mverta

That's two things happening at once: 1) Those areas are below visible black in P3 color space and 2) What IS there is driving the Vimeo compressor crazy.

One of the biggest differences in P3 is in the gamma curve, especially in the low-mids to lows.  For an example, let's say on a scale of 0=black and 1023=white, your computer monitor in sRGB, or Rec.709 can easily differentiate between values as low as 25-50; that is, on a calibrated monitor you can easily tell that a value is 50 is brighter than a 25 (and that 25 is brighter than 0, as well).  Well, in P3, it's basically like any value below about 300 is all pure black.  This has the effect of increasing saturation, but it also creates a large safe-zone for "black." The negative consequence of this, however, is that things which were assumed to all be in the black safe zone may in fact appear when viewed in other color spaces.  A variation of this is why the garbage mattes in Star Wars, which were invisible in the theater, showed up to the horror of everyone involved when Star Wars was first being transferred to video.  Different luminance/gamma curves - and that also means different saturation/values for colors.  There is one immutable fact to remember: YOU CANNOT DISPLAY P3 COLOR SPACE ON ANY MONITOR (other than the $40k Dolby PRM-4200).  

Lots of times, we simply grade in Rec.709, because the entire 709 color space fits inside the larger P3 color space. So we know that our Rec.709 footage will look the same in P3 once we apply a correcting gamma curve.  But Rec.709 is missing many color hues which are crucial to replicating film, so you don't want to throw those out, just for Rec.709/sRGB compatibility.  I try to tweak the videos a touch to more closely approximate on your monitor what the shots actually look like, but it's only marginally effective.  These shots actually look much sexier "for real" than I'm able to show you.  But when the entire thing is locked, I'm going to do a special Rec.709 grade conversion to be able to show more accurate stills.

Great eye; thanks for the comment; keep them coming.  I don't want to miss a speck, and I know you guys won't let me!  Also, if you want more detailed information and videos on the specific shots and processes, they're on the starwarslegacy.com forums.  There's just no way to put all that discussion into this one thread here, so my idea is to post overall updates here, and then if people want to dive in further and get more details, that's what the forum is for!

_Mike

Glad you're enjoying the work, and it sounds like you're on a good path with your own project.  Some of deciding how to present a material comes simply from spending time with the material; really learning what can be done with it "naturally," versus what you can force it to do with modern technology.  We have the capability to grade every part of every frame separately now, and craft any image we want, but this almost never yields a cohesive, accurate representation of a source, so you're probably in the right aesthetic when you embrace the most stubborn flaws.  Plus, human perception is a curious beast :)  Best of luck!

_Mike

Yep.. that's what I was referring to when I said I noticed it still needed some clean-up :)    Good eye.  

All the little details are really what this second pass is all about!

Sandcrawler at Dusk

Here is R2's Arroyo, restored.  Unfortunately, much of this image's look doesn't translate from DCI-P3 to sRGB, making the shot you see less contrasty and thus desaturated as well.  I will put a "corrected for sRGB" still on the Legacy site for more accurate viewing!

R2's Arroyo

It is my opinion, ultimately, that when it comes to the colors in Star Wars, there should be absolutely no definitive discussion online, ever, period, under any circumstances, so help us God.

Maybe...MAYBE... if we all lived in an sRGB world with calibrated monitors.  As it is, the color pathways are crazy.  To this day, I cannot actually show what my restoration looks like because it's in DCI-P3 and you need either 1) A $40,000.00 monitor to show it or, 2) A 4K projector, calibrated, in a critical viewing environment. It's just not technically possible, and the approximation that I see in the browser when I put things online (and yes, you bet it's different in IE, Firefox or Chrome), is usually off in some critical way - either color tone or luminance.

Harmy's done a great job, and I suspect one day he'll do another pass, but it's a moving target.  So let's all go easy on it.

Thank you! Glad you enjoy them...

The Destruction of Alderaan

The Destruction of Alderaan

Star Wars - The Suspect Hygiene Edition

That purple light is in the shot... Or maybe it's not.  I'll do a video on the idiosyncrasies of anamorphic scope to explain. 

