pzachos

Well well well… here it is 2024 and I recently completed law school. I hate that I haven’t worked on this to make progress, and I want to address that. Actually, to some degree the delay has helped, because the AI tools available now
are more powerful than when I began. This will help a bit in cleaning up and upscaling the deleted scenes.

thejaff…how would you feel about assisting in the sound department? Maybe we can tackle this and make better progress together.

~ Peter

Jacob and friends… I’m so embarrassed I have dropped the ball on this. I began my first year of law school and as one would expect it took priority.

I successfully cropped and upscaled the deleted scenes (doing some careful comparisons between AE’s Detail-Preserving upscale and Topaz’s offering)… but the real hurdle here is the sound. The sound on the deleted scenes is a dirty, hissy mono. I cleaned up quite a bit of the hiss, and I could just use those tracks as they are, but my stupid ambitious mind went “I’ve got some extensive SFX libraries… what if I built a reasonable sounding 5.1 mix for these scenes, so that they would fit well into the rest of the film’s audio?”

Which of course adds a whole layer of work, which maybe I’m not in a great position to do.

So I’ve decided to just insert the scenes as they are, upscaled and cleaned up, but with mono sound (in a stereo mix.) This will at least allow us to view the film with the scenes intact, and then perhaps someone can take up the mantle of recreating a proper 5.1 mix for the new fanedit.

Will keep you posted.

~ Peter

Thanks, jrzag… I had a feeling such was the case, but happy for that to be confirmed by someone else.

Hey all,

After searching the site and other corners of the net carefully to make sure no one’s already done this, I’ve decided to take up the mantle to assemble a fan edit of Adrian Lynne’s “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990) with the infamous deleted scenes inserted back into the narrative.

I’m starting this thread to make updates on progress, get feedback and ideas, and other JL-related discussion. Jacob’s Ladder is one of my favorite films and I have long wished that Lynne would make a “Director’s Cut” with the excised footage restored, as he expresses great affinity for the footage in spite of his instincts (and test audience results) in 1990 to cut the scenes.

There are some significant problems that will make this a very amateur effort. Chief among these problems are:

1. As of now, the only sources I have are the US and UK blu-rays, which are a decent scan of the original, with grain intact, but certainly nothing to write home about.
2. The deleted scenes are pretty abysmal in quality. 720x480 non-anamorphic, fuzzy, lots of picture noise, audio is noisy as hell. It will take some finesse to make them even minimally acceptable.
3. There are, as yet, still MORE deleted scenes that are not available anywhere AFAIK, as evidenced by some BTS in the “Building Jacob’s Ladder” featurette on the blu-ray. A scene is shown where, early in the film when Jacob is stuck in the subway station, he enters a men’s bathroom and is confronted by two men having sex (perhaps two demons.) Other bits of scenes not found in the film are seen in this featurette, and in various trailers. Without these elements, of course, no COMPLETE uncut edit of Jacob’s Ladder can ever happen.

I have a few technical questions, for any of you who are interested in this edit:

1. The blu-rays feature a newer DTS-HD 5.1 audio mix. Of course, the original theatrical prints had Dolby Stereo tracks. There are a couple of other audio options I could add to the final video file. The Special Edition letterbox US laserdisc (2001) has an AC-3 track; the P&S earlier US release (and almost every other LD release) feature the Dolby Stereo/Surround PCM tracks. Would you prefer all of these options?

2. The MPEG4 AVC movie file is 23.98 fps, but the non-anamorphic deleted scenes are 29.97. Does anyone have any advice on what FPS setting is proper in my master session settings for editing?

That’s all for now.

Cheers,
Peter Z.
“Ah HA! A creeping kid! … for my film… ‘The Creeping Kid!’”

dwalkerdon23 said:

pzachos said:

I might. Let me check my LD shelves (they’re at my studio which is away from my home.) if I have either I can import them for you.

PZ

now I just Need Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough ,I no longer need The Goldeneye PCM track, I bought the 1997 DVD from Ebay, which has the 2.0 Surround Mix, As well as the theatrical 5.1 mix.

Gotcha. No worries… I will check, for those two.

Cheers,
PZ

I might. Let me check my LD shelves (they’re at my studio which is away from my home.) if I have either I can import them for you.

PZ

I, too, have the CAV boxset, and a decent CLD-97 player restored by Kurtis Bahr. I output audio in a similar fashion to SilverWook. If for whatever reason he can’t get to it, I’m happy to help out.

Peter Z