TServo2049

It's fine, I can wait. Harmy's comparison already shows that the Senator screening was at about 2.20:1 instead of 2.35:1-2.40:1, so I think my estimate is close enough for now.

I worked on a new chart to approximate theatrical cropping in '77 - this is the binary sunset scene. The boxes roughly represent full aperture, 5% cropping and 10% cropping. I'm not well-versed in things like aperture plates and masking, I'm just drawing boxes on an SMPTE framing chart and trying to match the boxes to the dimensions of the frame.

I've read that there was usually some masking around the edges with Panavision, if only to cover the flashes at the splice marks. And obviously, any video transfer would crop off at least a little bit, to remove the soft, rounded edges.

A simple way to think of it is, the vaporator on the right was probably visible in a majority of theaters in '77. :)

I stand corrected; msycamore is right that the LFL logos on the two films are different. -1, here's your versions of the logo separately.

SW:

ESB:

It isn't just the spacing, they are in fact different fonts. The SW version is Univers, while the ESB version is Helvetica. I know msycamore said they use the same font, but look at the top of the "t" in "Production." In SW, the dot of the "i" is completely over the head of the "t", while in ESB, the "t" and "i" are almost the same height. When I typed it out in Univers, it matched SW, and when I typed it out in Helvetica, it matched ESB.

So to clarify, the LFL logo was different on every movie, but "ALTA" was the same on SW and ESB and changed for ROTJ.

Thanks, but I actually needed a high-resolution image, with the full frame and the soundtrack. The images you just posted are still lossy reduced conversions; the background details are too fuzzy, vague or crushed for me to compare them to the Senator screenshot. I have to use the paneling on the right wall as my reference, but the whole right side just shows up as black on these screens.

Do you have access to the full-size frames right now?

Also, I made a mistake in my framing chart - I used the modern Panavision aperture of .825 x .690 instead, which is actually a little smaller than the older .839 x .700 aperture that was in use in '77. I'm found an even higher-res scan of an older SMPTE RP40 chart; this time it's the complete frame, including the soundtrack area.

Yes, the SE font is different from the original Jedi font. Maybe it's because they generated the new ALTA in the computer, and used an off-the-shelf digital font?

Yes, SW and ESB used the same picture elements for the Fox logo, LFL and ALTA. They were changed for Jedi.

RETRACTION: The LFL logo was actually different on SW and ESB, see my later post for details.

Actually, if you can get this frame, I could figure it out. It's when 3PO is saying "or smashed into who knows what", R2 is turning his dome but hasn't started moving to the right yet.

I did a Print Screen of this shot from one of your clips, and I've figured out how much it's cropped on the top, bottom and left by brightening it, but it's still so low-resolution and lossy that I can't make out any detail on the right side of the frame.

Here's what I've been able to figure out so far. The blue box is roughly equivalent to the DVD/Blu-ray framing, the green box is hypothetical 5% cropping, and the red box is the Senator framing. The right side of the red box is an estimate based on Harmy's comparison:

I know from Harmy's comparison that the Senator screening was framed considerably narrower than 2.35:1. It seems to have been about 2.20:1 (which makes sense; I believe that the Senator's screen was intended for 70mm). The cropping on the top and bottom is about 9%, but the cropping on the sides could be as much as 16%; that's only taking into account the picture information in your clip, it could end up being more once I compare it to the full picture frame.

I don't think that the film was cropped that much in the vast majority of theaters. As Mike Verta has explained, the screening was cropped close to hide platter damage on the edges.

If anything, the Senator cropping is probably equivalent to the absolute maximum amount you'd have seen in a 70mm showing. 70mm prints were already cropped to about 2.20:1, and with a additional 10% cutoff, you'd probably see about as much of the frame as at the Senator.

I don't believe most 35mm screenings would have taken off that much, at least if they had a 2.35-ratio screen. I'd wager that the Senator screening is probably the closest cropping you'd ever see in any theater in '77, either 35mm or 70mm, unless maybe they were one of those venues that had a 2:1 screen and showed everything at that ratio (and this did happen).

If you can provide a scan of that frame from your print, I can nail down the Senator cropping.

An completely uncropped Panavision frame is still about 2.35:1-2.39:1. I took your image of the full binary sunset frame, and cropped it where the edges of the image start - it was about 2.36:1.

Then, I applied a 2x horizontal stretch to my chart, and superimposed the green boxes over the binary sunset image. Here's what I got:

Here's the green boxes within the full, unstretched frame.

