Williarob

Film producers have the option of either transferring to videotape directly from the developed camera negative or editing the negative and printing the result. The transfer of already-completed features and film programs is always performed from prints or intermediate elements that were originally produced as a part of the print-finishing process.

By way of example, consider a typical finishing process for a feature film. Once the camera original negative has been developed, it is separated take by take according to the camera reports into two categories: print takes, which are believed to be the best takes of each scene, and the remaining takes, which may not be needed. The selected takes are spliced together in order, with slates, for color grading. In the colorgrading process, the negatives are viewed on an electronic color analyzer, which displays a positive color image on a video screen. The analyzer operator, known as a timer, adjusts the relative amounts of red, green, and blue in each shot for the most satisfactory rendition. The numerical values of these settings, the printer points, are used to control the printer during rush printing and to inform the director of photography of the accuracy of the exposures. Any camera or stock defects are also reported at this time. The negative rolls are then printed as color or black-and-white dailies, or rushes, and are delivered to the production company for viewing and editing. After the shooting has been concluded, editing continues until a fully edited work print with a matching dialogue sound track is completed. Any transitional or optical special effects required are marked on the work print. The original negative is then carefully cut and spliced to exactly match the editor’s work print and instructions. Optical effects are produced separately and are cut into the negative in the proper location.

Because the repeated use of the cut master negative for multiple print duplication would put this valuable element at risk, a sequence of intermediate elements are created from which release prints can be made on a production-line basis. An intermediate printing element, such as a duplicate negative (dupe neg), interpositive (IP), or color reversal intermediate (CRT), created from the original negative is reviewed by the timer for final color balancing. The timer selects the proper printer lights that will yield a uniformly balanced print acceptable to the production organization. Finally, the printing master element, with the final light value corrections and a fully mixed sound track, is loaded onto a highspeed printer for production of the final release prints.

I found the whole process fascinating.

I can confirm that RU.08 is absolutely right about the Telecine process. I just finished reading two books about the it because I wanted to better understand how the pros do it (since I’ve been doing a lot of film to digital these days):

and

To quote from the first book:

Low-Contrast Print

A low-contrast, or lo-con, print is a special print for telecine transfer, made by printing onto low-contrast stock.
The characteristics of this film stock intentionally reduce the contrast range, making it more suitable for the video system. Because the entire contrast range is shifted, lo-con prints are difficult to evaluate by direct projection; they have a washed-out look in a viewing room or theater. Video transfer prints of feature films and virtually all prints of film-produced television series programs are lo-con prints because these prints produce the best results in video transfer.

… Theatrical release prints are less than ideal for telecine transfer because they are high-density, full-contrast prints optimized for theater projection.

It’s easy to forget that (in the 80s and 90s) all TVs were CRT and they just didn’t have the color and contrast range of modern televisions. Converting film for NTSC and PAL broadcast safe colors and limited contrast was the #1 priority.

RU.08 said:

Also we don’t have an uncorrected Tech print scan either unless you have something I haven’t seen?

We have a scan of 5 reels from a second Tech print, which were made available, uncorrected along with reel 1 from the Spanish LPP as the 4K77 Grindhouse version.

Laserschwert said:

Is the SE’s color timing worth leaning on in terms of other projects? What I specifically mean is if you choose to despecialize this SE scan using 4k77, would you retime the SE to match 4k77 or the other way around?

Great question! I don’t have an answer, but it is a great question.

For the record, no black frames were inserted into 4K77 to maintain sync. The missing frames were located in other prints (or on the bluray if they were missing from all available prints). We went back and forth about adding that final frame from reel 5, but as Oohteedee says, if we’d had that frame on 35mm film it would have been included without a second thought.

and Reel 2:

Here is a shot from the projection booth during a screening of the LPP:

This works because the camera phone had the white walls of the projection booth to auto white balance on, so you can clearly see that the image on the camera recording the screening and the screen down below are very blue and that is how it looked from my seat in the theater too. (The purpose of the picture was to show how accurately the camera we used was capturing the colors on screen. We recorded a screening of the same SE print that Poita scanned the same day.)

And here is (roughly) the same frame from our 1080p scan:

And from our new 4K scan (we rescanned the opening logos, crawl and flyover last year for 4K77 and also got a little Tantive…):

Well I say “Scan” it’s really just the camera pointed straight into the lens of a cinema projector.

However, here is a shot from the same scene, taken from my seat in the theater:

With nothing else for reference, the Auto White balance does what it is supposed to do, and yes, I do think it looks much better, but it’s not at all an accurate representation of how the film looked when projected. This is why we shouldn’t rely on pictures taken (for example) at the Senator screening as a color reference (unless we know for a fact that there was no auto white balance).

