RU.08

Thanks! The financial situation is improving, so I’ll remind everyone about Fantasia.

We have TWO prints available to scan:

• Kostal print
• Tech mono print (Stokowski)

We are currently scanning the Kostal print. It is faded and on Kodak SP stock (so not as badly faded as Kodak Eastman). The picture looks acceptable, and the print is very clean.

The intention with my project is to preserve and release the Kostal version of Fantasia - not the Stokowski version. There is already a separate restoration happening for that version and it will be far better than anything I could do. If we scan Tech mono I would make two releases - one with the image based as much as possible on the Kostal print scan, the other based on Tech mono, and both with the Kostal soundtrack.

There is not enough funding right now to do the Tech mono print - but if I get enough interest and donations I’ll do it. I have an 8 minute preview scan of the Tech mono print, so here are some comparisons (Kostal print on top, Tech mono print below):

So a few things about the Tech mono print. Firstly unlike poita’s print, this is a FLAT print there is no Superscope image compression. The Superscope version is a mess and as poita described it “horror show”! The print is also in very good condition and clean, so we’ll get a very nice quality scan from it. As you can see it looks quite different to the Kostal print, and would give us a second version to release video-wise. Unfortunately it does have arc burn where the image in the centre is faded/brighter than it should be - however it’s not too bad and when given a correct theatrical crop it won’t be there, it’ll only be visible in the full open-matte version. I doubt we’ll ever see another Tech print that is this good to scan, so if you guys are interested speak up now or we’ll have to pass on it!

This sounds great! I’m sorry I can’t financially contribute, as I have my own projects, but this should be a great scanning project.

Thanks to some generous donations, first and foremost from Tatder, I can confirm that Fantasia is funded as far as the Kostal print is concerned! 😄

I have not had much interest yet in Sleeping Beauty, please get in touch with me if you’re interested in donating. I am happy to show anyone thinking of donating the full first reel. It’s an exceptionally clean and good condition print.

We also have the opportunity to scan the mono Stokowski print, and I also have a video preview of that print I can share to anyone who is interested in donating. Right now I don’t think we’ll scan it as there hasn’t been much interest - but it is an IB Tech print and should provide an absolutely stunning picture.

Okay guys, I now have a short test scan of reel 3 I can show to anyone thinking of donating. If you’re interested please send me a private message and I’ll give you the file link.

Sure thing! Could you please say how much or message me in private and say? Thanks!

It’s now or never with these guys. We’ve started work on Sleeping Beauty, and I’m really hoping we can preserve Fantasia Kostal as well.

Total scanning costs for both features will be $1000. Right now I only have enough to get SB done, if we can raise the remainder we can do Fantasia Kostal as well. It has magnetic audio so will be really great quality sound. If we can’t the print has to be returned to the owner.

FUNDING GOAL

The full cost of scanning is ~$1000 For Sleeping Beauty + Fantasia Kostal or ~$1650 for Sleeping Beauty + Fantasia Kostal + Fantasia Tech Mono (see below).

If I can raise $700 I can scan both films. If I can raise $1350 we can also scan the Tech Mono print.

FUNDING STATUS (updated 2018-07-31)

I currently have $950 in pledges or donations towards these projects from 9 different people.

Sleeping Beauty

Previews from Reel 1

This print is very clean, and in very good condition. The condition of the print is similar to Cinderella.

Fantasia

Previews from Reels 1-2

The goal is to preserve and release the Kostal version of the film, not the Stokowski version. There is already a separate restoration happening for the Stokowski version and it will be far better than anything I could do. If we scan Tech mono I would make two releases - one with the image based as much as possible on the Kostal print scan, the other based on Tech mono, and both with the Kostal soundtrack. I have an 8 minute preview scan of Tech Mono, see below for screenshots of both prints.

About the prints-

The Kostal print is on faded Kodak SP stock and has magnetic audio. It appears to be in great condition, and is very clean. SP stock doesn’t fade as badely as Eastman, and so the picture looks acceptable.

