Servanov

While RedMenace and I are waiting for certain elements and sources for our collaborative Godzilla 1985 project, I though I’d do something I’d wanted to do for a while, which is make an HD version of the international English export version of Godzilla vs. Biollante, in the same style that I did for The Return of Godzilla. This will improve upon ROG EOST in quite a few ways. For one, instead of the 720p workflow I used for ROG, I’ll be using a 1080p workflow for this film. I’ll be using Premiere Pro instead of HitFilm Pro. I’ll also be using Dr. Dre’s color matching tools to more accurately color correct the Japanese footage to the 1993 HBO LaserDisc for a good majority of the shots, especially where the Blu-Ray is too different to CC manually without artifacts. It will also be shot-by-shot CC. The main source for the masking of the Blu-Ray subtitles will be the 1993 HBO LD or a German LaserDisc rip, which has no text in it at all. Since the 1993 HBO LD is higher quality, I will be using that as much as I can, and will only use the German LD in cases where I need to make it textless so I can add my own digitally recreated titles.

To give you all an idea of what I’m doing for this project, here’s a little video I’ve made giving a walkthrough of the CC process:

Be on the lookout! expect something even better than the Return of Godzilla EOST.

emanswfan said:

It just looks like to me you only did negative film stock emulation which is just a recreation of if it was shot on film, not projected on film.

If this were an authentic 35mm print recreation, wouldn’t you also want to emulate the look of a print such as Kodak 2283, which is the most frequently used print stock today?

What I used was Magic Bullet looks for reference, as well as some grading from other films from 35mm prints. The negative stock depended on the scene, for the dark night scenes, I used Kodak Vision 3 500T negative stock, while for the outdoor scenes I used either Vision 3 250D or 50D. The print stock was all 2838, since it looked the most appealing, and I decided that if it was a film shot on celluloid, they director and/or DP could have made the choice of print stock. Some things I had to CC manually, as they wouldn’t color correct naturally to the print stock. Examples are the ending WB logo and the Legendary Pictures logo.

To reply to my last post about how we use this with our film restoration, here’s an example from a scratched and dusty Agfacolor 35mm negative from 1968 (don’t mind the color difference):

NeverarGreat said:

I feel like there has to be an easier way to clean a static starfield.

Since the automated dust cleanup presumably erases stars, have you considered stabilizing the shot, running the cleanup, and layering it over the original on ‘darken’? Then if you had just a single frame manually cleaned, it could be overlaid on top of that with the blending on ‘lighten’, which would return the accidentally erased stars.

True. This is actually a trick we’ve been taught at my film restoration business. We make two copies of the frame, and on one we apply an automatic dust and scratch removal, which removes some detail, but then put the dirty layer on darken and the quality is kept while only removing the dust.

We just received a preview scan of reel 2 in the wetgate process, cleaning it up immensely. Here’s a few interesting screencaps from the test scan:

An example of American-added opticals blending over hard-matted Japanese footage.

Notice the white artifacts on the right side from the subtitle printing process.

Gone with the subtitles.

Boom mic:

If you’re interested in getting this classic Godzilla film scanned and restored in 4K for the first time in High Definition, send me or RedMenace a message, we are accepting donations for hard drives as well as software for restoration!

Hey everyone interested in this thread! I’m Servanov, RedMenace’s partner in this project! As he said, any and all donation amounts are welcome and help us to preserve this previously unseen in HD film!

Some rough comparisons, the main and obvious differences are the more film-like colors (matched to film stocks like V3 500T and V3 250D) and the grain:

Hey guys, Sergey here again! While me and RedMenace (on here as godsavepopunk) collaborate do some final prep and behind the scenes on a very, very big Godzilla project, I decided to do a little fan edit of the 2014 Godzilla film. The goal in mind: to take the Blu-Ray and accurately as possible recreate a theatrical experience one would have had if seeing a 35mm print of this movie, 80s style. Complete with gate weave, grain, color matched carefully to film stocks, dust, scratches and reel cue marks. PM me and I’ll send you a link!

SPECS:
7.82 Gb
1280x720

SCREENSHOTS:

Enjoy!

jjdout said:

Hi Servanov,
How can I get a copy of this? Can’t stand the complete novel version. I keep hoping there will be a blu ray of the theatrical cut, but still nothing. The reddit/mega link is dead. dying for an HD copy of the theatrical cut. Can you help me out?
Thanks,
jjdout

Yes, I am a bit low on Mega space, so I will upload it to Archive.org, check in about a day or so.

Even for things like dust and scratch removal? That’s what we mainly need it for. Thanks.

