Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

jasmorru said:

How do you transfer the film?

Er, while it only takes 6 words to ask the question, it would take several paragraphs to answer.  It's like saying "how do you do calculus?" and expect someone to just zip out the answer.  You might want to go to wikipedia and enter the word "telecine" for a good description of the various ways that film is digitized.

There's 27 pages of posts describing every step of the transfer.  Enjoy!  But realize that this one isn't high def - not even medium def.  :)

Also, after you download it, there's a short documentary about the transfer. And welcome to the forum!  I agree, this is a very cool place with lots of great stuff going on.

I've always thought the best place to start with Dr. Who is with the Tom Baker episodes.  Intriguing stories and great characters.  But only if you have the patience for retro low-budget effects.

Oh well, I tried.

You could try comparing it to the Puggo Grande.

SilverWook said:

Ewww! And I thought it was bad that perhaps Palpatine knocked her up...

Yeah, then in Ep.VII, the emperor can tell Luke, "no, *I* am your grandfather!!!!"

There are some 16mm prints out there of the first movie that also have great color.  What made the PG print of interest is that it was from 1977.  All the ones I've seen for sale that have better color are later prints.

Ken, you actually seem like a kind and gentle person, so let me try, just this once, to explain something...

There are many things in this world that I recognize as being wrong that I am not passionate enough about to protest.  For instance, it's wrong how chicken farms treat chickens by stuffing them into tiny cages just so we can have cheap chicken nuggets.  There are people protesting that, and they're right.  But for me personally, there are are only so many hours in the day and I have to pick my priorities, and I have to admit I enjoy eating chicken nuggets.  So if I were to see a group of people protesting about the treatment of chickens, I wouldn't join the protest and I wouldn't stop eating chicken nuggets, but I also wouldn't fight against the protesters either because I know that what they are asking for has merit.  If someone came up to me when I was eating a chicken nugget and said "hey, don't you realize you're eating a tortured chicken?", I'd have to say something like "yeah, I know, it's probably wrong, I'm sorry but I don't want to deal with that right now."  What I WOULDN'T do is try to convince the person that the treatment of chickens is OK, just because I like chicken nuggets, and start up a facebook page about how stupid the protesters were, just so I could feel better about my own decision to eat chicken nuggets.

I suspect you kinda fall into that camp.  You too would like to see the OOT restored/preserved, but you enjoy the SEs and so it's just not a fight you're passionate about joining.  That's totally fine!  But where we have trouble with you, is that you try and convince us to stop fighting for it, and you tell others how stupid we are to fight for it. That's what I don't understand about the Lucas apologists.  We really are on the same side as you... we love Star Wars and we want everyone to be able to enjoy it.  We don't want the SE eliminated, and so we don't understand why some fans will actively resist our efforts to bring the original version back - that makes it seem that on some level you must be in favor of the originals being eliminated.

So you are free to not join our efforts and our protests... we understand that not everyone is that passionate about this specific thing.  But by the same token, don't actively fight and argue against our protest - we're really all on the same side.

And that's why I hope some feathers won't be ruffled if -1 decides not to invite everyone, immediately, to his site.  There are a lot of folks popping up here who could be anyone.

Mike O said:

red5-626 said:

But the OUT must be saved.

We're welcome to try, but fan-preserved version aren't going to be remembered decades down the road.

I think they will.  I actually think that what is happening on this forum is history-making and will have long term impact.  Maybe that's wishful thinking, but that is what I believe.

kenkraly2007 said:

Now I understand why some fans want the original cuts of the original trilogy because that is the versions fan's grew up with and it's a very good point. Now hear me out before you start with calling me a troll and this and that. I know in the past I have said some things that have made people on this forum upset. I understand the whole point of this site to get the original cuts of the original star wars trilogy on blu-ray or whatever the next format comes along. Now I do like the original cut's of the original trilogy but my preface are the special editions because those are the ones I saw in the theaters and their is nothing wrong with that.  And the blu-ray's of the star wars saga are the best the films and ever looked and sounded some my not agree but that is for anyone to judge.  

Actually, they aren't the best the films have ever looked... they looked significantly better in 70mm.  And Harmy's look better than the BDs too.

Besides, it's not about what I want... it's about preserving movie history.

That said, I appreciate that you have been quite polite here.

Right, even though it's an example of a crushed black, it's one that looks fixable. Good catch.

Isn't this a perfect example of a crushed black?

I can't say for sure whether the Derann prints would make better copies than a 16mm print.  My experience with using the workprinters is that the 16mm prints have noticeably higher resolution.  However, with a different method of digitizing, perhaps a Derann print could look better, I don't know.  The Deranns have very good color.  But the 16mm print I'm using for PSB also has very good color.  The Deranns are probably cropped less severely.  My worry would be about getting good resolution.

