mverta

Well I want people from all corners of the galaxy to be able to attend...

Since the announcement's already gone out for this Sunday's chat, I'll set up a back-to-back and schedule a new one, but the time and date we'll do by popularity poll, how's that?

_Mike

There'll be others.

_Mike

Chat this Sunday night, 7pm PST.  If you've missed them 'til now, register and be in the dark no more!  If you're one of the regulars, see you Sunday...  should be fun.

_Mike

Here's my take on it:

The Technicolor prints provide us two very important pieces of information -

1) The actual look of prints in 1977.

2) Proof of the wildly inconsistent color timing seen throughout the film.

In my discussions with members of the original production crew, it is absolutely clear that the color inconsistencies do NOT represent intention. For a given sequence, color timing was intended to be at least internally consistent, though not necessarily universally consistent.  That is to say that for a given setpiece, the timing of footage shot on that set might vary depending on a scene's position within the film and given the emotional/dramatic needs of the scene.  But, again, within any given scene, it wasn't supposed to jump around as wildly as it did.  I've heard many reasons for the drifts; reasons forgivable, understandable, reasonable, unavoidable, typical...  and ultimately, just "how it was."

My personal approach in restoration is a tiered one.  Legacy has two versions: Archival, and Signature.  Archival is warts-and-all.  Signature follows intent.  If 9/10ths of the shots in the lightsaber sequence were timed the same way (or reasonably so) and the remaining 1/10th is wildly different, it wasn't the intention, and so I balance the scene internally, while maintaining the overall grading for the scene. This ultra blue timing is not motivated by a dramatic need or intent.  It's an error.  It's a charming error, and respect for it is why Legacy Archival exists.  Some people like it on principle, other people will be jarred by it, because we're far more accustomed to balanced color, now.  1977 eyes were far less demanding, scrutinizing, or sensitive. 

In terms of preserving the Tech look for the Harmy version, I might recommend you consider that you're not getting the Tech look, anyway, no matter what.  Neither sRGB nor NTSC colorspaces can accurately represent the look of the film as projected, so you might as well place your Principled Perfectionist caps on the table and take a step back.  Even the luminance curves/ranges of any of our monitors are wildly different from projected sources, and if you wanted it to look on your monitor like it does projected, you'd simply have to go back-and-forth between a projected version of the film and match it by eye, based on perceptual approximation.  It's a murky, murky world.

So, personally, given all the above conditions, I would probably vote for bringing those two bastards in line. It's still Star Wars, folks, and a shit-ton more Star Wars than most anything else, and certainly moreso than you're getting from LFL anytime soon.

Nobody is going to accuse us of not having respect for, nor failing to give great consideration to these issues, but we must preserve at least a modicum of logic, reason, and sanity and acknowledge differences in the mediums which prevent anything from being absolutely 100% "definitive."  Digital ain't as good as film in so many respects.  Period.  The work continues, nonetheless, with love and passion.

_Mike

Yes, you will probably want to have a glance at the titles in the Legacy forums, as there is a 99% chance I came across the original filming element for the ALTA.

_Mike

Harmy is fighting a lot of things in his sources during color correction which make compromises unavoidable, but for the record, Vader's chestbox "light" is a pure green; it does not have any aqua tones.  It's "Christmas" green.

_Mike

I can vouch for the accuracy of Harmy's references, for sure, and I can also empathize with people's occasionally quizzical reactions to the color timing.  Decades of transfers and inherent expectations "coloring" our perceptions make for a lot of comments like, "Wow...really?" when seeing how it actually was in '77, but...   !

_Mike

There'll be others, in time.  Don't worry.

bilditup1 said:

Where are you getting these shots of a tech IB print? the only one I've seen are the ones from the Senator theater at kaminski's site

I've been fortunate enough to have seen a few other surviving Tech IB prints, all in better condition than the Senator print. 

_Mike

Yes, Star Wars' color is legendarily inconsistent, and nowhere is that more apparent than on the surviving Tech IB prints, whose colors haven't faded!

_Mike

Uncensored chat for Legacy forum members, tonight @7pm PST. 

_Mike

Premiere and AE are obviously processing the effect differently.  Well, as you know, whatever works :)

...unless these are shots BEFORE the effect processing, in which case, welcome to the wonderful world of codec management. They're not all as bad as Quicktime, where no two applications handle the same material the same way, but every one of them makes a case for frame sequences.  :)  Personally, I use .exr for all my work, converted from .dpx or .cin scans.   When ripping DVDs/Blu-Rays, I immediately convert them to frame sequences in .exr or .png (if 8-bit) for processing.

_Mike

Harmy -

Obviously, boosting saturation or changing hue in any way immediately reveals compression artifacts, but in AE you might have better luck using Color Balance and Levels.  Color Balance can often produce results with far fewer artifacts, but you have to adjust Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights separately.  I use it all the time.  Give it a shot.

_Mike

Midnight_Trooper said:

Thanks for posting those shots Mike. The desert shots are much warmer than would have expected.

Now the question is can the blu ray source be made to look anything like it?

 

Well the warmth issue is precisely why I wanted to see the images on vintage equipment.  The print itself isn't necessarily as warm - the color temperature of the light source changes everything about the image.  I wanted to see -as far as possible- what environment the filmmakers were judging color in.  Older bulbs were warmer by nature than we're used to today.  Our computer monitors have a far cooler white than projector bulbs from the 70's and 80's did - they were more yellow.  But the coloring from those light sources is what was driving decisions in color timing.  To my eye, the film is "too" yellow when viewed that way; but that eye has been tainted by 30+ years of getting used to increasingly cool/pure whites.  If you compare the two shots below, all you're seeing is the difference between the warmer bulb of the 70's (top) and the average xenon bulb in projectors today (bottom).

I would be willing to bet that to most of us, the bottom image looks more correct, and the top polluted with reds, but the top image is actually how it appeared in theaters (more or less).  In a projection environment, there is much more luminance in the image that can be captured by a camera, and our eyes white balance naturally, so it doesn't "feel" as red as it does in this comparison, but if you know the images well, you can't miss the prevailing warmth when seeing it projected.  Most arresting is how warm the opening Tantive sequence is.  The floor is basically tan throughout much of the sequence, instead of gray.

One thing I would like to put to bed, though: 3PO is not yellow.  He's gold bordering on copper.  The bright golden yellow he's morphed into over the years and in transfers is not representative of the costume.

_Mike

Luke's costume:

SilverWook said:

mverta said:

This screening was done with 70's era bulbs on a 70's era screen to recreate the experience of its actual projection when it first came out.

Where does one acquire 70's vintage 35mm projector bulbs in the 21st century?

 Probably the same place one goes to acquire 70's vintage film prints, and 70's movie projectors in the 21st century: collectors.

_Mike

This shot, also from the screening, typifies the stylistic difference between films of that era, and later eras.  Note how warm the image is, overall.  It feels like the '70's.  We would never time images this way, today.  Plus, it has to be noted, that our projector bulbs are of a much cooler color temperature today than in the 70's, making for much bluer (arguably truer) whites. 

This screening was done with 70's era bulbs on a 70's era screen to recreate the experience of its actual projection when it first came out.

Nobody's questioning the logistical or practical necessity of a mono mix.  It's the extreme creative changes they did to it - far beyond a simple line here and there - that cause the most consternation.   A simple mono fold-down of the stereo mix would've been fine.  But entire vocal performances of lines were added, altered, or re-cast, and the balance between music and fx was not as effective as in the stereo/surround mixes, where music was more present.  That a few of the additions had negative dramatic consequences just happens to make them identical to additions in the SE, which also had negative dramatic consequences. Are direct correlative relationships mind-boggling?  I suppose so, when the negative consequences are so easily avoided :)

_Mike

We're all guilty of it - it's the nature of the artist, who is possessed of a divine, perpetual dissatisfaction.  But you have to learn to let go; to know that when the bell rings, it's time to put the pencil down.  They were mixing the mono AFTER the film was already in theaters playing to sell-out crowds. 