Hello! Me and RedMenace are currently very, very close to having 4K scans of Godzilla 1985 and another Toho monster film. We are planning on using PFCLean for the restoration for many reasons, but mainly for easy use as well as it can take the format we will be receiving the scans. We will only need to rent the program for a little while for the restoration. We were looking for the PFCLean PLE version to get used to using it. Does anyone know where we could find a copy (or if anyone has a copy themselves that they would be willing to lend us). Thanks!

Hello! I am part of a group that is working on a 4K fan restoration of a Godzilla film! I looked into things like Phoenix and PFCLean, but all of those were far too expensive for our purposes. I then looked into avisynth scripts, which seemed like a good option. However, I don’t know the first thing about coding or scripts. Harmy gave me some scripts he used, but, as I said, I’m not too knowledgeable about codes. I have avisynth installed, as well as VirtualDub, but I can’t get the avs scripts to work in VDub, or avsmpod. Unless someone knows how to get a cheaper version of Phoenix Refine, I’m in need of some help. Thanks!

Hello! We decided to get a few trailers from my own collection scanned to show you the level of quality to expect from the final restoration. He scanned the trailer for Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs Megalon! They’re here:

https://archive.org/details/Megalon35mm

https://archive.org/details/G2K35

If you want to help support us for this project and see Godzilla 1985 scanned in 4K from a 35mm print! PM me or RedMenace!

Hello! To anyone reading, my name is Sergey Ivanov (aka Servanov), and I would like to also let you know that the Godzilla 1985 35mm print is, from what the print collector tells me, in pretty good condition. We will be scanning in 4K full aperture, and will have the theatrical Stereo mix included, and no DNR will be applied at all. Please consider helping me and RedMenace out for the 4K scanning and restoration of this film which has not seen an HD release before, and has only been officially released last in 1997. Any and all donations are accepted. Thank you!

Yes, this is the DVD vs the German BD. All the SD releases (VHS, DVD, etc.) used the same master from what I can gather, using the same color grading. The DVD colors are the accurate tones after looking at an eBay listing of 35mm cells from the movie, which have the DVD’s grading.

I’ve been working with Dr. Dre’s color match tools, and I’ve considered taking the Blu-Ray of Lyne’s 1997 version of Lolita and doing a more faithful color correction according to what it looked like on pretty much every version before the BD, including the theatrical prints and original TV airings, what I call the 97 Master. I’ve done a test with the first half of what would be about the length of one reel (reel one). Anyone interested? Here’s some examples. DVD, BD, BD matched:

Agreed! I work as a still photography film restorationist as a part-time job, but motion picture film sounds very interesting and a new experience!

I’ve been doing some tests using Dr. Dre’s ColorMatch tool to match faded film scans and I think if we had a scan of this movie, the color correction from fading would be the least of our problems. I think a bigger issue would be the time consuming dirt and scratch cleanup, which would either have to be manual, frame-by-frame in photoshop or similar software, or using a professional film restoration software (unless something like Vegas or After Effects has a cleanup tool) which can cost quite a bit. To give you an idea of the colors I’ve been able to get in restoration, here’s an example. In order, they are 16mm eBay screencaps, RedMenace’s DAM Recon, and the color matched version.

ADDITION:

I just did a quick test trying to see if I could get good results from trying to map the colors of RedMenace’s reconstruction onto the eBay seller’s shots of the 16mm print. Results were nice! Here are some results. The order goes: 16mm, RedMenace CC, 16mm matched to RMCC.

The results aren’t perfect by any means, but I’m sure an actual scan of the print would make it much easier. I also wasn’t able to screencap the exact frames, but I hope it gives you an idea of the colors that can be achieved.

I’m not sure how efficient my current scanning setup is for scanning large portions of film. Color correction wouldn’t be too much of a problem because of Dr. Dre’s tools. I was able to convert my Plustek 8100i 35mm scanner to scan 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm film, albeit a manual, frame-by-frame method. I can see it being a possibility for fan reconstructions of movies where only a few shots are needed. Other than that, I would need a much more efficient scanning method to scan it automatically, but that would be terribly expensive.

Since this has first been posted there has been a multitude of new fan reconstructions. I’ll try my best to include them all if I can.

