We hang out every year at the U.S. Nationals.

The Gallifreybase forum is going nuts right now.  Three pages of posts in the past couple of hours.  This is the best find in nearly 20 years.

Two clips have been posted on the BBC site, both are marvelous.  Although neither of the stories were high on most people's lists, the particular episode of Underwater Menace is lucky because it contains some visuals that many have been curious about (audio of every episode exists - it's video that is missing). Some are already speculating that the quality of Underwater Menace may be higher than people had assumed.

Nothing yet.

Wow, big improvement!