I would be very interested in a tutorial in how to best use color curves. Particularly in Vegas, but even if it was just generic.
Yes, when I saw Hugo they also showed 3D trailers for Beauty and the Beast, Phantom Menace, and Titanic. BATB was the least impressive.
Turnout for Hugo was poor here too... probably about 50-75 people in the seats, and this was at 7:30 on a Saturday night. That movie hasn't been marketed well. See it while you can! It might not be in the theaters for long.
Yeah, Lucas was such a brilliant director, that he was able to get the characters to act as if they had a particular backstory without their even knowing such a backstory existed. In fact, he was such an insanely brilliant director, that he was able to get the characters to act as if they had a particular backstory without even HE knowing such a backstory existed! The greatest, most subtle and ingenious mind in the history of all time!
That's funny, the PM trailer I saw was clearly in 3D. Maybe they showed the wrong one at your theater?
Agree about Hugo - a great movie and the 3D was the best I've seen too.
Working with the 16mm ESB, I can say that it is very difficult to color time that beast. First, there aren't any scenes that are both "normal" and "complete", meaning that they both take place in normal lighting and feature a broad spectrum of colors. So you can set color that looks great in one scene then it turns out to look terrible in others. Also, while the DVDs are of course way, WAY too blue, the GOUT may not be too accurate either... I was surprised by how blue the snow looks on the 16mm. Ultimately, ESB color timing is going to come down to the preference(s) of whomever is doing their own edit, taking into account a variety of sources. Hopefully PSB will be done in time to serve as yet another reference, however questionable.
Modern science is based partly on the ability to always doubt. Rather than things being true or false, they are somewhere on a scale of likelihood. Virtually every advance in science has been and will be replaced by better theories as instruments and observations improve. There is not a single thing that science believes is 100% certain. Not one. This is why I don't like the death penalty and don't think it is ever appropriate.
Having said that, I agree with your view of 12 angry men. I too thought that reasonable doubt had been established.
This is definitely something that should be preserved. The theater bootleg and 16mm telecines of SW have proven useful for research, and I imagine this would also. Perhaps nobody knows of a specific use for it right now, but the moment some question comes up, about which or the other actually played in the theater when the film came out, this is the sort of source that can answer that.
darth_ender said:
To me there was a little doubt, but to me, reasonable doubt is not the same as beyond any doubt.
RIGHT! One of the first things that I discovered when I was on a jury, was that most of the people in the room thought things had to be proven beyond all doubt. Geez, if that was the case, nobody would ever get convicted of anything. The first thing the 2 or 3 of us in the room with a functioning cerebrum had to do was explain to everyone else that the word "doubt" is preceded by the word "reasonable", not the word "all".
I should add that my experience is not an indictment of people in general. During jury selection, I watched many smart, qualified people get rejected by the lawyers. It was clear they wanted maliable people on the jury who could be manipulated by their arguments. I was only 25 at the time, so they liked me. A local professor was a prospective juror in the same room, and he was rejected immediately. (One of the lawyers indeed tried to snow us with a bit of logical "slight of hand", but a couple of the jurors saw through it).
I served on a jury once for a theft case. It was really interesting. The case took about 4 days to hear all the testimony. Many of us jurors had lunch together each day, but we were instructed not to discuss the case. After 4 days of lunch, we hit the jury room and picked a foreman. Then, for the first time, we got to talk about the case.
WOW, it was like suddenly they were all different people. The foreman we picked turned out to have virtually no logical skills at all. He was useless - he wanted to base the entire case on believing the defendant's girlfriend over all the other witnesses. I think we picked him as foreman because he wore a tie each day and was well groomed. One guy immediately wanted to convict solely on his impressions of how the defendant looked. One guy wanted to throw out all the evidence because all the witnesses might be lying. The only guy on the whole jury I respected was a guy in a wheelchair who actually had logical facilities... he really put the guy who wanted to base things on the defendant's appearance in his place.
