mverta

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

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

(I did not tripe-post this - no idea what happened there)

I don't pull detail from anything outside of the print(s) themselves, regardless of the condition of the shot.  Believe me, if I didn't do it for this one...

Speaking of rough shots...

Moving Along

If they put out an original version, everybody would buy it.  Very few people would reject it simply because it didn't have the Special Edition crap in it.  But huge numbers of us WOULD reject it if it was SE.  The lack of offering of the OT has never been because it wouldn't sell.

For sure.

Well as I understand it, there are a lot of complications regarding Fox's distribution rights to Star Wars, plus there just isn't a broad-base consumer delivery option for 4K... plus, I mean... we don't KNOW that there's any change-of-heart regarding allowing the OT to return, we just all hope that greed/profit/nostalgia/whatever has a chance, now that George isn't in sole control of the property.  

But also, as I've said many times, knowing what I have to do to get these kind images out of great prints and wonderful scans, then even with original elements it would require a restoration unlike any other. It would take more time, more people, more money than I've ever heard done to a commercial release... I mean, there's no way around it. Even with original elements, the hardest shots are shit-tons of work. I dunno... we have no reason not to stay hopeful and positive, but also no reason not to hedge our bets.

A couple unfortunate things happened either around the time of, or because of, the sale to Disney: My LFL legal contacts moved on to greener pastures, and I no longer have dependable access to The Archives.  I don't know if a lot of people know this, but during the sale, the assets in the Archives were either sold, or loaned, or put under the control of (can't remember which) a 3rd party (a non-profit, if memory serves), so you can't just get in there like you used to if you had official business.  I've done a lot of work with licensees - Master Replicas, efx, Acme, for example - and it used to be that when we had a project, or were researching a project, or even CONSIDERING doing a project, we could get in there and get references, etc. and a couple of big projects that were well underway just had to stop until the dust settled and/or new rules were established to get access again.  To this day all I've heard is that the new controlling entity is still nervous or skittish or something about all that, and the projects remain in limbo.

My friends at Disney are not directly in-the-know about the Star Wars property, and were only able to tell me that a 4K restoration either had been or was being done; they couldn't find out it if was the OT or the Flaming-Shit-Storm version.  We can assume they were talking about Reliance's restoration, so on that front I know no more than anyone else.  

My hope is, of course, that Reliance has done a jaw-dropping restoration of the OT in 4K, which we will...get... in...4K...some...how?  On some future 4K medium?  I dunno.  But either way, that ain't happening soon for tons of reasons, so I decided to just press ahead!

Yes I suppose I could just leave the back door open one day... :) 

I couldn't release it if I wanted to, having been warned explicitly by the powers-that-be.  Nonetheless, I am and will continue do everything I possibly can to get that to happen, but until that's the case, the work still needs to be done - time is the enemy.  And I will continue to try and help other projects however I can. Believe me, this completely and totally and utterly and entirely bums the shit out of me, too.   But you know what? Life is crazy.  Let's just keep the faith and be patient, stay positive, let the Force do what it's gonna do.  Plenty of miles to go yet.

I have modules for registration, tracking, temporal sampling (stabilizes color, flickering), deblurring, color matching, "channel math" for using aspects of one part of an image to drive aspects of another part, and a couple others.

I've found time in between projects to work on it, though I've taken off the bulk of this year just to hone things, thanks to some sponsoring.

_Mike

I would say 2-3 weeks per shot.  But I also do them 3 or 4 times - there are many ways to approach a given shot and sometimes you can't tell until the very end which was the best way.  Sometimes it all looks fantastic and then falls apart somehow in the grading, when dynamic range is maximized and colors pop.  And I really want to choose the best of the approaches to get the best results, so it takes time.  Plus, in cases where you just have a lot of rotomattes to build, etc., that's labor/time intensive.

I have one set of custom tools wrapped in a container called Beelzebub - those were developed by guys who were strictly against commercial enterprise; pure-research guys.  I have to honor that, plus keep asking every year if they've changed their minds yet. :)  But I have absolutely ZERO software snobbery - I will throw anything at the shot that works best, and sometimes it's surprising.  Sometimes some little plug-in in After Effects might handle a particular issue better than a $10k piece of software. On the commercial software front, I use Cinnafilm's Dark Energy Pro, DaVinci Resolve, The Pixel Farm's PFClean, Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, and Imagineer's Mocha Pro among others. 

Oh, sure.  My lack of interest in restoring the other films is just due to how much work it takes to get the proper materials and the costs of really scanning them properly, etc.