Given the workprinters that I have, I'm 95% sure that if I made a copy of one, that it wouldn't look as good as the PG.  For one thing, the gate and claw drive in the GAF projectors on which the 8mm Workprinters are based are not as stable as they should be, so the frames don't line up quite as perfectly and it can affect the focus too when a print is even just slightly warped.  That's not a knock on the Deran prints, it's a knock on the Workprinter-XP.  The 16mm Workprinter is much better in this regard. But even with a better telecine, for an 8mm print to beat a 16mm print I'd have to see it to be convinced... I've never seen a telecined 8mm print that looked that good played on a big screen.  I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think it would take a better telecine than the workprinter.

walking_carpet said:

one last note, i am a little worried about this idea that there is a huge backlog of films that the LoC need to restore and protect.  why so many?

The same reason that school music programs are being gutted.  Government funding for the arts is, unfortunately, not high on the country's priority list these days.

Youch, that's really red!

ray_afraid said:

Back on topic, ruining the surprises of later episodes is like reading a book that begins by telling you how things will end and then proceeds to tell the story as if nothing was said.

In all fairness, it is possible to do this, but it requires extreme cleverness. The TV series "Columbo" worked this way... you saw the murder take place and knew who the murderer was, then you watched Columbo solve it.  But there were always surprises, and there was always the mystery of how he was going to solve the case.

To pull it off in the OT, would have required very clever writing to build a PT that preserved the surprises of the OT.  I don't see how it could be possible without making a PT that predates Yoda.  It would be clever to show yoda-like creatures living in the forest who annoying but who weren't Jedi, which would heighten the surprise in ESB when we learn that particular creature was a Jedi-master.  You could also show the Hutt as normal people who are progressively getting bigger through success and gluttony... culminating in ROTJ where we see the Hutt have gotten way bigger than the viewer even could have imagined.

"Worth" is whatever someone will pay for it.  If I were in the market for a print, I'd probably hold out for a good 16mm.  But there are people who screen 8mm prints, and for them a great quality copy of SW would probably be increasingly valuable, since projected with a good projector it probably looks better than the GOUT.

Cuchulainn said:

I'm not sure that it's such a big deal as the prequels are intended to be watched after the OT. Either that or Lucas is an even shittier writer than I thought.

I believe that Lucas has indicated that his intent is for PT movies to be viewed before the OT.  So as to your second sentence, QED.

Ok that looks pretty cool!

Man these things are getting pricey!

The workprinter triggers frame capture that takes place in a stop-motion software called "cinecap".  Cinecap is made to capture DV frames and assemble them on the fly into .avi.  You can't just hook a different sort of camera to it because the images won't be compatible with the software. Even if they were, if there were more resolution it wouldn't be able to keep up (already it requires a Raid-0 disk array so it doesn't lose frames).  The more recent HD models have additional special hardware that enables it to handle the greater data throughput.

There would be an improvement in video quality in HD.  But not enough for me to justify the expense right now.

Remember that the quality can always be improved.  If I were to switch to HD, the next question would be, why not do an RGB transfer?  Then, why not do a native scope transfer?  Then, why not a wet transfer?  How about a 2K - no, 4K transfer? For mortals like us, there is always a step up.  We could probably spend $50K transferring these grungy 16mm films if we really want to.  My whole philosophy for doing them is so that they are available as research reference material for the forum members, and I'm delighted to see them getting frequent use in this capacity.  I never had imagined that people would want to watch them (although that's cool that some people do).

I happened to have already had this telecine setup... I didn't buy it for this purpose (although I have invested in several modifications for it because of the SW projects).  If someone wants to invest in the equipment necessary to make the very best possible transfer of the 16mm prints, that's fine, but I can't justify it given that in the end even the very best 16mm print is still going to be a grossly cropped, grainy, low-resolution image, in some cases with lint burned right into the emulsion.

ratpack1961 said:

I wanted to see 10-15 min of Adywan discussing what Lucas wasn't doing with his film on the dvd releases, I wanted to see guys like Puggo (where is his footage!) talking about preserving even the 16mm prints since they are important.

Wow, thanks for the nice words.  They did contact me, and asked me to submit a video, which I did.  They didn't ask me to say anything about the 16mm films or about my preservation.  They just wanted me to say something to George.  So I "said" four things to him, with examples, of why the films shouldn't be changed and how the changes made it worse.  I used an example from a radio show I heard where the hosts criticized the old outdated special effects in ANH, and used the Jabba scene to back up their claim!  I tried to make it lively, but I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately thought it was too dull for inclusion.  Or maybe they didn't think the video quality was sufficient.  I'm pretty good at post-production, but pretty bad at filming original stuff.  I never heard from them after they acknowledged receipt of my DV tape.  I'm also guessing they received hundreds of tapes and mine might have gotten lost in the hubbub.  No biggy.

I still haven't seen PvG, but I'm looking forward to it.

Geez, that's like saying if Leonardo DaVinci didn't paint the Mona Lisa, somebody else would have.  You can't really believe this, can you?

Atlantis said:

Sorry it's not mentioned in the first post. Is there a DVD Cover designed for this release?

Yes, a very cool one, but I didn't make it.  Just peruse older pages and you should be able to find it.