The mono Technicolor Stokowski print (“Tech Mono”) is flat throughout (no Superscope). It is probably uncensored (Sunflower in the Pastoral Symphony), and its picture is quite different to Kostal’s picture. If we can afford to scan it I would release two versions of the film - one based on Kostal’s picture, the other based on IB Tech’s picture. It has to be returned shortly as well along with the Kostal print to the collector, so it’s now or never if we want to raise funding and get it scanned. The print is clean, in good condition, and as mentioned is FLAT. The only negative is that it does have arc burn, but even with the arc burn I doubt we’re ever going to get the opportunity again to scan an IB Tech print of Fantasia in this good condition, for more info see this post.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, you’re all very generous and without donations most of my scans would not be possible!

It’ll be window-boxed, so no not the best specimen. You just missed a much better print for around the same cost:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/-/323334843611?nordt=true&orig_cvip=true

Chewielewis said:

If the subtitles are optically composited they would be done further down the line than the interpositive struck from the o-neg. They would be inserted into an internegative or a dupe positive, there would be several versions for different languages.

No they wouldn’t. They’d be in the IP.

Pretty sure this one was a digital re-composite, as the hilt end of the blade is reshaped to fit with the prop, I don’t think they did that optically, only the dissolves and wipes were done optically.

No way is it digital. The digital shots have a different framing, and compressed contrast, this one is consistent with the majority of the reel. It’s optical.

What i’ve presented is how the lightsaber look can be caused by clipping highlights, how both the 1997 scan and the 1993 gout have the same clipping effect on the lightsaber despite comming from composites made 20 years apart.

Yes it’s the same optical element in both shots, just at a higher exposure for telecine.

You say that the only things in the shot that different are the saber blade, look again at 3PO. Here is a comparison between the TB and your color matched scan, see in the waveform, how the only things as bright as the saber are the highlights on 3PO and the light on the far left (cropped in the TB), and see how they are smeared, just like the bottom right corner of the saber blade.

No I didn’t say it’s the only thing different, what I said was blooming/smearing does not explain the difference as it only applies to the lightsaber effect. The blooming on the background anomalies does not match that on the saber blade.

Note the big chunk of dirt both on the TB and the 35mm. If these were entirely separately printed pieces of film that dirt would not be on both.

Right, the dirt is something I noted to poita, in fact the very first thing I noticed and I gave him quite a few examples. It’s not on the print it’s in the print. Not just black dirt, but white dirt also (i.e. dirt on the positives). And yes it would still be in both because it’s a composite shot and the dirt is on the film used to make the composite.

Right, but the subtitles in Star Wars are not burned in, they’re a composite. That’s why they have a shadow. Burned-in subtitles look like this. It’s where we get the “burned-in” phrase from - they’re literally burned into the image after the film has been developed.

Mavimao said:

The fades were done optically for the SE but all of the composite shots were done digitally.

I disagree, it was a photochemical restoration, while the optical wipes may have been digital, they re-comp’d other stuff optically.

Mavimao said:

The subtitle comparison falls flat because it is standard to not have burned-in subtitles for international releases or home video. Multiple IPs are made for this reason as well as safety copies.

Right, but these subtitles were not burned-in they’re an optical composite that would be present in the IP.

Chewielewis said:

I’d also like to point out that the GOUT version of that shot has the same clipped lightsaber effect. Sure, in 1997 they COULD HAVE gone back to the shot on the computer, rendered off another version, film out, telecine, edit into tape. But in 1977? no chance.

Who said anything about digital? This shot was an optical composite in 1977, and an optical composite when the photochemical restoration was performed for the 1997 SE. They re-composited the shot optically for the 1997 SE like they did most optical composites (the Speeder through Mos Eisley, the optical wipes, etc). What I’ve presented above is two composites, both made in 1997, with one giving a greater intensity to the lightsaber optical.

Chewielewis said:

But it shows that the lightsaber look can be attained by clipping the highlights.

Right, but that’s not good enough. You need to show the lightsaber AND the rest of the scene can be attained with some LUT. I’m certain it can’t because this was scanned from a different composite than the one used in the 1997 theatrical prints, one designed for telecine.

And there really is no point in recomposing this shot, as you can see from the colormatch the only real difference is the lightsaber looking WORSE.

