Trooperman

Wow.  Really nice and convincing too.  

Thank you to everyone who has sent me their addresses.  Last call before I send out the rough cut.  

By the way, is there anyone in the US that could copy some discs and send out of the country for me?  I'm now in school and having someone do that for me would really make these get out quicker.  I got a lot of requests and those are especially difficult.

Thanks guys- sorry again for such a long wait.  There's no timecode on these, but rather than messing with it further, I'm sending out as is: Rough cut of "Shroud of the Dark Side".  

The other option I see would be a blockbuster that completely shatters the current trend and is so popular (like Star Wars in 1977), that is so popular that it causes a shift towards that type of filmmaking in all the studios.  But it would have to be big.  

OK, 2 things...

First, thank you for sending me your addresses.  However I'm having trouble putting the timecode on the rough cut without losing a lot of quality.  I promise I will send them to you, but I need more time...

Secondly, Spence is interested in the possibility of redubbing Anakin.  I think it's a great idea, but what do you think?  Thanks to whoever posted his youtube account.  

Over and out:)

I haven't downloaded everything yet, but I just wanted to say that this set is fantastic.  ROTJ in particular packs an incredible punch and is worlds better than the official, muffled SE release.  The only jarring thing is the Jabba disco track in the middle of the underscore.  I would move source cues to the end of the disc, so as to maintain the flow...

All in all from what I've heard so far a fantastic set.  On the LP transfer of Star Wars, there is some light crackling, but with that comes astonishing clarity and depth and dynamic range.  I'm hearing instruments in the mix that I never heard in the other versions, like some piano passages in "Imperial Attack."  Comparing "Rescuing the Princess" from the record with the improved CD and the Special Edition CD, the mix on the record beats both.  There's a little clarinet solo that the strings just overpower in the later release, but the clarinet is mixed louder in the record.  

I think the records most accurately capture the music the way it was originally mixed in the 70s/early 80s, before all the music was remixed for later releases.  

Ripplin said:

I just done PM'ded you.

P.S. I love how stuck in time your signature is. :) Of course, considering the treatment the GOUT got, maybe that HD-DVD will still be released...

Yeah, it's pretty out of date now.  It seemed funny at the time...

No, it will be the rough cut as finished in 2007 or 2008, timecoded with a splash screen.  As such, there will be sections on the discs which I now have a better version of.

It will be the whole movie, but I want to repeat: it isn't finished.  But, if you want to see it anyway, and I absolutely understand if you do, then PM me your mailing address and when I finish with the discs, I will send you one.  

Even unfinished, I'm excited that you all will see what I've been up to.

It's really nice to hear from you, C3Px.  You too, hairy_hen.  We would love another dub from you.  The general feeling from Paul was that the voice worked, but the quality of the recording itself was not up to the rest of it.  

Well, my mind is made up.  See you in a week or two.  

P.S. I will be checking my PMs for mailing addresses in the next couple weeks;)

ChainsawAsh said:

Make it timecoded or something, like the timecoded X0 capture that leaked - everyone knows that's definitely not finished.

That's a good idea, along with a splash screen at the beginning explaining it's only a rough version.  Thanks for the video, Darth Richard.  That voice really is good.

ChainsawAsh said:

No, the subtitles in the new set aren't player generated, they're on the film itself IIRC.  If you look closely at the links I posted, it's not the exact frame - the only one where the subtitles are visible in the comparison is the old NTSC set, even the old PAL set is a frame or two off and doesn't show the subs.

If they aren't player generated (which I thought they were), they are still computer generated.  It's a different, newer looking lettering, differently formatted.

Hi Erik.  You really have been following this from early stages.  For those who don't know Erik designed the logo, hosted scripts and an FAQ on his website, and contributed a lot to developing this. 

I think that's a good idea.  I have the 2007-2008 rough cut in DVD form.  The dub is particularly bad in this version, but I think it's a good plan to send it out to more people.  

But, I don't really want my dub appearing all over the internet and people making fun of it as if it's a finished product.  I might try and watermark it as "UNFINISHED" on the top so that that doesn't happen.

There are different schools of thought on the Godfather restoration.  Some say that the older DVD release is a more faithful representation because it was scanned straight from an actual print and dumped onto DVD, without any fiddling around.  

