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ocpmovie

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Post
#123102
Topic
Pan & Scan O-OT Project (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/123102/action/topic#123102
Time
Just got in dark_jedi's discs, and they are lovely. Bring back a lot of memories of watching the O-OT on home video (pan & scan) all through growing up. It's good to have a high quality DVD of this version of the film ... and of course the discs will be very useful indeed for any O-OT restoration projects anyone might want to undertake.

Return of the Jedi is the gem of the set, as the original laserdisc was on two discs, and the quality is clear and pretty much worthy of DVD. Not to say that Star Wars and Empire aren't pretty good, but "pretty good" is the best description, as both show video grain throughout, a side effect of the original laserdiscs being put on one disc I believe ... and not being very good transfers to begin with. The print of Star Wars used on this laserdisc is a bit washed out in the way all the old home video transfers were ... brings back memories of those versions of the film, has that crappy 1980s feel to it. =D However, the O-OT scenes are quite clear enough - I really could have used this transfer putting together Classic Edition.

Certainly great discs for anyone's collection, and will come in verrry handy for O-OT restorations. Dig it!
Post
#120060
Topic
Star Wars: Deleted Magic (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/120060/action/topic#120060
Time
Thanks Jambe! If you are ever actually inspired enough to do your own Deleted Magic type edit for Empire and Jedi, go ahead! I'd love to see it.

I myself actually have no current plans to tackle Empire and Jedi anymore. I definitely looked into it, but at the moment, the only footage that has leaked is mostly boring "how we made the effects" type footage rather than true deleted material, and my attempts at Deleted Magic Strikes Back proved uninspiring. I was going to hire actors and record audio for the true deleted scenes in a radio drama fashion, but could never find the right people. So now I am waiting for more decent deleted footage to turn up.

Now Andy, let me reply to your post and questions.

>>"Deleted Magic is so interesting because it is like having that pair of eyes that you've been used to looking through your whole life suddenly start wandering to the sides and seeing things outside the original more rigid frame of reference."

That's a great quote, very apt. I thank you for it.

>>"I was amazed at how much humour there was in this."

Glad you noticed. I was always trying to sneak humor in, point out how silly things must have looked onset, when things fell over. Couldn't help it.

>>seeing footage of Alec Guiness relaxing or talking off-scene while his character's dialogue and theme music plays (as in the rescue from the sandpeople scene and his death scene) seems like such a nice tribute to him

Again, glad you noticed. =) I love Sir Alec's performance and in every interview you hear cast members talking about how much it meant to them that he was there as a mentor figure onset. (Even Garrick Hagon, who had no scenes with Sir Alec, spends a lot of his time talking about him, in The Unauthorized Star Wars Story [and the Classic Editoin commentary]). Since the Biggs scenes were done, I thought I'd break the rhythm a little and do a few little tributes to Sir Alec, and other cast members. There's at least one for Chewbacca as well.

I have not altered the audio for the Cantina scene. It appears as it did on the Behind the Magic CD-ROM. I suppose it would be quiet when no one is talking, resulting in gaps of silence. Yes. The Cantina scene features the original dialogue and production sound. The extras would have been instructed to keep quiet. The repeated background noise you hear is "walla" (sound effects) intended to cover the silence. The sound was edited together by Lucasfilm in 1998 or so, and represents a rough "scratch track" rather than polished, finished sound. Hence the gaps. It's filmmaking.

- Which OT preservation set(s?) was used for the pre-SE original scenes that were not replaced by rough cut material?

The old TR47 by Cowclops. Also used in Classic Edition, appearing in higher quality there.

- How many hours did you spend working on this DVD?

Too many. Mostly on weekends, when I was sick or bored.

- I've always toyed with the idea of making my own edit of the OT, with the most alterations (naturally) being in Star Wars. Are you opposed to allowing your work to be borrowed from? I just doubt there are better copies of Biggs' scenes in circulation, and your audio track for the Treadwell scene is great.

I feel that the scenes that were deleted were deleted for a reason, and couldn't/shouldn't really be integrated into the actual film, because they are of different quality and are often very silly. That's why I created a different style for Deleted Magic, when they give the impression of being integrated into the film but really you're watching something different, and more eccentric.

That said, you can use what you want, with full credit. The complete Jabba scene appears on Return of the Ewok.

- Does a complete black and white audio-less copy of the fabled lost cut actually still exist?