Yes there is. I had to use DrDre’s tool to colour match - that luxury didn’t exist in 1997. I appreciate you haven’t seen how the shot looks with no correction applied at all so I’ll show you. See this screenshot which shows the dark background areas directly against the black frame borders with no colour correction. Compared to the TB broadcast, and the Jap Laserdisc, the entire reel is a lot brighter. The telecine operator would have needed to dial the brightness down, not up. And again I stress that the TB broadcast and the Jap Laserdisc are two separate transfers - they both look the same, and the new scan looks different.

Chewielewis said:

And subtitle shots are a different deal as the subtitles are not present on the interpositive which would have been scanned for this version. Subtitles are either cut or burn into internegatives so there are always clean versions of those shots avaliable. Clean versions aren’t made for the TV version they are made for international film prints.

My understanding is that they strike prints specifically for telecine, they don’t use the IP. Also, these subtitles were not burned in - they are optical composites, so would absolutely be present in the interpositive.

Why would they, finish the film, go back and change the intensity on the blades so they are blown out, create new film outs, telecine them, edit them into the video master, all at enormous expense for very little return.

Well 1. it wouldn’t have been at “huge expense” and 2. because they wanted the scene to look good on video. It’s the debut lightsaber scene, that’s why it looks the best in the entire film! They put the most effort into that one scene, and they wanted it to look as good on video as it did in the theatres.

Chewielewis said:

Obviously this is not scientific, it doesnt match exactly (due to the grain I think), but it shows how a simple levels transformation could be responsible for the TB saber looking that way. Its likely the super bright, high saturation lightsaber would have been simply clipped off through the telecine process.

Right, but you’ve brightened the entire background to get there. The point is this brightness difference is limited only to the lightsaber optical element - thus it’s from a 2nd composite, one made for telecine. There are two versions of the Jabba shot, and two versions of the Greedo shot (both with and without subtitles) so why shouldn’t there be two versions of this shot also?

I find this a lot more likely than the shots being completely rerendered for the TV release.

It wouldn’t have taken much effort, and would have been done early on probably before the theatrical o-neg was completed. Keep in mind that directors would often shoot replacement shots for television, so why wouldn’t they do it for composites too? IIRC there’s a shot in “Scream 2” that the MPAA wanted cut from the movie (the scene where Phil is stabbed in the head), but the producers or Wes told them they only had the one version of the shot so they let them keep it and got an R-rating anyway. But, really they had thought ahead and shot a TV safe replacement for the shot.

Chewielewis said:

It does. In that comparison gif, look at the highlights on 3POs arm, they exhibit the same sort of hard edges.

Not really, they exhibit some minor blooming that you might expect from an old telecine transfer. It looks nothing like the intensified lightsaber - and notice that it’s not just the highlights that have intensified on the lightsabler - the entire blue glow has widened, and this shouldn’t happen if it was the same on the telecine prints that it is on the theatrical prints. The usual practise of the day, as far as I’m aware, was to produce prints for telecine separately - you didn’t transfer theatrical prints if you didn’t have to. So telecine prints will have differences to them, however in this instance it appears they re-composited the effect so the blue glow would be more visible on the videotape.

Also, why wouldn’t this be the case with the other shots, like this one:

Poita’s scan:

“TB release”:

Or this scene:

No extreme glowing happening there.

Why would this same clipping effect be on two entirely seperate telecines and apply only to the lightsaber effect and not the highlights in the rest of the frame?

I don’t think the differences I’m seeing are simply due to dnr and blooming. It doesn’t explain why the lightsaber gets completely blown out but the other highlights in the frame do not. For example, the tip/point of the lightsaber in this image doesn’t change, but the entire glow does:

The lightsaber effect is an optical composite, and it looks to me like they made two versions. They made one version that they printed on the theatrical prints. Then later they did some telecine transfers (probably for promotion of the special edition) and weren’t satisfied with how the telecine looked and did a re-composite of the effect for telecine where they gave a greater intensity to the effect, resulting in the blade becoming much brighter. I’m quite certain this is what has happened with the lightsaber rotoscoping - it’s the same effect, just re-composited with a different intensity.

