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Zion

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Join date
23-Sep-2004
Last activity
16-Jul-2025
Posts
1,996

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Post
#295982
Topic
SW Line Movies/Documentaries/Films/Shorts/Etc.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295982/action/topic#295982
Time
5-25-77 is not a documentary. It's one of those "based on a true story" type films. From another thread:

Originally posted by: Zion
They showed the entire movie at C4. It was the latest rough cut with unfinished special effects, but complete for the most part. I really enjoyed it.

Basically, the movie is about a high school kid from a small town in Illinois who gets the chance of a lifetime when he flies out to Hollywood to meet the special effects supervisor from the movie 2001. When he gets there, the guy isn't available but he ends up on the set of Close Encounters and gets to meet the then-unknown Steven Spielberg. (The actor playing the young Spielberg is such a great look-a-like btw.) He then gets to tour ILM and, as luck would have it, happens to be there to see a preview of an unfinished version of Star Wars (no soundtrack, no special effects). He goes back to school and tries to get all his friends to go see Star Wars on opening day.

Overall I thought the movie was very entertaining. It's not so much about Star Wars as it is about a young aspiring filmmaker whose perspective on life changed after seeing a weird sci-fi movie. The film is based on the true story of Patrick Read Johnson (writer/director) who saw the rough cut of Star Wars and ended up moving out to California and joining ILM as a model maker after he graduated high school.


The only real Star Wars stuff in the movie is the original teaser trailer (Pat and his friends see it in the theater before another movie), and a scene where Pat gets a quick tour of the ILM studio. It is of course a re-make of the studio, not old footage. But it is really cool to see this kid walking past tables full of X-Wing and Tie Fighter models. I can't remember if they showed any footage of the actual unfinished film that he gets to see, but I want to say yes.

Post
#295757
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295757/action/topic#295757
Time
We have been trying to get a hold of Laserman for a long time. We've sent emails to both him as well as his wife with no luck. I'm guessing they may not have internet access right now, so we are going to try snail mail.

Originally posted by: KnightmessengerI've been wondering, would it be alright to ask how each of you became so knowledgable about video technology and Star Wars in the first place? Were you familiar with all the different video releases like the Special Collection, Definitive Collection and Faces or was this gradually learned through trying to learn about improving upon previous laserdics transfers such as the Dr. Gonzo set? Did any of you take filmmaking classes in college? Or did one of your jobs deal with technical aspects of computers that would have taught you about script functions like avisynth? Or how Laserman acquired such advanced video hardware?
I'm just curious. If you feel any of those questions are too personal, you don't have (as if I could actually force you) to answer them.


I can't speak for the other guys, but for me, most of the things I now know about video and Star Wars video releases came from a lot of research when I first started thinking about doing my own transfer back in 2003. Back then, I really wasn't that knowledgeable about video editing, much less video cleanup or scripting. I spent days reading through threads at videohelp.com and the doom9 forums trying to figure out how other people were doing their analog video captures, cleaning them up, and transferring them to DVD. I did the same thing when I started getting into DVD authoring and making custom menus. I researched the specifics on how DVDs work and taught myself how to use Sonic Scenarist. My ROTS DVD is the fruit of all that research. I guess I've always had the mindset that I didn't want to do anything unless I did it the best way possible. So even now before I do anything I usually look around and see if the gurus over on doom9 have come up with anything new. More recently, I started going to film school in January of this year and I've learned a lot about the filmmaking process since then.

Laserman has worked in the industry for a long time. His knowledge comes from years of experience doing things some of us only dream about. He was able to borrow the Black Magic workstation from the studio he worked for.
Post
#295485
Topic
.:. MoveAlong's - The Story of TESB/The Adventures of Luke Skywalker .:. Complete!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295485/action/topic#295485
Time
I'm a little late in reporting on this, so my apologies.

MA, I received the DVD in the mail when you said I would and I've finally gotten around to watching it. First of all, the cover and disc labels are top notch! If only every other fan DVD I've received looked like the two Story DVDs I have on my shelf! I am especially blown away at how great the DVD labels turned out!! I will definitely have to pick up a spindle of those discs and give them a try.

Today I popped the DVD into my Oppo 1080i upconverting player. All 52" of my DLP HDTV were in love with this disc from the start. The menus are top notch, the video is superb, the audio is crystal clear, and like others have said, the occasional shot of GOUT footage is a nearly-seamless transition between the SE footage. You have done a brilliant job of color correcting the 2004 footage and it is amazing how much better this film looks in "real" color. I loved your use of still photos as well. It may not seem like that big a deal to the average viewer, but just knowing how tedious it is to manually set motion keyframes for every image and move them in the right directions makes this release that much more impressive.

Even the audio sync was spot on. I didn't notice any dialogue sync issues whatsoever. Your opening titles and crawl were very impressive as well. (What source did you use for the Fox logo btw?) Props to Rebel1138 on the crawl. I know the dissolve to the Star Destroyer is a cheap and easy transition, but it really looks cool seeing the words fade into the ship.