I am not sure if Mr. Reynolds viewed the COMPLETE film, but he certainly viewed a lot of it. So yes, it is most likely that a complete black and white copy of the Lost Cut exists, probably without any audio, as they weren't able to find the audio in 1998ish when they made Behind the Magic. All the Lost Cut material exists as raw unedited footage in the Lucas archives, in color and with sound, on 35mm film. It has been fairly well stored all these years, and could be restored in color if Lucas wanted, but it would be a big project. Check out the Anatomy of a Dewback Pt. 2 DVD ROM extra on the Deleted Magic disc for a glimpse into those vaults.

All the best ...
Post
#120055
Topic
Pan & Scan O-OT Project (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/120055/action/topic#120055
Time
dark_jedi, you have these discs? Excellent! Send 'em on to Laserman, or MeBeJedi ... It would be spectacular to finally have a copy of these.



Moth3r - it's not as painstakingly difficult to do as you would think, as I would only be restoring the non special edition shots to a higher quality, not the whole film. Doing a whole film this way would be impractical, but doing the non special edition shots, that's easy enough.

I would not be using shots where the camera pans. That would be impossible to sync up, and the motion blur would remove most of the positives of the larger pan & scan transfer. Widescreen will do fine in these cases.

I had very good luck with superimposing pan & scan images over widescreen images when doing restorations for Deleted Magic and things ... and superimposing laserdisc over DVD images and vice versa. It does seem that because of the nature of film, if the most important part of the shot, that the eye is really looking at, is made at a higher quality, the quality level of the entire shot raises dramatically.
Post
#119413
Topic
Pan & Scan O-OT Project (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/119413/action/topic#119413
Time
"Comparison's sake?"


It amazes me why I have to keep restating why this project is important to create the best quality transfer of the original trilogy on DVD. Please actually read the thread, it's explained in the first post, and again and again ad nauseam.


Anyway.


Pan & Scan, of course, was never popular with the laserdisc/DVD crowd. The nice thing about Pan & Scan laserdiscs being so unwanted, is that they go for cheap.

Consider this Pan & Scan Star Wars for 2 bucks.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=381&item=6410457890&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Of course I don't really need Star Wars, I need Empire and Jedi, which haven't shown up yet.

Keep watching the skies ...
Post
#119042
Topic
Star Wars: Deleted Magic (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/119042/action/topic#119042
Time
No CGI shots of X-Wing or Tie fighters appear in Deleted Magic. In all cases, they have been replaced with the original 1977 footage, as in Classic Edition. Trust me.



The subtitles are a bit fast, it was difficult to fit them all in and make them readable in the time alotted. They can be read by a casual viewer, but if you really want to digest and think about the thoughts mentioned in the subtitles, I definitely recommend pausing occasionally, or even constantly.


Best wishes!
Post
#117572
Topic
Pan & Scan O-OT Project (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/117572/action/topic#117572
Time
The whole image will look pretty clear if done this way, because the Pan & Scan image includes the most important parts of the shot (in a closeup, this is the face of the person talking, which is the only part that needs to be seen clearly) ... a bit of sharpening will bring the rest of the widescreen image up to the same level of apparent sharpness, and it will simply look like a great transfer.

You might recall that I was easily able to use laserdisc and DVD material in the same frame in Classic Edition, which was a much greater quality difference than this would be. And it looked great.

As far as Sebastian Shaw goes, well, you wouldn't be taking him from the O-OT version anyway. He was in the 1997 Special Edition, which is widely available on high quality on DVD.

As far as the speedup goes, I've had to deal with that before, it's not hard to deal with. Even if time compressed, this would make VERY good raw material for an edit.

But please try to use the CAV non time compressed version, yeah. That would be much less annoying.
Post
#117368
Topic
Pan & Scan O-OT Project (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/117368/action/topic#117368
Time

I am interested in acquiring pan & scan laserdisc transfers of the O-OT trilogy. These would come in hugely handy if anyone ever wanted to do really beautiful high quality versions of the O-OT on DVD, because for any O-OT scenes that aren’t in the 2004 DVDs, the big pan & scan zoomed image could be placed over the widescreen image, basically doubling the quality, resolution and sharpness. This would not be practical to do for a whole movie, but for the brief snatches of scenes necessary to reconstruct the O-OT, as I did in the original Star Wars Classic Edition, it is the perfect solution.

I asked Russ Dawson about this, and he was stumped, he didn’t think anyone had done pan & scan transfers before. Which seems like an oversight, as anyone wanting a good version of the O-OT should definitely look into trying this.

So, has anyone done pan & scan transfers? Or would be interested in doing so?

Empire and Jedi would interest me most.

Post
#116626
Topic
Info & Help: looking for... other ld-rips to dvd movies ex. blade runner int cut, songs of the south, frighteners dir cut - and much much more...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116626/action/topic#116626
Time
Fight Club workprint. Nice.