For the new set, they put the original negative into a computer (which was not color corrected) and adjusted the colors, contrast, etc. to best approximate how it would have been color-timed photochemically.  They blew out some whites that were definitely not blown out in the original, and fixed the scene where Michael guns Sollozzo and the policemen down, which was grainier in the original release because of a printing error in the lab.  

Also, the early DVD's have the original burned in subtitles (because it was scanned right from a print), but the new restoration has differently formatted, player-generated subtitles. 

BUT, the restoration is good because it has the original mono version.  

What I want to do sometime is synch up the mono mix from the restoration with the earlier DVD release.

Here's the thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-prequel-film-noir/topic/6672/page/2/

I PM'd him, but he hasn't visited this site in 2 years.  Hopefully I can get ahold of him.

Oh....you know what, I remember that.  I think I lost the clip, though.  Would you mind reuploading?  

When I get back from vacation I'll go through my contacts and find out who did that.  It wasn't me.  But he was good.

"Honestly, I personally think a lot of it is because we know that's not Hayden's voice and it takes you out of it... I think after you watch it a few times you adjust to the new tone."

That's what a lot of people say.  But just as many people say it isn't any good.  Look just on the last page, someone didn't like it.  I think that it shouldn't be something you have to condition yourself to like after playing it over and over again.  If it doesn't feel right initially, or at least 5 or 10 minutes in, it's a problem.  

So I think we need a voice between mine and Hayden's, and I think the guy from Darth Richard's clip fit the bill.

^^Yes, I left detailed instructions on how to open the files and what needed to be done to finish it.  

It's a lot of technical work, with some creativity in the audio in sections I hadn't finished.  Like I said, I think the main headache has been mixing my own voice, which makes me think that my voice is just too different from Hayden's to be believable.  No matter how it's mixed, or by whom (me, Ady, or Paul), there are always a few scenes that just don't seem to work.

At this point I am almost ready to just put Hayden's voice back, but that would screw up the scenes where I changed the dialogue, and it would make Darth Vader a whiny wuss again, which is the main reason I did this edit...to avoid that.

Just to clarify...Ady's clip IS my clip.  The other clip is from an earlier version.

Sluggo said:

Ripplin said:

I didn't mind the voice, it's just that it feels a little too...direct, maybe? Like someone sitting in a room recording themselves with silence around, rather than in a noisy bar. ;)

 

 That was something that TM was struggling with.  He was getting close to fixing the problem, but I don't know how close he was to doing it.

That is what sunk this movie.  If I had a pro-quality Anakin dub, I'm sure it'd be done already.

I had a great first year of school.  Got out last month....we were on the trimester system so we went longer than most schools.  

It's been months since I've looked at this movie.  Looking back, it is good.  But it's even more clear to me that my own dub is too incongruous with the Hayden Christiansen character.  And this has been the main struggle.

In other bad news, PaulisDead will not be able to finish the movie as promised because of college, and heck, I don't blame him; that's why I stopped.  I'm just living a really different life right now than in high school.  

Paul HAS completed the movie up to where Obi-Wan jumps out the window.  We might put that out as a high quality download soon.  

The movie is good.  The ideas are good.  I don't even know how I came up with some of this stuff.  I could not repeat this edit today.  I wouldn't have bit off so much.  Paul calls it a "fan-edit masterpiece."  Adywan loved it as well.  I think Sluggo and Haslett saw it in various forms, too, and liked it.  

I want to send it out as-is.  If nothing else it'll make good conversation.  But, you'd lose the impact of seeing it finished, assuming that ever happens.  

I don't know what to do now.  I don't want to say that I'll finish it, because college is starting up in a couple months, and I don't want to spend my summer vacation banging my head on my keyboard trying to make my flawed dub work.  I think we need a new dub.

I don't know.  If I do wind up sending this out, please don't watch with friends.  Unfinished like this, it's just a curiosity, demonstrating the potential of Episode II.

Hi Paul,

This weekend I will have plenty of time and I will look in my contacts and get back in touch with the Jar-Jar actor.  I think the acting itself was pretty good, it's just that the recording sounds pretty airy .

This weekend I will also fire up the project again on my end, and then I'll be able to answer the questions in your PM and send more files if needed.  

Hopefully I will be able to send you the rest of the blue lightsaber shots to plug in as well.  The next few months should be lighter for me....