I really love your menus as well. Being a big menu aficionado myself, I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to create a good menu from scratch. Your main menu is superb, with the integrated video clips. You also deserve extra props for taking the time to do a chapter menu with full motion thumbnails! The bonus content is great too. The trailers are a great touch to what is already a great DVD. I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but the read-along is an AWESOME addition as well! I especially love the page turning transitions, and the chapter markers are a very convenient feature if you want to skip ahead to a certain page. Anyone who remembers the storybooks will appreciate this extra. (I can't wait for Jedi as it's the only one of the storybook LPs I remember having.)

Finally, I have to applaud you for your ending credits. I couldn't tell if you created the movie credits or not, but your storybook and video credits blended flawlessly with them and looked professionally done just like everything else on this DVD.

MoveAlong, it is obvious you spent a ton of time on this project, and it shows in the quality and presentation. Everything from the disc art, to the menus and extras, to the feature itself is of incredible quality. I don't know if I've ever seen a fan DVD that looked better. You set an example every other fan editor and preservationist should follow. My hat is off to you.
Post
#295438
Topic
Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295438/action/topic#295438
Time
Yeah, I worked at CC during the short life of Divx. They had a great employee discount on the players so we ended up picking one up. My parents still had it well after Divx was over and done with. I think we owned a total of 4 Divx movies compared to a good 20 or so DVDs. I knew CC was getting desperate when they wanted us to mention Divx to anyone in the store - even the elderly people shopping for vacuums and refrigerators.
Post
#295429
Topic
Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295429/action/topic#295429
Time
Originally posted by: lordjedi
It happened with VHS and Beta, it sort of happened with DVD and Divx (but to a much lesser extent)
For the record, Divx was not a competing format to DVD. It was basically a DVD rental gimmick Circuit City came up with to try and get people to "rent" their own DVDs every time they wanted to watch one of them. Divx discs were DVDs with special coding that made them unwatchable except on a Divx player that had the movie activated. Players played regular DVDs as well. (This also had nothing to do with the DivX video codec we all know and love.)

Looking at the technical specs, I really hope Blu-ray wins the war. It'll be so much more fun to author Blu-ray discs with the extra disc space and data transfer rate. Having to squeeze as much as possible into a 4.7 or 8 GB DVD is certainly a challenge, especially when the maximum transfer rate is 10Mbps. Being able to put 50 GB on one disc and having 54Mbps to play with could really net some incredible projects.



Post
#294999
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294999/action/topic#294999
Time
I got that packet in the mail the other day. I'm still a member because of C4. I didn't bother to read the letter after seeing the crap thrown in with it.

Pretty interesting what he says there though. I take it to mean that he encourages original works by fans i.e. fan films, but then again he could be talking about non-SW stuff. Kind of hard to say. It's also kind of weird that at the end of the letter he refers to C4 and CE as if they haven't happened yet. He must have written it before May.
Post
#292175
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292175/action/topic#292175
Time
Not exactly. The way I understood it, the software is actually a proprietary application that uses Shake for all the processing. It's not just a piece of equipment with Shake installed on it. (You might be thinking of Blackmagic Design, who make a lot of video hardware, but that is not the same thing.)

Arnie, you are also thinking of something completely different.

And I'm sorry but there is no update on Laserman. We still have not heard from him.
Post
#292112
Topic
5-25-77 Documentary
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292112/action/topic#292112
Time
They showed the entire movie at C4. It was the latest rough cut with unfinished special effects, but complete for the most part. I really enjoyed it.

Basically, the movie is about a high school kid from a small town in Illinois who gets the chance of a lifetime when he flies out to Hollywood to meet the special effects supervisor from the movie 2001. When he gets there, the guy isn't available but he ends up on the set of Close Encounters and gets to meet the then-unknown Steven Spielberg. (The actor playing the young Spielberg is such a great look-a-like btw.) He then gets to tour ILM and, as luck would have it, happens to be there to see a preview of an unfinished version of Star Wars (no soundtrack, no special effects). He goes back to school and tries to get all his friends to go see Star Wars on opening day.

Overall I thought the movie was very entertaining. It's not so much about Star Wars as it is about a young aspiring filmmaker whose perspective on life changed after seeing a weird sci-fi movie. The film is based on the true story of Patrick Read Johnson (writer/director) who saw the rough cut of Star Wars and ended up moving out to California and joining ILM as a model maker after he graduated high school.

It was kind of fitting to see this movie at C4 in its unfinished form, as Johnson pointed out at the panel. I don't think anyone expected they would be showing the whole movie either. It was a welcome surprise.

SFX supervisor Mike Pawlak posted on IMDB that, "'5-25-77' is still in post production with visual effects and final sound mixing being worked on....A release later this year is planned."

I'm looking forward to seeing this in the theater when it's finally released.


EDIT: Check out the trailer on YouTube.