boffy

I’m reading Anthony Daniels’ book I Am C-3PO, and I’ve just found a slightly different take on the story of one of the first film’s audio differences.

IIRC, the received wisdom is that his whole “tractor beam” line was recorded in a broom cupboard in the UK, and flown over during the mixing process; this is why it was in the mono mix, but not the 1977 stereo/surround one.

Daniels’ version of the story is slightly different.

At some point during editing, they phoned me. […] Would I please go to a studio in London and record an extra line? Of course. What was it?

“That’s holding the ship here.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes. We forgot to say what a tractor beam is actually for.”
Ah
“The tractor beam, that is holding the ship here, is coupled to the main reactor is seven locations.”

It was one of the quickest jobs ever but it worked, once they plopped in the new words. The audience would never know the line was compiled over five thousand miles, and many weeks, apart.

I don’t believe I’ve heard any mix which includes “that is holding the ship here”, though I only have the various 1977 mixes to hand this week. Is it in any other mix, or is there an equivalent in any of the foreign language dubs?

I’m not saying the usual version of the story is wrong. Indeed, it seems to fit the facts better than this new one; Mr. Daniels can be forgiven for mis-remembering something which happened over 40 years ago. I just thought another side of an oft-recounted tale may be of interest to some of you.

First, I hope this isn’t against forum policy. I’m not affiliated with any of the companies involved, nor am I getting any payment for posting this, and I couldn’t see anything against it in the FAQ.
I just thought it may be useful to fan editors.

Until Tuesday 25/12/2018, you can buy Magix Vegas Pro Edit 15 (AKA Sony Vegas), DVD Architect 7, and more for $25

Humble Bundle do short-term sales of bundles of books, games, software, etc…
One of their current bundles is video and audio editing software from Magix, the company who bought Sony’s Creative Software division a couple of years ago.

There are different tiers you can buy. The top tier where you get everything is $25.

The bundle is available to buy until Christmas Day 2018. After you’ve bought it, you can log in to the site and download or re-download the software at any time in the future.

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I currently use Vegas 14 which I got in a similar Humble Bundle a while ago. I find it has the right balance for me of ease, power, and ability to run on mediocre hardware. I haven’t used DVD Architect before, but I’ve had a quick play and seen it can also author Blu-rays.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/vegas-pro-even-more-software

Asaki said:

Not only that, but according to Mike Verta’s analysis, some of the shots look as if there was so much color loss, that they were basically colorizing grayscale footage.

That analysis sounds interesting, do you know where I can find it?

canofhumdingers said:

Jedit: whoops, there’s also a big brown planet!

Wouldn’t the planets have been shot as separate elements and composited in?

That’s interesting, thank you both. I’ll have to have a closer look at some starfields some time.

I’ve just read one of American Cinematographer’s great collection of interviews about the making of the Star Wars films: (https://theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/starwars/mm/pg3.htm)

This one is about the motion-control model photography, and I’m a little confused by this statement.

the star-move is photographed directly onto color negative and set aside for laboratory delivery

We know they had black and white film stock on hand, because the same interview discusses them shooting motion-control elements on b/w to check they all line up.

So why would the monochrome star fields be shot on colour negative? Is there some inherent difficulty in optically compositing colour and b/w film together?

Here’s a relevant quote from an interview around the time of the original release.

George Lucas said:
I visualized an extremely bizarre, Gregg Toland-like surreal look with strange over-exposed colors, a lot of shadows, a lot of hot areas.

I’m not sure exactly what’s meant by “over-exposed colors” here though. It could refer to overall brightness: in digital terms, all channels over-exposed with blown-out highlights. Alternatively, it could mean over-saturated colour: one or two channels over-exposed, e.g. a shot that’s more or less monochrome red with solid bright red highlights.

Off the top of my head and from a look at 4K77’s thumbnails, I can’t think of any examples of the latter in the original Star Wars. So, I think this supports the idea some scenes were intended to be over-exposed.

EDIT: Just re-watched 4K77, and there are some shots in the garbage compactor and Tie fighters with some very saturated coloured lighting. Does anyone more familiar with film-making terminology know which of the above (or something else I haven’t considered) is the most likely meaning of “strange over-exposed colors”?

oohteedee said:

99.9% of all frames from one 35mm Eastman print struck directly from the original negative in 1983.

Why was a print struck directly from the original negative? Aren’t there usually IPs/INs in the workflow between the negative and release prints?

Was this some kind of “special”/test print?

Interesting documentary, thanks for sharing. It’s funny to see the principals talking about the love triangle before they knew about Luke & Leia.

Does anyone know who is this guy who looks and sounds weirdly like Adam Driver? He’s at 14:47.

Wonderful! Out of interest, are the DD and DTS tracks the same audio in different formats, or is there any difference between them? Are any of the tracks actually from the print itself?

Were there frames missing at reel changes; how did you fill these gaps for GOUT sync?

Most importantly, thank you 😃

I’ve seen contradictory information in different places; has it been determined if these 97SE theatrical mixes are the same as the on the 97SE laserdiscs (apart from codec, bitrate, and possible attenuation of the surrounds)?

Also, was the sound completely/majorly remixed for 2004 DVDs, or is the 2004 mix largely the same as either/both of the 1997 mixes (apart from obvious changes like Emperor, Boba Fett, etc.?)

Harmy said:

No. There’s still a couple of GOUT sourced shots.

I’ll have to take your word for that, because I was looking and couldn’t spot them.

My wife and I just finished re-watching the OT with Deathalo’s tweak of Harmy’s 2.0WP. It’s wonderful, everything I’ve been hoping for since I first watched the (very nice) 1.0 version.

Thank you Harmy, and every unbelievably dedicated fan whose work has helped make this possible. This is definitely my new go-to version of RotJ.

I’ve read through this thread, and I’m unclear on a couple of points. Does anyone know:

1. What source(s) the latest publicly-available version of the mono mix restoration is derived from?

2. What version is muxed into the MKV of Harmy’s ANH DeEd 2.5?

I ask because I re-watched that the other day, with the mono mix; it sounded so good, I can’t believe it’s derived from a couple of bootleg VHS tapes!

Thanks for this, Puggo. I just watched your 8mm edition, It feels strange to have watched Star Wars in 35 minutes, but I like it! Now I'm downloading Puggo Grande, I can hardly wait :)

Since "grande" is Italian for "big", you could call your viewing cartridge transfer "Puggo Piccolo".