But if I had access to great scans, etc., it would be fun.  They would benefit from all of Legacy's software tools and resources and would be tons easier.  The first anything is the hardest one; building the infrastructure, getting the foundation built, getting up to speed...  Plus I've learned tons of tricks and techniques along the way, and been forced to come up with new ways to handle things simply because of the issues with the harder shots in Star Wars.  That sandcrawler shot, for example, was simultaneously a testing ground for things which would apply to the Worst Shot in the Film - the landspeeder panning shot after Ben Jedi Mind Tricks the stormtrooper.  That will actually be a fun video to post but it will take me a bit to make it, because I want to show just how much shit went into repairing that shot.  It's also the most dramatic before/after, ultimately, because of how wrecked the source is.

Eagle-eyed observers have noticed I've been posting Changed-in-the-Special-Edition shots first, and you guys are right as to why - when you see what could've been done even with the most problem plates, it makes the additions all the more unnecessary.  And they're not even good shots most of the time.  I'm working on the next round of videos now, things like the Throne Room (tons of work), Falcon Hangar matte paintings, Ben's Hut... stay tuned!

That's correct - it was Dykstra, Edlund and Grant McCune shooting the miniature in Death Valley.  

Melatius - the pantyhose over the lens was indeed used in the Tunisia footage - it's an old trick; I've used it myself in place of a diffusion filter.  It's most evidenced by the prismatic specular highlights coming off Threepio in direct sunlight shots. However, this isn't what causes those blobs, the origins of which I'm not 100% sure, but it's got to be a combination of the nature of the film stock, and I'm pretty sure some intentional generational degradation - something else we know for a fact was done to help some of the worst shots blend more contiguously with bracketing better shots.

Eyeshot - It's cool, right? For me too, just like everyone else. :)

Except it is rarely the same for any two shots which makes it hard to put it in a fire-brigade-like pipeline, unless you have VFX generalists in every chair who can adapt to whatever the shot challenges are.  Dealing with the sky in this shot, for example, required a different process than the sky in, say, the Rebel Launch shot.

Sandcrawler Restored

No.  Well, yes if you're just trying to throw some software at it, but in that case it's still hard today.  Whether it's now or then, 2K or 4K, the key is being willing to break the shot into elements and handle them separately.  It's insanely more work and time intensive, but obviously do-able.  Having the original negative or whatever's left of things would have only made it easier.

Another video:

Sandcrawler Restored

Another shot restored...

Yavin Launch

There's only a complicated answer to that, but let's say the bottom line is that reciprocity and communication aren't the situation's strong suits.

They do not have my 4k scans of the LPP.  They scanned it themselves on a home scanner at 2k, with plans to do it at 4K.  As to the quality of the scans, I can say this: there's a reason the Scanity costs what it does.  I also know -1 got parts of some of my Tech IB scans from a print.  I also sent them part of a scene they were missing.  As to that, I can say this: even having the original negative didn't assure that Lowry did a good job with the restoration, it's not a magic button. Having Tech prints is about 25% of the final image, I'd say.  My restoration before/afters represent weeks and weeks of grueling effort per shot, pushing my visual effects and post-production experience of 20+ years to the very brink.  Trust me, to anyone with Tech scans I say, "Good luck!" It's not like you think where it's a little clean-up here, a little color correction there.  Bull. Shit.  To get what you see in Legacy is no fucking joke, even with being sponsored by top software tool companies!

I helped Harmy with reel-by-reel reference images of a Tech. and other guidance along the way.  I do what I can, when I can. Despite the absolutely insane, delusional, narcissistic arrogance of people who claim to be "saving Star Wars," (we're not, we're keeping it on life support at BEST), I still like to think we're all in this together.

Certainly in theory, especially because -1's primary (?) print is/was the same Kodak LPP I first had scanned years ago in 4K.  I almost never use anything from it, but if you're really dedicated, there's quite a lot of stuff in there.

But any restoration is really a combination of 3 factors - source, tools, and skill. I can say absolutely that with commercially available tools (albeit the expensive ones), even some of that print's more egregious issues can be greatly improved.  I've considered doing a couple of tutorials once Legacy is finished, actually!

...not to mention the help/resources I've given Harmy and -1.

 I try to help how/when I can; sometimes by talking about the process and providing technical assistance, sometimes by showing what's possible so others know what they can get out of their materials.

_Mike

I have been told explicitly to expect the FBI should my restoration be released publicly, by friends at LFL who are in a position to know.  

Harrison-Ellenshaw-Approved:

A wretched hive...