_Mike

As we say on the Legacy forums: Never Say Never :) 

_Mike

While you cannot trust the luminance in the following references, you can trust the hue about 98%. When seen in a scan, or by eye, there also tends to be a bit more perceived separation of tonality than appears here, where it's almost approaching a sepia-like quality. But color-wise, these are damn, damn close. These are from some 3800 shots I took of a private screening of a pristine Tech IB print of Star Wars (far superior to Senator, which has a lot of platter damage).  While there's more information on the Legacy site, in essence they were shot on a Canon 5D, whose white balance had been set to match the known color temperature of the projector's light source, and screen reflectance (around 6000k, for those interested).

Remember that the colors you are seeing are only as accurate as your monitor is calibrated and capable of displaying.

And yes, Harmy's doing a great job.

_Mike

kentforbes said:

I'm hoping that the stormtrooper's line "Close the blast doors!" during the Death Star hallway chase will be restored. They shout it just before Han and Chewy jump through the closing doors.  It sets up the next line - "Open the blast doors!" and makes them look like such bumbling idiots. Why it was ever removed I have no idea.

The line was an unfortunate addition to the original stereo and surround mixes, as the dramatic purpose of stormtroopers isn't to be bumbling idiots.  If they're bumbling idiots, the audience has no reason to fear for the good guys being chased by them, there is no tension in the pursuit, and nothing at stake.  Filmmaking 101.  Just as the CG additions of slapstick comedy at the start of the Mos Eisely sequence instantly undoes Obi-Wan's warning of how dangerous and villainous the town is, undermining the bad guys undermines the heroes, and destroys the drama. You keep the stormtroopers a threat, and let the audience just be grateful for every missed shot. It's only during the car ride home that it occurs to viewers that stormtroopers can't hit the broad side of a barn... unless you've tipped them off that they're idiots...

Like most changes in the mono mix, it is the result of over-thinking, and tweaking well past the often superlative first instincts.  I'm glad the mono mix has remained essentially ignored for the past 30+ years. 

_Mike

BTW Harmy (et al.) this probably goes in the "obvious" category, but a lot of times when it comes to 35mm scans where single frames of a title are posted, the particular frame can make a big difference in the perceived quality.  These two LFL's are from the same source, it's just that the bottom one is two frames later than the top one.  But it's an important two frames: the fade-out had just begun...

_Mike

I just notice sometimes we judge the film/era/quality of the graphics from things which are actually "moving-targets." 

Apologies for the full-res crop, but it makes it much easier to see.

For what it's worth, I had information from a friend at ILM prior to the GOUT release that the original title and crawl were, indeed, recreated for the 2006 release, albeit carefully and conscientiously. 

I hadn't given it much thought until recently, when I noticed an extreme amount of jitter in the title card, which I have from two absolutely confirm-able 1977 sources, which are identical to each other.  What's odd is that the GOUT title card element is much straighter and smoother in its motion.  Stabilizing my 1977 elements doesn't yield the GOUT result; they have internally different characteristics.  If I didn't know better, I'd say either 1) GOUT was indeed a recreation or 2) There was a second, more stable version of the title card created after the initial release in 1977, but before the 1981 re-release and re-do, which GOUT is based upon.

You can view the differences for yourself in the Legacy forum, but there is more to the story here, for sure...

_Mike

Yes, I'm pretty sure the only way you could make the color situation worse is to enter the murky world of offset printing. :)  Even experts in printing will tell you it's mostly voodoo and just about every color they want to represent ends up out of gamut ;)

_Mike