Godzilla vs. The Thing (1964)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the AIP version of Godzilla vs. The Thing in HD.
SOURCES:
Showa Video Blu-ray
1998 Simitar DVD
2006 Siren Visual DVD
2004 Marketing Films DVD
2007 Classic Media DVD

Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster (1964)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the Walter Reade cut in HD.
SOURCES:
Showa Video Blu-Ray
2006 Siren Visual DVD
2007 Classic Media DVD

Monster Zero (1965)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the Henry G. Saperstein/UPA cut of Invasion of the Astro Monster in HD.
SOURCES:
Showa Video Blu-ray
1998 Simitar DVD
2007 Classic Media DVD

Invasion of the Astro Monster (1965)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the Toho international cut of Invasion of the Astro Monster in HD.
SOURCES:
Showa Video Blu-Ray
1998 Simitar DVD
2007 Classic Media DVD
2014 Kraken Blu-Ray of Godzilla vs. Gigan
1998 4Front VHS

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)-
by goji1986
Recreates the AIP Titra cut of Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster in HD.
SOURCES:
2014 Kraken Blu-Ray

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)-
by Gorizard
Recreates the AIP Titra cut of Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster in HD.
SOURCES:
2014 Kraken Blu-Ray
1992 GoodTimes VHS

Son of Godzilla (1967)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the AIP Titra cut of Son of Godzilla in HD.
SOURCES:
Showa Video Blu-Ray
1997 Anchor Bay VHS
2004 TriStar DVD
Showa Video Blu-Ray of Godzilla’s Revenge
French DVD

Destroy All Monsters (1968)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the AIP Titra cut of Destroy All Monsters in HD.
SOURCES:
2011 Media Blasters Blu-Ray
Bootleg VHS
2006 Siren DVD

The Return of Godzilla (1984)-
by Servanov
“EOST” version (English On Screen Text), recreates the International version of ROG as seen in 1998 Carlton VHS in HD.
SOURCES:
2016 Kraken Blu-Ray
2014 Sony Blu-Ray of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
1998 Carlton PAL VHS
2006 MonstersHD Broadcast Capture of Godzilla 1985
German LaserDisc

Godzilla 1985 (1985)-
by RedMenace
Recreates the American version of The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla 1985 in HD.
2016 Kraken Blu-Ray
2006 MonstersHD Broadcast Capture of Godzilla 1985
2016 Blu-Ray of Creepshow 2

That’s about it from what I could find. RedMenace seems to be taking a break from reconstructions. AS you saw, I made a reconstruction myself. I am planning, in the future, to make a 16mm Recreation of ROG, and a Godzilla vs. Biollante Reconstruction. All these can be found on archive.org, except the EOST version of The Return of Godzilla, which you can PM me to get the link for. Hope this helps!

ScruffyNerfHerder said:

Cool find! Just be careful, as I’ve heard that nitrate film can spontaneously combust. Back in the old days, one of the major studios lost a ton of silent films due to that. It seems like that’s only likely to combust if the film is decomposing, but I’d take precautions just the same. See this link for info: https://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/technical_information/storage/storage_and_handing_of_processed_nitrate_film/default.htm#spont

Hope that helps! 😃

Thanks for letting me know! I don’t think there’s any risk of combustion, it’s not too bad in terms of damage actually. I have already purchased a different film can to put it in. I am currently looking at ways to have splices and tears fixed in non destructive ways and possibly even scanning.

Rogue-theX said:

This stuff looks beautiful! Would it be possible/safe to take some more scans with some punches landing? I’d love to do some drawing/studies of these.

Thanks kindly for posting what you found.

I’m trying to avoid too much contact with the print because of it’s age and unreliability being nitrate, that is until I can find a way to have it scanned and/or preserved well.

timemeddler said:

wow, finally someone mentions something that has actual value on 35mm, seems everyone is worried about movies that will always be available in some form of HD. it doesnt actually look that bad for 1917, any luck on identifying the fighters or which match this was?

I wasn’t able to find it, the reel seems to be incomplete, it just sort of “starts,” the reel can only reads, “20s Boxing.” I can surmise it wasn’t anyone too important or big at the time, or else the reel would have been worn out and much dirtier.

Hello everyone! Last summer, I was vacationing in Flagstaff and as I normally do on trips, I went to some antique stores and found something interesting. I asked the fellow at the booth if he had any 16mm film, and he pulled out three cans of 35mm film! I looked at all three and because of money constraints I only got one, a boxing match. The store was called Flagstaff Antiques. I bought it for the novelty and collector’s value, and sat on it until now. I am wondering what I should do about this. I believe it is nitrate, as it is silent, and if I’m not mistaken, nitrate was used for BW until the 40s, far after the silent era had ended. I also believe it is from either 1917 or 1915. 1915 because of the side it reads, “Du Pont-Pathe 15.” But I think it is most likely 1917 because of this pamphlet:

https://www.kodak.com/uploadedfiles/motion/Guide_to_Identifying_Year_of_Manufacture.pdf

It has info on markings on the side of film stock indicating the year, and the markings for 1917 match up with the ones on the film. It does not have a strange or vinegary smell. It is rather clean considering its age. There are some tears and lots of sprocket hole damage. Here are some images of the reel and the film taken with a DSLR:

Capture of a frame of the film:

Torn sprocket holes:

An example of a tear: