Well, in the films the only natural death is Yoda, and he's 900.
I guess that explains that mystery--Yoda's not an alien after all!
I think its funny that even when he's forging documents he still uses a voluntary alias that lets us know that he's doing it in the first place.
Ah here it is. I notice now that the Tech commentaries has this, but its uselessly small. I just took these with my camera right now so they are a bit blurry, but they are good enough for use.
As the Tech Commentaries points out though, these scales don't often correspond to the films. You can see that this is simply a rough pen sketch by Joe Johnson, just going by eye rather than any kind of measurement. When it came to the film they just did things "close" to this, whatever looked good in the frame, or sometimes imperfect because they didn't notice or didn't have the time to do it again, or outright didn't care. But the net result of all this is that the scaling in any of the films is only in a general sense, there is no actual "measurable" way to prove what it should pricisely be, you just go by eye so that it looks about right.
ILM made a scale sheet for ANH. I have a copy of it somewhere.
Even still though, stuff like that was a loose reference. They didn't put as much thought into it as anyone here is. Whatever looks good by eye, when theres 100 other elements flying around and the shot goes by in 4 seconds, is how they judged how to composite the things; if its off, who cares, as long as it looks okay when there's 100 other spaceships flying by and the shot ends before you can even figure out if its off or not. Like the shrinking ROTJ blockade runner. Scrutinizing it shot by shot to determine precise scale is pretty fruitless because it will never match perfectly. There is no precise scale in the films, only a general one that perpetually changes, so whatever you attempt to "standardize" in one way will be wrong in another way. I say just accept that its a movie and move on.
I am pretty sure I am an article on wookieepedia. Should I be scared?
ChainsawAsh said:
zombie84 said:
ChainsawAsh said:
Studios ignore that all the time. Do you know how many 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 movies are released in 1.78:1 (which is equal to 16:9)?
Besides, no "scope" film since 1970 has been 2.35:1 - all the Star Wars films are 2.39:1.
2.35:1 is the same as 2.39:1 and 2.40:1. 2.35:1 was changed because I think there was either a new measurement taken that discovered it was inaccurate, or some new standard came in. But they are all the same. 2.35 is still commonly used just because of its tradition. To be honest, I don't even know if anyone knows which of the three ratios is the right one, or if any of them are, but they are all interchangable for some reason.
As for determining ratios from home video, the amount of screen information is always cropped to one degree or another, so this has to be taken with a grain of salt, ultimately. Star Wars is anamorphic widescreen, so whatever version has the most amount of info is the most correct, so there is no negative cropping involved, unlike regualr or super 35mm spherical shoots.
Red5--those scans are fabulous. Where did they come from? Is there more? I remember someone here (Mielr?) tried to do some collectible-70mm scans but they sort of came out a little blurry because of the glass casings.
2.39:1 and 2.40:1 are just two ways of writing the same thing - they're interchangeable because the real ratio is somewhere in between the two. 2.35:1 is treated as interchangeable, but really isn't - as you said, it's commonly used because of tradition.
In 1957, the ratio was standardized to 2.35:1 due to the addition of an optical audio track (in the past it had been 2.55:1, as the space now reserved for the optical track had been used for visual information as well). In 1970, the standard was revised to make splices less noticeable, making the new ratio somewhere in between 2.39:1 and 2.4:1.
It was revised again in 1993 (to standardize aperture width regardless of whether the film was was anamorphic or flat), but this resulted in no difference to the aspect ratio, so it remains 2.39:1.
Honestly, it's not a big difference, and Super 35 spherical films often *are* 2.35:1, since that's just what people know as the "proper" AR and they crop it that way. But to be technically correct, any film shot on 35mm with anamorphic lenses since 1970 is 2.39:1 or 2.4:1, depending on how you round it.
Interesting to know about the 1970 bit--I hadn't heard that before. I'm curious to know what this means for actual shooting ratio though--the ratio was changed in 1957 to accomodate an embedded optical track in release prints, but obviously this is seperate from the actual camera negative. My approach is from a cameraman's perspective, and from that I had been informed that whether "2.35" or "2.39", what you photograph is the same. Would these re-standardisations only apply to theatrical prints? Or were the camera gate's eventually changed as well? My instinct is telling me that they were left alone, but now I wonder.
ChainsawAsh said:
Studios ignore that all the time. Do you know how many 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 movies are released in 1.78:1 (which is equal to 16:9)?
Besides, no "scope" film since 1970 has been 2.35:1 - all the Star Wars films are 2.39:1.
2.35:1 is the same as 2.39:1 and 2.40:1. 2.35:1 was changed because I think there was either a new measurement taken that discovered it was inaccurate, or some new standard came in. But they are all the same. 2.35 is still commonly used just because of its tradition. To be honest, I don't even know if anyone knows which of the three ratios is the right one, or if any of them are, but they are all interchangable for some reason.
As for determining ratios from home video, the amount of screen information is always cropped to one degree or another, so this has to be taken with a grain of salt, ultimately. Star Wars is anamorphic widescreen, so whatever version has the most amount of info is the most correct, so there is no negative cropping involved, unlike regualr or super 35mm spherical shoots.
Red5--those scans are fabulous. Where did they come from? Is there more? I remember someone here (Mielr?) tried to do some collectible-70mm scans but they sort of came out a little blurry because of the glass casings.
Keep in mind that Yoda is basically a frog. Living in a swamp, eating snakes and not seeing the sun are probably his idea of a vacation. Thats why it all worked so well--Yoda was a part of Dagobah, designed and written to be part of the ecosystem. The whole "cosmopolitan" angle of the prequels where Yoda travels in spaceships and sits in buildings and has meetings is rubbish.
ChainsawAsh said:
Skyjedi, a blowup to 70mm wouldn't increase grain, as 70mm negative has a very fine grain structure. That's why the effects for Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were done with 70mm - so the grain wasn't excessive when compositing multiple layers of film.
I also doubt it would exacerbate the garbage matte issue, assuming the color timing was done correctly.
As long as the blowup was done from the original IP, a scan from the 70mm master negative would probably be the next best thing to scanning the original negative if that (somehow) wasn't an option (well, the original IP would be the next best thing, but, you know, barring that ... )
This isn't quite the same. Blade Runner had its effects shot in 65mm, so that the elements would be twice the resolution of the final composite. You want to start in the highest possible resolution because you know its going to get degraded.
Blowing up from 35mm to 70mm is a duplication itself, the reverse of the Blade Runner process. It does indeed add grain, because its a generation lost from the final negative; also, if the film is shot poorly, any flaw is magnified, and dirt and debris on the original negative is doubled in size. It's very different from shooting a film in 65mm.
However, Star Wars was photographed very cleanly, and most people don't realise that a well-shot 35mm film can be blown up to 70mm very easily without discernable quality degradation--in fact, I would say that this is the ideal format for many 35mm films (70mm also has six-track sound, making the experience all the better). This is very much like Imax films today--aside from The Dark Knight, there's never been a feature film shot in Imax size, they are all just regular 35mm negatives blown up to twice the size, and they look pretty good. I've never seen Star Wars in 70mm though, and I imagine a few of the optical shots would have looked pretty grainy since they already look rough in 35mm. But the general picture itself should be more than fine--70mm blow-ups were as common in the 70s as Imax is today.
Because 35mm can be blown up to 70mm and still look good. Anyone who saw Star Wars this way swears it's the only way to see it.
The film cells were probably chosen as 70mm because they were big enough to be displayed and seen without squinting.
Its because its good enough for him, which I guess is the problem. "Episode II and III were shot in 1080, you saying there's something wrong with that?" Whose going to argue otherwise?
I don't think they were done in that res to "match" the prequels, but there was no reason to scan them higher because the prequels were that res and Lucas thinks the prequels look great (also, because its digital, he probably thinks the movies will never be put on film again--and he may be right--so for a direct digital copy it works for him). To him, I think he doesn't want to spend the money when he doesn't think there's any reason.
Hey, its the return of the faux-English accent from her scenes with Peter Cushing! :D Seriously, it's weird to hear it in a non-Star Wars context.
Cool find.