Again, I just want to reiterate how grateful I am that Paul is giving me a hand on this thing.  Please don't hound him about timeframe.  This movie is a monster (especially the way I organized it in the project files, which is very messy), and it's enough to overwhelm anybody.  Knowing this, Paul took on the audio to the project, and for that I'm so grateful.  

As I said, whatever problems that come up that Paul has trouble with, I will deal with, and if I can't do it, I will find the person who can.

We WILL finish this, darn it.

-TM

EDIT:

Josh said:

Finaly some life has been re-started, I was wondering were you were lol. I WANT the cantina clip lol that would great if you could do that when times dictates, thanks, many would appreciate that, It may be hard for some to remember what an amazing edit this is.

But sorry, I have no knowlage of the Jar Jar voice or city sound, hopefuly someone will help you with that.

5 years in the making, ? to go....

No, I first came up with the idea 4 years ago, and the last 2 years it's been stagnating because of my schedule.  Now, with Paul on the job, a few new FX shots from Adywan, and etc. it is moving again, but Paul has a life too and some weeks will be slow.

But think of it like this: we wouldn't still be sinking time into this if it wasn't good.  I think the movie is good.  Even in the rough cut, I can actually make it all the way through Episode II now and actually enjoy it....

I am so, so busy right now, but I will get back to you all in a week or 2.  

I think PaulisDead is probably in the same situation right now.  College is a real time-drain...

I forget who said it, but it was well-said...

The original Star Wars trilogy all succeed as movies, and as Star Wars films (ROTJ maybe a little less so, maybe a little more so depending on personal taste).  

Episode I- not so good as a Star Wars movie consistent with the previous ones, but succeeds as a film.  

Episode II- Complete and utter ****

Episode III- Had some good cinematography and some good sequences, but again, fails as a film.

----------------

There isn't just one problem with the prequels, IMO...there are many:

-*Awful, shallow, inconsistent, stilted scripts (this is the big one)

-No visual consistency with OT- CGI gone wild

-Inferior music and bad mixing

-Inferior acting- bad casting (Hayden in particular)

-It was just missing inspiration, an element of fun.  It was going through the motions.  Passionless.  Needed a different director than George Lucas.

Octorox said:

I have a Canon HV30 (1080p), it even has a 24p mode. What do you need shot?

So do I.  It's a really great camera.  I'm not sure how it would integrate with the film footage though...

PaulisDead2221 said:

 my skills are a little lacking in the color correction department.

In that case, if it is watchable, then I'd leave it for now.  I'm not great at color correction either.  I mean, I got a version I was happy with, but I think in some cases I went too far and desaturated some faces, BUT, faced with either that or a phony looking picture, I went for the faded look.  It was a trade-off.  

When I get back home I'll definitely watch it again and play around with some things, and I'll definitely use some of the ideas in this thread, by people who have a better eye for this type of thing. 

If I come up with anything good, I'll show you exactly what I did so that you can do it.

It's tough, and like someone else said, Photoshop is one thing, but motion is different.  Unless there's some kind of automated process, I really can't see us being able to isolate specific elements and change saturation locally frame and frame.  

I think too that if there was someone willing to put in that kind of time, then they would want to know that SOTDS is actually a good movie first (i.e. the dubbing works), before committing to something like that...

But like you said, that's not really the priority...priority is audio (and better editing in a couple spots).  We can always play with colors afterwards...

For everyone else on the forum, one big problem scene right now is the balcony scene where Anakin and Padme kiss for the first time.  In SOTDS the scene is dark, at night.  I actually think another fan edit borrowed this idea a while back, and it actually came out a couple of years ago, but I can't remember what the results of that were....

(Obviously someone with a little more CC skills could desaturate Boba's shirt more, while leaving the skin tones and Jedi robes colors intact, but that's beyond my capacity)

This was always my problem.  I had to try and find a middle ground, or lose a lot of the flesh tones (which happened a lot, actually).  

If there was a way to only desaturate certain areas without it affecting the whole thing, then that would be perfect.

Josh said:

Good to hear from you Tropperman.

I really hope that the moonlight scene is kept, as changing it back would change YOUR MOVIE! 

Well, first of all it's mostly Paul's movie now.  Secondly, we're not talking about going back to the original, we're talking about redoing the colors in some scenes with my intent, but doing it better than I did it.  The balcony scene will still be at night, and the funeral will still be at sunset.  It'll just look more convincing.