Yeah, the guy who sent me that Frighteners copy was an idiot who copied things a la VCR. Tsk tsk. I hadn't really noticed it til now, but the black levels could certainly be better, as could the quality in general. Ah well. Perhaps someone can redo it and really nail it, with commentary and all that.

Good luck on allll THAT Beastly. The set is rare.
Post
#115282
Topic
Star Wars: Classic Edition by Ocpmovie (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115282/action/topic#115282
Time
Thanks Jed! Glad you dug the discs. Sorry you were stymied by the dialogue in Return of the Ewok - it's not very clearly recorded and I can see how a non-English native speaker would have trouble with it. Hell, some of the minor jokes took me a couple of watches to hear properly!

Glad you liked Indulgence. I liked Sprinkles a lot myself - the talented Lora Story. Although the director of that film and I had a lot of personal differences later and hate each other now, I'm still proud of the film.

The Isolated score is taken from the Editdroid 2, with many thanks to the talented creators of the Editdroid discs.
Post
#113994
Topic
Star Wars: Classic Edition by Ocpmovie (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113994/action/topic#113994
Time
I too am a perfectionist and I redid certain shots many times until I was happy with every shot in the project.

I suppose everyone will have their own opinion on what looks right and what doesn't. All the shots aforementioned look fine to me.

I wonder if the shot of the lightsaber looking green on the DVD looks worse than "bad" to you, as this is certainly the same shot, just with a slight color change to blue.

The laserdisc shots are placed to match the DVD images. They are very slightly shorter on the sides, which was a decision to not zoom into them too much and lose parts of the vertical image. This area will not be visible on a television set.

That said, the disc is what it is. Those who think they can do better, well, please do - Empire and Jedi, no one's done yet.



And here's a suggestion.


If you want to achieve a DVD quality version of the original, original trilogy ...

Use the DVD for most of it, then for the non special edition shots, take your images from both the widescreen AND pan & scan laserdisc images. Paste the pan & scan over the widescreen, and voila - perfect DVD sharpness.

I would have done this, except that I didn't have a pan & scan laserdisc rip lying around.

Those who think they can do better, you certainly can. And I for one would be first in line to grab a copy of your cut.
Post
#113991
Topic
Info: A new edit <em>(The Lost Cut - it was a prank; but some good info in here)</em>
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113991/action/topic#113991
Time
Magnoliafan, I know what I'm talking about. Skot has talked to David West Reynolds who WROTE that article about the Lost Cut. He confirmed that what he saw was black and white and silent, proving that not even Lucasfilm has a full copy of this cut with sound at the ready, at the moment. I'm not saying that part of the Cantina scene was silent, I'm saying it ALL was. That entire reel from the Cantina seen in Behind the Magic had no sound on it whatsoever, and they had to go back to the reels and put sound on it from the original takes. That's what he said. Strange, but apparently true.

Lucas does save all his raw footage, so it would be possible to reconstruct the Lost Cut, and he does seem to have the whole thing as black and white and silent at the VERY least. Maybe he has the soundtrack lying around still and couldn't find it, but maybe it was damaged or lost.

Lucas certainly could release the Lost Cut in some form if he wanted to, in color in fact, since he saved all his footage .... which is why the Biggs scenes and other cut scenes are in color on Deleted Magic, of course ... but it would take some new editing. As far as we know it's not lying around somewhere perfect and ready for release. It would take a bit of work to prepare it.

There you are then.
Post
#113883
Topic
Info: A new edit <em>(The Lost Cut - it was a prank; but some good info in here)</em>
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113883/action/topic#113883
Time
Hahahahaha


What a joke. I love deadpan humor.

It really is someone saying, here, I've got this crappy thing, "The Holy Grail" it's marked ... maybe someone who likes cups might like it ... yeah.



Very silly.



Sadly, the Lost Cut doesn't exist in its full form anymore, as it was ... supposedly. For the Behind the Magic Cantina scene, it seems they had to fill in the soundtrack all over again, bit by bit, as they couldn't find a copy with sound!

I'm sure George has SOMETHING lying around, but no, the Lost Cut remains just the stuff of legend.

This guy is just fucking around to get attention, yes, we know that much. A tipoff for anyone who isn't an idiot ... John Jympson was never properly credited for his work. That's a cue from a joker to let those in the know know that he's talking about the Lost Cut.


As far as the original original crawl goes, you can find it in the DVD-ROM section of Deleted Magic, as the Lost Cut crawl. It's a longer version of the actual text you see in Star Wars. The guy who did it recreated it EXACTLY.

For my own version, I used the 3rd draft crawl, which was never in the film, as it has a lot more information in it. "The Republica Galactica is dead" ...