Experience or not, both enthusiasm and criticism are always welcomed.  Legacy has been a very difficult, tedious process, and I'm glad it's in a share-able place!

Speaking of which:

Cantina Wolfman 2

Vimeo's compression hates this shot, with all its gradients and smoke, but you get the idea:

Cantina Wolfman 1

Buddhamaster, you're right about the music industry (my first career is as a composer and audio engineer).  We spent all this energy getting ourselves 24-bits of dynamic range and now use 1-bit of it, thanks to loudness maximizers.  I'm not sure what the point of meters are anymore, since they just need to sit at 0 fullscale.  Back in the day I lived by my Dorroughs, and right around the time TASA began issuing rulings because movie trailers were fighting it out for loudness (Godzilla won), I knew we were in trouble.

It's a Goddamn Fucking Nightmare.  

Most of the time, the incoming color "pops" on halfway through the wipe which makes it that much harder.  Like anything else, if you want to take the time, you can do pretty much anything.

Another reclaimed shot:

Ben's Hut Restored

I'll put that one (Throne Room) up soon, and they are indeed a matte painting, and they blend just fine with the actors next to them, especially given that your eye is drawn to the actors center frame walking down the stairs.  There is only one argument at the heart of every, "this should be changed" opinion: that what it currently is isn't good enough.  No matter what metric you want to use, that argument is unustainable.  What it is built Star Wars; leaving it will not erode Star Wars' legacy. Sure, if you change it, fewer people will notice.  Even fewer will care. Beyond good or bad, it simply isn't necessary.

Tractor Beam Power

Falcon Hangar Matte Painting 1

Speaking of Oscar-worthy, here is the restoration of one of Harrison Ellenshaw's fantastic matte paintings - the Falcon in the Death Star Hangar.

Falcon Hangar Matte Painting 1

I can tell you at least part of what bums me out as a director and a colorist:  Every element of everything in the frame is now routinely power-window-graded into something that isn't photographically possible.  With a lifetime of experiential data, our brains are near-impossible-to-fool bullshit detectors when it comes to tracing the path of light, reflectance, ambient bounces, etc.  The result of the isolated-element grades may be painterly, or pleasant, but they're also not real, which de facto creates a disconnect with audiences when you're presenting what is otherwise supposed to be "real" imagery, even if it's Avengers.  So today you'll see blue skin tones wearing uniforms with rich golden and reds, and none of the light from those objects is polluting or influencing the objects around it, which is completely contrary to the physics of light.  We have tools which allow us to do anything now, but we rarely question whether it's a good idea to use them.  The fact is that the assumed process when filming now is to shoot everything neutral, and do a shit-ton of grading in post.  It's not photographic, it creates unreal images - sometimes really pleasing, but also always unreal.  One of my favorite things in working with this film is the unified, real color in the frame, because there simply wasn't the option to isolate every element.  It's organic and beautiful; a look largely forgotten.

Tractor Beam Power

Thanks - Yes I'd like to post one every day, but I still have another pass to get through, so my rule is that if I meet my day's goals, then I'll take time to do a video.  It's just a touch involved because I have to pull up the source projects and media, etc. but I enjoy doing it.

Short and sweet:

Tractor Beam Power

To be fair, I just checked the mod date on the scans and they were dated 11/2010 - it's been so many years that I've been on this thing I wouldn't put my kid's life on when I had it scanned.  In any case,  -1 (Raj) sent me the print years ago, I scanned it, then later returned it to him, at which point there became the "group" team-1, and they built their own scanner, did it at 2k, and I think now have redone it at 4k, but I'm not sure.  That's as much as I know.  In any case, it is a nice print, as you can see from how little effort is needed to return a nice result, but I don't use it. A few people have just asked, relative to my tutorials, how applicable they are if one doesn't have a host of proprietary tools.

I am not using -1's scans. I had it scanned myself at 4K in November 2010, long before negative 1 was doing their thing. 

Quick video response to a common question:

10 Minutes with an LPP

I'll try to get Edlund to provide some more details.

Yes, I just got word and it was just confirmed as Vaseline smeared on the lens.  :)