Ultimately we decided to convict. It took 3 days and was really tough.
I looked again at the PDEs about 6 months ago, and they really don't stand up to even v.1 of the DEs. The image quality isn't as good, and many of the SE effects left in actually look terrible, such as the dewbacks staggering around the Tatooine desert. Seeing the PDE and DE side-by-side really shows how poor virtually all of the SE changes are, in my opinion.
I think that SW as originally embodied in 1977 left a lot of details like this ambiguous, and presented a universe that was huge and varied and an Empire that was complex. The universe and its characters got smaller and smaller in subsequent movies as everything got explained and linked, to the detriment of the "saga".
mverta said:
The edges of an anamorphic image on film are not bowed/pincushioned; it is a square image.
I meant the optics on the WorkPrinter, not the image itself.
Mavimao said:
A "proper" anamorphic projection will pincushion. That's why you have curved screens in theatres.
I know that, but mine isn't pincusioning for the same reason, since it isn't being projected. The WorkPrinter I'm using has a custom enlarged gate and that is what is contributing to the pincusioning, because the optics are slightly off as you reach to the extreme edges - ordinarily the gate would mask it. I guess I could claim to be simulating the anamorphic pincusioning effect. :)
A proper anamorphic projection of course shouldn't curve like that. My process is rather juryrigged, and as a result has a variety of shortcomings.
I tried a couple of warping tools to fix the rounded sides, but the side effects produced were always worse than the rounding. Virtualdub has a tool for barrel distortion correction that worked great on some scenes, unfortunately not all. And yes, it always bothered me to chop anything off of the image. The 16mm frame is already badly cropped, especially vertically, and I couldn't bear to crop more off.
captainsolo said:
I think there are really only three Dracula films ever worth mentioning: the '31 Lugosi film, Nosferatu, and Horror of Dracula.
To that list I would add Vampyr (1932), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), and Shadow of the Vampire (2000). And maybe Dracula (1979) - the one with Frank Langella, just for the creepy scene in the sewer.
Hugo-3D. Fabulous!
The parts they showed from the prequels all looked excellent to my untrained (in 3D) eyes. There was very little from the OT. Of course, they probably showed the best parts.
Of course, there wasn't even an attempt at conveying any sort of plot... just a vague allusion to revenge against the Jedi carried out by Darth Maul. Other than that, just a barrage of unrelated 3D effects. They were wise to show almost no Gungans. Pure eye candy made even more banal, as light sabers jump into your face and spaceships arc around planets.
Hugo, however, was just the opposite. I mostly forgot I was watching 3D and just got immersed in the Paris subway. Best 3D I've ever seen. And a really, really great cast who all turn in stellar performances. Christopher Lee fans won't be disappointed... and wait till you see the new Borat!
Agreed, Peter Cushing and Alec Guiness elevated Star Wars from fun sci-fi to high drama. That's what an extensive theater experience can bring to the screen.
Saw "Hugo-3D" last night (fantastic flick! Film preservationists will especially love it). Before the film, they showed some 3D trailers, one of which was TPM and other prequel scenes thrown in. Have to admit, it looked fun.
After I'm done with PSB (and possibly after ROTJ), I am considering going back and remaking an upscaled PG, using the original captures. Perhaps you can help me color correct it then?
SilverWook said:
Spike is running the movies again. Creepy puppet Yoda still lives for now. ;)
Spike is obviously a high class operation that knows quality when they see it!
Sacramento, CA USA
Getting the colars right in low/odd lighting situations would require looking at the various pre-SE releases and bootlegs. Because in the real world, the lighting in a bar would make colors "incorrect". In the presence of candle lighting, my eyes - everything for that matter - might indeed look red. That is, correcting every scene to make the colors "right", might in some cases actually be wrong.
Also, just to be certain, has it been ascertained that Han's boots are black, and not dark leather?
It's not a track, but Sjarnornas Krig has burned in Swedish subs from a 16mm print.