gameboybp said:

has this been released?

Yes. PM me for details.

Okay folks, time for round 2.

“Godzilla’s back, and someone’s got to pay.”

Once again the episode was upscaled and silhouettes were isolated and placed in front of an HD source of the movie being riffed. No dialogue was removed.
We started with a Godzilla episode, so why not finish out the duology with Godzilla vs. Megalon (feat. Jet Jaguar and Gigan)?

Again, adjustments to accommodate the widescreen HD format include:

• using a rotoscoped final countdown door to open/close on the movie segment
• red curtains to cover Joel and the bots entering/exiting from within the frame. This is done 3 times in the episode. The last countdown door covers the rest
• about 6 shots reframed to fit Joel’s interaction with the screen
• filling out and animating Joel’s silhouette as he moves closer to the camera to show his impression of a giant kaiju

Also:

• color corrected the episode and the movie to boost saturation and contrast. Tweaked shot by shot during some of the night scenes
• created new English titles to match the timing of those in the episode, since my HD movie source (Criterion) only had the Japanese titles
• fixed several momentary video and audio glitches inherent to the source
• added custom “Turn Down Your Lights” opening, and recreated “A Best Brains Production” stinger clip at the end

It sounds so simple. I hate how long these take me, but they’re getting quicker. And you don’t have wait a year like the last one. This is done. PM me for a link.
Special thanks to Riffling for blazing the trails and upscaling the silhouettes and host segments. And to iNightmares for his technical and moral support. This project wouldn’t be where it is without either of them.

I promised 3 episodes by the end of the year and I hope to make good on that. Very exited for the next volume. It’ll be a step away from the Joel era (and giant monsters) as I tackle a classic Mike episode.

Here are the new titles I put together. Thanks to iNightmares for upscaling the youtube footage for me…

Htom_Sirveaux said:

Hi SeaCom!

I hope this project is still out there cooking with you. I wanted to offer some sort of assistance where I could. I have a pretty decent physical media collection with a good deal of episodes of MST3K on bluray. If I could lend any sort of hand in that respect, I’d be happy to. I also have a computer that could be used for video encoding/editing/etc if you have done any work in regards to that how-to package you’d mentioned before.

Htom

Thanks Htom!

The project is definitely still active. I’m currently tinkering with the next episode in my free time. Would love to work with you on more, though! One thing I need is help with is upscaling future episodes.
And while I haven’t yet assembled an official guide, I could definitely walk you through the steps. Most of it is pretty simple and can probably be done with any basic editing software. Check your PM’s!

-SeaCom

Rodimus Prime 16 said:

Just watched it. It was incredible work you did to recreate this episode. I loved it. Thank you very much for sharing.

Really glad to hear you liked it. Thanks for the kind words.

Vol. 1 is finished! Finally! And it looks gooood IMHO lol.
I updated details in the OP. PM me for a link.

WoCool said:

THIS IS AMAZING!!! SeaCom, what’s your vision for this MST-HD Remaster Project? Is your long-term plan to work your magic on every episode?

The MST3K community is going to go wild for this.

I’m not sure what counts as short-term or long-term since this one took over a year for me to complete, but I want to follow up with 2 more episodes that will hopefully be much quicker to produce. I also want to open this up for anyone who wants to follow suit and tackle their own episode. My plan is to put together a how-to package with instructional videos and a few project files to help get future editors started.

New Trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLZmhf49-hA&ab

I expect to finally be finished within the next 2 weeks!

Some very exciting news coming in February… stay tuned!

The MST-HD Remaster Project Vol. 001

Episode 213 - Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

Released!

Trailer below. PM me for link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLZmhf49-hA&ab

Pretty straightforward idea here: put the MST3K silhouettes in front of the latest HD version of the movie being riffed. The host segments remain, but when we move into the theater the film is playing in the best possible quality and in the original aspect ratio.

I plan on starting with three MST episodes. For anyone who wants to keep the series going, I can provide a how-to package with project files. I’ve chosen Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster to begin with since it was a favorite of mine growing up. And since it’s one of the few MST3K episodes that hasn’t had an official release - and since there’s such a gorgeous print of the film in the Criterion collection - I though it’d be the perfect candidate to bump up to HD.

The gist:

-First it’s a matter of lining the HD movie up with the movie in the episode. Most movies on MST3K were cut down either by the show or by the distributor they licensed the movie from (or some combination). I used Criterion’s version of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep from the Godzilla Showa Era box set.
-Next the silhouettes from the episode were taken from the D.A.P. VHSrip, which was deinterlaced and upscaled to 1080p by Riffling. Silhouettes were placed over the footage and extensively tweaked to eliminate VHS tracking bumps and isolate only the shape of the main characters. More theater seats are added to fill out both sides of the screen.
-Silhouettes aligned and movie cropped or zoomed where necessary to make it so that each time Joel or the bots interacts with the movie, they’re hitting the same marks on the screen.
-For the countdown doors I’ve composited out the hole in the last door so I can have it open and close on the new HD theater.
-I also had to work around the fact that Joel and the bots walk in and out of the theater through an invisible door in the middle of my new wider frame:

I employed a few different workarounds. First is to let the last countdown door cover them up until they’re all through “the invisible door”. On the segments where they walk in or out, but there’s no countdown door I’ve added a greenscreen red curtain effect that opens/closes to start/end the segment. Video sample below:

-For this episode I replaced the Film Ventures International credits with recreated Walter Reede titles (done by youtuber SpaceHunterM⚧). This is probably the biggest change from the original episode. Since the theater sits empty for 45 seconds while the FVI credits run, I felt the Walter Reede titles were a much quicker and more suitable way to get the show going.
-As Joel and the bots walking into the theater after the credits, I actually did a few seconds of animation to extend their walk to account for the extended theater seats.
-For whatever reason, during the big explosion at 1:29:47 the screen flashes a solid lime green. I replaced this with what I felt was a more fitting orange gradiant to match the explosion.
-Cleaned up/replaced the silhouettes while the MST3K Info Club address appears.
-All host segments were taken from the officially released ‘Satellite Dishes’ bonus DVD, which includes host segments for all the episodes Shout! Factory was unable to secure the right to. Riffling upscaled these as well and I did some light saturation/contrast boosting.

I have two other episodes in the works as well (a Mike and another Joel) but I don’t want to reveal them yet since I want the focus to be on Vol. 001 and celebrating this episode. PM me for a link.

-SeaCom