And this is why finding the “correct” colors for Star Wars is so elusive. All of the images in this post are from just one print, but they all look different.

(I don’t believe that the Tantive is supposed to look this blue, but it is this blue on the LPP print, even when projected. This is probably due to the film stock and color fade - I doubt it looked this blue in 1983 when it was new).

As Poita says, really the only way to do it properly is to setup your color grading station in a theater, project a print with good color (or maybe more than one) and color correct each scene as you see it.

RU.08 said:

The SSE is one print. And it’s not a theatrical print, it’s a dupe print. A print struck from another print. And
there’s no guarantees TN1’s colour timing is correct. With all due respect to the team, their equipment wasn’t the best > and certainly didn’t deliver them a projection-accurate result.

Absoultely right. We used the GOUT as a color reference when grading the SSE, because at the time the 2006 DVD was the best color source we had, and the Home Video Transfers were how most people (myself included) remembered the film…

LPP Raw frame:

LordZerome1080 said:

The 2160 will most likely be an incredible upscale

Upscale? Do you mean upgrade? Because it was not upscaled, it was scanned, cleaned and rendered at 4K.

No, I think he means that TN1 also made (or plan to make) their own scan of this same SE print.

Handman said:

Williarob said:

So it’s not out at all yet…?

Star Wars trilogy Forum members have early access 😃

skywalkerfan101 said:

Where is it? I don’t see it on myspleen. 😦

Patience Padywan. Only the 1080p version is complete. We need another day or two to finish the UHD and bonus features and then it will all be made available at once.

The SSE was based on an LPP print that has more image on all sides than the Tech prints. 4K77 was not cropped more than SSE, the Technicolor prints just didn’t have as much picture information.

The 1080p version was released today. The UHD version is still encoding, but will be ready in a few days. I’m sure it will show up on the organ and other places soon.

skywalkerfan101 said:

Williarob said:

skywalkerfan101 said:

Does a Team Negative 1 Logo exist? If so I would like a png to use for a variant of my Trilogy Blu ray covers like this one:

It’s still a WIP and as you can see, I’ve already created a Harmy variant for the Despecialized Edition.

Here you go - Team Negative One Logo: https://we.tl/t-pbH6NmEgWn

Thanks! However, I may change the color to all black to match the minimal design of the other logos. This is inspired by the CBS/FOX tapes after all.

Cool

g-force said:

For what it’s worth, I think Dre’s latest CC in this thread is the best one. The others are too green or too orange for my taste.

I agree, I think it looks great.

g-force said:

Fantastic trailer Williarob!

Thanks!

skywalkerfan101 said:

Does a Team Negative 1 Logo exist? If so I would like a png to use for a variant of my Trilogy Blu ray covers like this one:

It’s still a WIP and as you can see, I’ve already created a Harmy variant for the Despecialized Edition.

Here you go - Team Negative One Logo: https://we.tl/t-pbH6NmEgWn

nightstalkerpoet said:

I hate to be “that guy”, but just in case noone on the team has caught it, the site name is misspelled at the end.

Otherwise, beautiful trailer!

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It was fixed a while ago - the Youtube version has the correct spelling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTn_qmVaQSw

Soon… Very soon…

https://vimeo.com/289687216

An HD scan made by TN1 of a 16mm print will be available as a bonus feature with the release of Project 4K83…

Have you tried putting your screenshots on a thumb drive and taking them to another computer, perhaps at work or a friends house to see how they look there? Or even on your TV? Or just looking at this thread on a computer at the library?

That wouldn’t cost you anything, and then you’d at least know if your monitor is bad.

^ This

I once graded a few shots of Star Wars and thought it looked great… Until I played it back on a few other monitors. My grading monitor turned out to be very pink, and I had compensated for that, making it swing way too far the other way on just about all other devices.

It is totally true that no matter how well calibrated your monitor is, any samples you post will look at least slightly different on anybody else’s screen, probably even slightly different browser to browser on the same screen. However, you now have multiple people here telling you that your screen shots are WAY off where they should be.

Perhaps if these same people were standing right behind you, looking at your screen and they could see what you see, they wouldn’t be so critical. (Chances are they would still argue that you need more blue, or less red, or something like that, but they probably wouldn’t think it looks awful).

However, everybody here believes you are making terrible color choices, which means that either your monitor is way off, or you see colors in a very different way to the rest of us.