I will say that the framing of the Technicolor screening Mike Verta attended seems to have been about 10%.

If you could provide a full-size frame of this shot, I could figure out how much the Senator screening was cropped compared to the full film frame:

negative1 said:

TServo2049 said:

That cropping chart is not correct. You stretched a 16:9 TV overscan chart out to 2.35:1.

 i agree it might be off.

but we are comparing the gout DVD, which is for TV

and home releases right?

 

regardless, its a guide for the cropping, and it matches

up pretty well for the amounts most of the time.

The GOUT was letterboxed for 4:3 TVs. Old widescreen transfers followed different rules - they weren't concerned with TV overscan because there was so much black space on the top and bottom.

Sometimes, old widescreen masters were cropped more so the image wouldn't suffer on smaller TVs. Sometimes it was just on the left and right (I know of old laserdiscs of 2.35:1 films that are 2.20:1 or even 2.10:1), other times it was all four sides (also known as "zoomboxing").

That image is not a guide for 2.35:1 cropping. The safe zone boxes are not the right width. It is a guide for 16:9 films on 16:9 TVs - notice that it has a separate line for 2.39:1 letterbox.

And actually, the example images you just posted are about 2.20:1 - shouldn't they be wider?

I'm just kind of confused. I thought that we were comparing the GOUT cropping to the the amount of cropping that would happen in movie theaters - that's why I went to all the trouble of making that chart I just posted.

I'm definitely interested. I'd love to hear what SW sounded like playing to a packed house in '77.

It's just the YouTube sample.

That cropping chart is not correct. You stretched a 16:9 TV overscan chart out to 2.35:1.

This is the SMPTE framing chart for projecting 35mm film, with some additions by me (the dark green lines and the light green boxes). The outermost green box is the Panavision frame (marked "ANAMORPHIC" on the chart), the middle box is 5% cropping and the innermost box is 10% cropping. Save this image, horizontally stretch it 200% and shrink it so the film frame fits into the outer green box, then lay it over the film frames like you did with this other chart, and you'll see how SW would have looked with 5% and 10% cropping in cinemas.

(I scaled it down for this thread, it'll be at full resolution when you save it.)

The auction description says it's mono. I have no idea if it's the mono mix, or a fold-down of the stereo (like Puggo's English print).

We'll soon find out...

I hope it was one of us. If not, I guess we can't win 'em all...

U.S. TV airings of the films were always on tape, either from the time-compressed laserdisc/CED transfer (HBO) or the VHS/Beta transfer (CBS), both of which were originally released in 1982. I am assuming that ON TV's one-time airing in September '82 came from one of these.

The ITV broadcast, however, does seem to be from film chain. It has that blown-out, yellow-greenish look I associate with old film-chain broadcasts of movies. I don't know if it was run live, or if it was output to tape by hooking up a VTR to the film chain. Since this version was still running on ITV in 1987, I'm guessing that eventually it was backed up on tape. And unless every broadcast was at the same time across the entire network, each region would have to either have their own print or their own tape copy; my theory is that one print was sent to ITV, then backed up to tape.

In general, for widescreen films, stations weren't given widescreen prints to crop themselves. They were given flat Academy-ratio prints, derived from a cropped internegative made with an optical printer. This same technique was used to make prints for airlines. Cropped flat prints of at least the first SW have turned up on eBay in the past.

As seen in old videos and TV broadcasts, the Greedo scene was reformatted for 4:3, with new subtitles added optically (not on video). Even though different transfers had different cropping choices, if you compare the Greedo scene, the cropping is identical in every version, because they were all sourced from the same cropped and re-subtitled element.

ITV either received a completely cropped flat print, or a widescreen print with the cropped Greedo footage spliced in. I'm leaning more toward the former, but I don't think there's any way to know for sure.

I noticed, which is why I threw out the suggestion of multiple members pooling money towards one bid. If nobody meets the reserve this time, I think we should seriously consider this tactic when the seller relists it.

Also, I spotted this auction, in case nobody here has the equipment to *play* these reels, and has an extra $350+ to spare:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-ELMO-ST-1200-HD-MOVIE-PROJECTOR-Vintage-1970s-/230755575631?pt=US_Vintage_Cameras&hash=item35ba1aa74f

What's with the black area on the upper right corner of the first frame? Surely that's not what the actual frame looks like, it's covering picture information that shows up in the GOUT.