Thanks for the interest though:)

PaulisDead2221 said:

Okay, video editing looks fine.  I finally got past my initial software issues.  I was just prepared to completely give up, when an unrelated issue with some other software coerced me into reformatting the whole damn thing.  I then reinstalled all the necessary programs, and now we're in flavor country, and all the project files have successfully opened.  It took longer than it should have.

Anyway, video looks fine.  There's going to need to be some changes in terms of a couple of scenes.  The only one that comes to mind is the day for night parts that didn't really work out in the end.  But I'll ask TM before I do anything like that.  I tossed in a couple of explosions where they were missing in the first part to whet the ol' whistle a little bit, and tweaked the mix a bit.  I think I'm used to Vegas now and can move more quickly in the future.

I can tell it's definitely mostly done already, though I think a lot might be missing in terms of ambient effects, then again, maybe they're just too quiet, it's hard to find on the project timeline exactly what is what still, you know? TM, how much did you do in terms of ambient fx for scenes?

Hey, anybody who likes sound editing, particulary building atmospheres, there's a way you can help make this go faster, just putting that out there ;).  PM me if interested.

PS I didn't expect school to take over as hard as it did, but I know TM, being at a real university (rather than my little CC...), could never have made the time for this poor thing.  But with the bulk of the real work seeming to be done, I can concentrate enough energy.  Don't worry, and if anyone likes building atmospheres, you can help move this a little faster while I'm sitting here "doing homework" (I know, lame right?)

PSS, I...could post a clip...but wouldn't that ruin it? :(

Thank goodness the software is all working now.  

"It took longer than it should have."

I think that right there sums up working on "Shroud of the Dark Side.":)

You are right in that the day for night shots in Naboo didn't work out all that well.  It was so hard because of those sunlit bushes that were bright green.  

This kind of extends to most of the color correction, too....feel free to change anything that looks bad to you.  What I basically did for a lot of shots is start with desaturating them to bring down the ridiculously bright colors, and then I did other things to them.  My goal for the color correction, though, was to make the movie look more like the OT.  I know, George Lucas said that he wanted the prequels to look new and shiny and colorful because the Republic hadn't broken down yet, but I don't really buy that.  It just looks fake.  If we can just bring the colors down so that it looks more like a 70's print, I'll be happy.  

I would love to pull off the Technicolor look, but I think the source is just so bad that you have to take drastic measures to come up with something that looks decent.  But I will leave this all to you guys...those are just my thoughts.

I did change the Kamino interiors, by the way...they're not as dark as in the correction that was posted, but they're a little darker than the original.

Regarding the sound mix...I wouldn't take anything for granted.  Some sections are nearly perfect, but most are missing all kinds of things- like you said, we need the correct ambient sounds in the background.  Some scenes I did this...some scenes I didn't.  

One of the problems I had with a lot of fan edits would be that they would just cut stuff out without any regard for the music, and then just fade the music back together, making the whole film really disjointed.  Since I knew we would be going more radical than probably any other edit, I used new music, which gives a sense of continuity through all the cuts, like a real movie.  And I dialed up the music quite a bit louder than in most modern movies...in general the balance I have between music and effects is intentional.  I love the impact of the music without it being drowned out in sound effects.

But having correct ambient sound throughout each dialogue scene would just help to tie it together even further and make it more professional.  

The thing is though, there are some spots where I made a deliberately rough audio transition (such as after the scene where Padme gives Jar-Jar her spot), in order to mimic the style of the others.  It might be hard to tell what is deliberate and what is just unfinished....

I am really busy now (writing a 2-part counterpoint invention among other things), but I was thrilled to log in today and seeing that things are going again.  I'm so thankful that PaulisDead is doing this (and everyone else that's helping) because I see now, there's no way I would've had time to finish it.  

I also think it'll go faster for Paul because he has more objective eyes/ears, and I think he's probably running Vegas on a much faster machine than I was.  A lot of times, I would make a cut, and then wait for half a minute while it unfroze....it wasn't good.  

EDIT: And I completely agree that ROTS has much better colors than AOTC.  To everybody above, those are some really interesting looking shots.  The only thing to watch out for would be crunching the blacks (super high contrast) like a modern blockbuster.  It just wouldn't have been done then.  I really like a couple of those Coruscant nighttime shots though....just any time you have people's faces, watch out.  I know I broke this rule quite a bit, but looking back I was wrong....I went too far with the tinting in certain scenes.