Yeah, the IP's were not in the best condition because they were themselves fading, and of course they have their own damage from use, as well as dupe grain and dirt. But some pieces of the O-neg were worse--some were damaged, and none of the CRI shots were useable. So a scan of the IP that is color-corrected is the best alternative. However, keep this in mind: whenever ILM did an IP scan it was only for the sections they were working on, in other words only for the enhanced scenes. Secondly, its not known if the IP was used to make a new O-neg for non-SE parts--ILM: Into the Digital Real says the IP "was used to restore" the film, but the only specifity they get into is when they say ILM sometimes used scans of the IP. Ted Gagliano says they were using the separation masters to make new O-neg pieces, so if they are doing this then there's no reason why they would have to use the IP. Hence, I believe that the IP was only used by ILM.
What's interesting is what I didn't include there, and maybe should, is that ILM used the IP's for pretty much all their work in ESB and ROTJ. It seems that in those films they didn't re-composite as much--the whole AT-AT sequence was re-comped, and part or all of the asteroid chase as well, but I think otherwise it was much less severe. This may have been because of the timeline (they were only decided as being restored in late 1995--originally it was SW-only), because their negatives were better, and because the composites were better themselves. However, when ILM was doing the Jabba sequence in SW they couldn't find the original negatives--the sequence had been copied to 16mm for the SW to Jedi documentary of 1983, and then lost. But they did find the IP of the sequence (I don't know what this means--a dupe print, or an IP from a rough cut?). ILM realised that they could deal with the extra grain digitally (which I guess means some kind of softening filter, or a primitive version of Lowry's technology), and it was so successful that they used the IPs for all their enhanced shots in ESB and ROTJ.
Probably because this was easier/cheaper than using the original elements and re-compositing them, as was done on many of the SW shots.
Hmm, you know I might have heard that thing about the seps mentioned by some guy on a A/V forum as well. But I wonder how many of these people are just quoting from each other in the first place. Ted Gagliano, who oversaw the restoration, says that they were using the seps, so unless he was speaking pre-maturely (which, I suppose, is entirely possible) it seems the seps were fine.
No, I don't. If there's anything there, please let me know.
In photography, when you copy a negative you get a positive. When you copy a positive, you get a negative.
So you have an original negative. You make a copy, which is a positive; this is the IP. But you can't make prints off of this, because they will be negative. You copy it, making the IN, and then from this negative you can now make positive prints for projection. The result is that they are copies of a copy (IN) of a copy (IP) of the original.
Does this make sense? It is indeed a bit convoluted.
I made this in response to a thread in the OOTvsSE forum, but I have a feeling a few people might be interested in it that would never see it there.
A lot of people wonder what was done for the restoration and revision that began in 1995, and then renewed in 2004, especially at this place, and people often throw around figures and factoids and often vague references, but it seems to me that most people only have this vague sense of what survives of the original Star Wars negative and what happened in the process of making the SE. Even I don't know the answers to much of that--maybe the negative is fine and they were working from a new restoration negative all along, such is never stated outright, we're all just making the reasonable assumption and general impression that they worked directly from the O-neg. But in any case, I decided to compile a detailed synthesis of all that we know about the matter. The most useful records are ILM:Into the Digital Realm, and American Cinematographer from Feb 1997, but there is a larger picture that must be taken into account, and you also need to have a bit of technical knowledge to understand what is being discussed and what is a reasonable conclusion.
For the article see: http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html
If anyone has anything to add--preferrably with a source--or anything to correct, I am all ears. The crappy SE neg shots were taken from a Youtube video since I only have the SE specials on VHS so they suck, if anyone has any of that footage in better quality it would be helpful.
For those following any of this:
http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html
If anyone has any info to supplement this (preferably with a citation), I'm open to it.
In response to this thread, I am making a detailed article on the matter. Expect to see the completed piece in a few days. While I'm here, does anyone know any magazine sources that covered the restoration of the film? I know American Cinematographer did, but I thought I remembered Sound and Vision or Home Theatre Magazine, or something along those lines had a piece on the technical terms of the 1997 restoration.