This isn’t that unusual, there are dozens of examples where otherwise “unmodified” films had certain parts recomposed specifically for telecine - for example to make text and credits fit 4:3 better, or to move/resize subtitles. And in fact the subtitles are another thing that was changed between the 1997 SE theatrical prints and the the telecine versions:

So it’s actually not at all unusual they would change this between release formats, but it was previously unknown.

DrDre said:

I think you should also consider DNR was applied to the home video versions, that probably affected some of these shots.

The Jap LD and the PAL Broadcast are two entirely separate telecines though, and I don’t see how DNR can be causing the differences we’re seeing.

It’s all in the wrist baby (poita’s scan):

PAL broadcast:

Comparison:

Another comparison:

As poita has posted these images, I will share one of my discoveries.

Poita’s scan:

PAL broadcast (“TB release”):

Poita’s scan colour-matched to TB release:

Japanese Laserdisc (Jetrell’s rip on Myspleen):

Poita’s scan:

PAL broadcast (“TB release”):

Poita’s scan colour-matched to TB release:

Japanese Laserdisc (Jetrell’s rip on Myspleen):

Pay particular attention to where the lightsaber blade meets the handle. The rotoscoping has been changed. I used Dr. Dre’s tool to colour-match the scan to the PAL broadcast, all screenshots are taken in AvsPmod (resize to 1080p) and are frame-accurate.

This was a previously unknown change. Everyone knew that the 1997 SE has done some new rotoscoping - but not that there two different versions done in 1997 - one that appears on home video and broadcast, and one that appears on the release prints. I could post some more screenshots if poita gives the OK, but these screenshots show the difference in rotoscoping quite clearly as it is. This is very exciting and shows there is still more to discover about the 1997 SE that has remained unknown to this date that poita’s scans are going to help uncover!!

alexp120 said:

Well, you know the old saying, around here:

Pfft, that’s not a contraction, it’s just evidence that Greedo’s species is more resistance to blaster shots than humans! Also it explains why Han shot first - he knew Greedo would recover quickly, but if Greedo shot him he would have died. 💀

ChainsawAsh said:

Wait - did they keep the original 1977 subtitles for the Greedo scene, but make new subtitles that didn’t match the originals for the Jabba scene?! That’s kind of hilarious.

Ha! Nice catch. The font and placement are correct, but indeed the size of the font has been reduced in the Jabba shot. I guess it would have come out correct if they cropped/masked the scene a little more. So who knows maybe it was intended for different cropping then what ended up in the release?

Wow! Greedo really does shoot first!

althor1138 said:

I synced my rips to capablemetal’s project involving the cinema dts which I believe is probably the “GOUT” standard for the 97se. So I guess his rips are what I would sync to.

Coincidently poita sent us both the same part to review, I’ve already sent him my thoughts and I don’t want to bias your or anyone else’s responses so I’ll leave you to gaze your eyes upon the preview un-abided. 😉

It’s not syncing that I’m worried about I just want to see a straight transfer with no dropped frames that is from a 1997 version.

Yeah sorry I edited my post to clarrify, that wouldn’t be suitable as it has been “sync’ed to the Cinema DTS files”. I’m nabbing Jetrell’s Japanese rip… but ideally I’d like an unmodified US Laserdisc rip as well. I know there are some Chinese DVD rips but those aren’t suitable either as their origin is unknown, they may come from territorial telecines done after 1997 for example.

Can anyone tell me which is the best quality Laerdisc sourced rip of the 1997SE? I need one for comparative purposes, I already have the “high quality” TB release that is found on Myspleen. But that’s from a territorial broadcast and I would like a 1997 LD version for comparison. I’m looking for a “raw rip” not one that was synced to another version.

Thanks!

If anyone can help with the purchase of the print dbear is looking at please speak up now - the deadline is today. It’s in great condition and from a reputable seller.

Not at all, it’s a fantastic print and I hope some kind people may be interested!! If anyone can donate/pledge $100+ to secure a true classic (on IB Technicolor!) please send dbear a message as it is urgent, or this opportunity my pass us by.