Originally posted by: zombie84You can see this in the composite shots--as soon as Luke turns on his lightsaber in Ben's hut the grain level doubles. Thats because there is an optical composite for the saber glow, so the film was exposed twice, once on set and then once in the optical printer. It's worth noting that this multiplication of grain is why ILM developed special effects and optical printers based on VistaVision - the 35mm format "on its side", which gave a larger exposure area. Standard 35mm would have ended up just too grainy with the multitude of elements required for some of the shots.
Still, even using this process, if you have 10 or more separate optical elements you're going to get significant grain. Perhaps the standard 35mm shots were "pushed" to enhance the grain and make them match the optical effects shots?
Well, push-processing would give you more grain but the reasoning you described makes no sense. There would be no need to push process the neg because the opticals themselves are as clean as the original photography, its only when they are combined in the final composite that you get that extra overlay of grain because its now a photograph of a photograph.
The image is of course very grainy, much more than one would expect, and this is what I am talking about--theres an extra layer of grain on top of the grain already inherant from the multiple-exposure composites.
The GOUT looks like it has an extra layer of grain on top of the actual image--this is how the ridiculous "digi-grain conspiracy theory" started. That theory is of course bullshit, not the least because it makes absolutely no sense. I was unfair to mverta to refer to his comment as a conspiracy theory, and it shouldn't be dismissed as bullshit. What he actually said was:
"I'm willing to put some serious money on the fact that grain has been added to ANH, at least."
This is from someone with industry credentials and years of experience in visual effects. I'm not saying I think he's right, I'm more inclined to believe the excessive sharpening theory...
Sorry, I don't believe there is any basis for that theory. Yes, there's more grain than is native to the negative--but digitally added grain?? Come on. First, I have to ask: what would be the point of this? If the image is soft, making it grainey
and soft is of no benefit. Digital grain is only added to CGI shots so that it matches the grain
already present in the rest of the image, so that it appears as part of the original photography and not as an extra composite on top of that image. The whole digi-grain thing is totally irrational. Additionally, I don't believe that the human eye can distinguish between real grain and digital grain since visually they look identical. What mverta is responding to is the more illusive visual imbalance of an extra layer of grain over the original image--but this does not mean digitally added grain. That, I have to say,
is ridiculous to propose if this is all we have to go on. Have you ever watched a bad 35mm print, maybe at a second-run house? How about all those early DVD's from 1998? They are taken not from the O-neg or from IP's but from a normal 35mm print, and you can see theres a subtle layer of grain overlayed on top of the original image--this comes from the duplication stage. Its the actual grain of the emulsion you are watching, which contains an image with grain already photographed in it, so you have 2 layers of noticeable grain. And sometimes, yes--it can look as bad as the GOUT, and when you have sharpening enhancement done as the GOUT seems to then that grain looks even more prominent because it now has artificially enhanced edges.
Thats why it looks so grainy--it looks more like what one might have seen in a theater screen.
Are you saying therefore that the GOUT video is representative of a theatrical presentation? And if so, are you happy watching the GOUT without any grain filtering?
Yes,
in some ways the GOUT is representative of what a person would have seen on the screen in 1977, in that it has a lot of grain and has lost some detail. This is not an endorsement of this kind of quality--I would not enjoy it more with sticky floors, chattering audience members and a crying baby as well, as this is closer to the theatrical experience as well.
But at the end of the day, yes, I can live with the grain, maybe its because I like grain myself, maybe because I'm used to watching the film look rough and maybe its because theres a certain charm to watching an old, grainy 1970's print.
... in an effort to make the GOUT look better they sharpened the image
Or, as Laserman suggested, the LD pressing master was sharpened because LD video is notoriously soft, and it was this pressing master that was used as the source for the GOUT.