The YCM color scheme is actually very accuate to the original prints. Lucas wanted the colors to look exactly as they had in 1977, but all the prints had faded--except the Technicolor prints. Technicolor is dye-transfer, not photo-chemical. Since Technicolor prints are hard to find in good condition (I believe they were only made in 1977), Lucas leant them his own personal 1977 Technicolor dye-transfer print, which looked the same as it had when he put it in storage twenty years earlier, saying he wanted the film to look like that. Consequently, the YCM timers used this as their reference. So the 1997 SE, barring deliberate changes in some instances (notably the R2-D2 canyon scene), is the best guide to the color scheme of the original film.
Unfortunately for us, however, it is largely lost--when the 1997 SE was put on home video it got a weird pink tint in the telecine. So if you saw it in theatres you had a faithful reproduction of the original prints, but everyone that saw it on video, in 1997 and 2000--meaning every release that wasn't the theatrical 1997 release--has seen something more useless than any other release as far as color reference goes. When Lucas put the films out on DVD, well, you know what happened with the colors there, and its unlikely that the 1997SE will ever be officially released ever again, and prints from it have all been recalled from circulation (and supposedly destroyed--this, unfortunately, may not be exaggeration, although they probably held on to some of the masters), so all that color restoration is effectively lost for all time.
The only rescue mission I can think of is if someone can get a print from the black market, which is not completely out of the question, but highly unlikely; if LFL in the future maybe puts it out as a bonus feature like the GOUT I would believe that, maybe, but if this is the case they are likely to either just use branching technology (i.e. 95% of the film will be the 2004SE color scheme) or have the individual alternate scene to view as a novelty, or simply port the video master used for the 1997 Laserdisk like they did with the GOUT, which would still have all the pink tint color issues, in either case not really doing much for us.
my question to collectors is what the hell do you do with all that stuff? I'm serious--you can only display so much in your house. Especially since most stuff is figures and vehicles that require a shelf or some kind of surface.
Well, that may very well be true. I am willing to lose up to 4 frames in about two dozen shots, at the most. But in any case, it would be done digitally, not optically, they would just scan the stored originals and then edit them into scan they did of the SE in 2004, or just re-scan both--ideal, since the 2004 SE scan was only HD--but you could easily do a 4K scan of the 1997 SE and the stored originals, create a digital edit of the 1977 neg conform and then make home video and theatrical prints from that. I don't know if its even general practice to just print off stuff optically from the O-negs, at least when we are talking classic films here.
And, lets not forget, the O-neg was also irreversibly altered for the 1997 SE in its restoration--for the better. Some shots had faded so much that they were unusable, and I think there might be a couple of dinged up frames in there that had to be cut out. Its just the inevitable process of time. So if people want a true 1977 version made from the original pieces then you are shit out of luck, the film literally crumbled away like a yellow newspaper in some places, so you would have to make a "virtual" O-neg no matter what, by which I mean replacing damaged parts with lookalikes, which is what happened for the restoration, they took shots from the best IP/IN's available and put them into the O-neg to replace the damaged pieces.
If you really wanted to get hardcore about it, you could take the OOT IP's that they used to harvest donor shots for the restoration and retrieve the missing frames that might have been lost when conforming the SE neg.
I think people just don't understand the film process. Its not like the physical negatives were altered. Such a thing is impossible. Once the film is on film, its permanent, you cannot change it. What happened was certain parts were replaced. The original restored negatives were put in storage and replaced with newly-created ones involving CGI. People really don't understand the filmmaking process so when LFL says "the originals were destroyed" people assume it means they were chucked into a furnace, when it really means that the O-neg no longer conforms to the 1977 edit--which it hasn't since 1981, since that is when the "ANH" crawl was added. Technically, the "original" film was "destroyed" 3 decades ago. Fixing it requires simply hiring neg cutter to retrieve the shots from storage and putting them back in the O-neg conform so that IP's can be struck.
Holy shit. Awesome job! I have always complained about how oversaturated the color pallete of the PT is, AOTC in particular, which often looks like a video game. The shots you posted are sort of the same type of correction I had in mind for doing myself.
Can I say that you have made me interested in watching AOTC again? You don't know what an accomplishment that is. ;)
There were a few prints of TPM that got out showing Maul falling in one piece. They were recalled after the first week or so. This was done as a PG-safe alternate.