Oops, I didn't read that part. Maybe that would be a better idea, I didn't realize these weren't originally 1200' reels. I only said 400' because a.) six reels to match the six 35mm reels; and b.) I read that Puggo's setup can't take 600' reels.

The auction ends in 8 hrs., it's currently at $415 but the secret reserve price isn't met yet. I sure hope compy or someone else here has enough to pay for it.

If the reserve price is really high, maybe multiple members can chip in. I've done this before; since I don't have either the space to store film or the means to project it, I'd split the cost of a print with a friend who had interest in the film in question, room to store it, and contacts with transferring capabilities.

So if the money compyislife has on hand is still below the reserve, maybe other members like SilverWook or Puggo could offer to cover whatever amount is needed to bid past the reserve. I think it'd be worth it to get the print into the possession of an OT member.

Good luck with that. Seriously, that print looks good enough that I'd settle for a camcorder pointed at the screen. :)

Just make sure you use the correct tungsten-halogen light source (don't all 8mm projectors use that?), or the image will come out blue like on the frame scans.

Yeah, thinking about it, I probably wouldn't be able to either. But even if it can't be transferred, or even run, on any equipment any of us have, I believe it's still something that one of us should get for the future, if we do ever get the means to view or transfer 1200' reels.

The opportunity to obtain an unfaded print of Star Wars doesn't come along very often. This is literally the only LPP print I have ever seen, in any gauge, with the '77 crawl. The color in the photos and excerpt look beautiful. I'm willing to bet that when your 16mm prints were brand new, they looked something like this.

What do you think of my idea to cut the print up into six reels if your equipment can't take 1200'? As I said before, seeing as the film is on two reels, I have a hunch that they split it at the change between reels 3 and 4.

Wow, that looks great. You can actually see detail in the landspeeder blob shot now.

Wow, the color looks amazing. Again, it has that warm 70s feeling mverta mentioned. I get this feeling almost like I'm seeing it in a theater in '77.

He's also selling an anamorphic lens bracket for an extra $100. It says it's for an Elmo GS1200 or ST1200.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Elmo-Super-8-Anamorphic-Bracket-Kowa-Projector-Cinemascope-/180824588490?pt=US_Movie_Slide_Projectors&hash=item2a19fc40ca

Silverwook, if yours is a "__-1200" model then it can take 1200' reels. I know someone modified an ST-800 so it could run them, but I know nothing about film projection so I don't know how difficult it would be.

Now that I think of it, the 1200' length is actually a blessing in disguise. Since it's on two 1200' reels instead of four 600' reels, I'm assuming that theatrical reels 1-3 are on reel 1, and reels 4-6 are on reel 2. If you're not concerned with devaluing the print, you could cut the film at the original reel changes and make six 400' reels.

There have been no additional bids since red5 posted the link, and the reserve still hasn't been met. The auction ends tomorrow, so if anyone wants to try for it, they can.

frank678 said:

I thought colour correction might be a miracle restorative but the more I understand it the information in these sources is not deep enough to stand much boosting without destroying the picture.

I was just playing around with screenshots of the '82 LD version of the Greedo scene, and you're absolutely right. Here's the original image - notice how everything looks brown and gray, including Greedo's skin:

And this is what I had to do to get the contrast and colors anywhere close to how it looked originally:

I'm surprised I was able to recover even that much. Look at the extreme white clipping on the subtitles, and the reflection on Greedo's eye. The chroma noise from the video signal is exaggerated to a ridiculous degree, especially in the walls. It reminds me a 256-color GIF image from 1995. The low contrast and high gamma of these transfers (especially in dark scenes) means that for some scenes, the image literally does have to be destroyed to even approximate the original colors.

As far as the ITV version, the problem is that I don't have it, and I haven't seen the whole thing.

And actually, the matter of the binary sunset *is* settled, and it's been discussed at length in other threads. We know what it's supposed to look like. Harmy has seen frames from an unfaded Technicolor print, and Mike Verta has seen a Technicolor print projected on 70s equipment.

This is what it looks like in the latest workprint of Harmy's Despecialized Edition 2.0:

Puggo Grande transfer:

Catnap bootleg:

With the old 80s transfers, when I'm color-correcting pictures I have to do it differently for each scene. It's possible to make them look more like the original colors, but I find that if I take the corrections I applied to one image and try them on another one, it doesn't come out right. And as some of the color information from the film got lost in the transfer to video, even if I can make the colors look closer, some of them are just not there (like the blue you talked about from that Derann image).

FYI, here's what I did to the sunset image you posted: