[Cancelled] Mad Max 2/Road Warrior Regrade (Warner 97 DVD and LD)

[kk650]

PDB, what i'm seeing here in those screencaps don't look anything like what the fleshtones on the DVD look like, your fleshtones are much too red, painfully so in fact, all the characters look completely sunburnt. You might want to go to caps-a-holic.com and look at the DVD screencaps to get a better idea of what the fleshtones should look like.

Not liking those bluish nighttime shots with the blue tinted lights either, it doesn't look at all natural to me, so this release is not something i'll personally be interested in, but its great to see you taking on more projects. Looking forward to checking out your Alien and Aliens releases when they come out.

I would advice others here to try to provide more constructive feedback as well, providing moral support is great but actual feedback on a project is much more useful for a releaser, especially feedback that points out things that can be improved, that is what I have found from my own experience. My two cents.

[spoRv]

Sadly I'm still using this old & small monitor, so my feedbacks will be distorted and I'd prefer to give them when I'll get a properly calibrated monitor... but, in response to kk, about constructive feedbacks, I would try to give my 2c, too!

Well, as some of you know, MM2 is one of my "project in the drawer"; I'm happy someone is going to regrade it, because if you have to wait me to release it, you'd have to wait for a looooong time... I took a look (again) at caps-a-holic, and that's quite difficult to make a comparison between them and PDB's images... yes, night shots color is not so natural on DVD, as well as day shots as well; but the mission of this project - if I'm not wrong - is to use the DVD as color reference to regrade the BD.

PDB, may you post some comparison with untouched BD top, untouched DVD middle, and regraded BD bottom? So we could check the (eventual) difference between DVD and regraded BD colors. And if you may cut out black bars, it will be perfect!

Forgot to mention: happy to see new projects here, like this and kk's T2, and many others! Keep up posting, my friends!

[DoomBot]

The whole point of this project as Andrea pointed out is to restore the BD to the dvd colors. This was actually what i wanted to be done if you recall KK when you were working on the same project way back. Nothing wrong with having more natural fleshtones but the reddish tone very well could've been the theatrical colors, more of an artistic choice perhaps. The fact that we can change the colors to how we feel it should be and to be able to share it with others, is pretty damn cool i think.

[lightsabre]

this is looking good!

[PDB]

Well, well, well lots to talk about.

First and I'm doing this quickly, here are two comparison shots with skin tones, one new and one from a pic I've already posted:

DVD/BD/BD Regraded to the DVD
[Image: rw_1b.jpg]

This is the first grade and its 75% done with approximately 700 shots done and its not an universally grade throughout its a shot by shot grade. Once completed, it will then go through another grade to tweak the fine details. And then maybe another. Will it be perfect? Nope but be a close as I can humanly get to it. Is it too red now? Maybe so but it is a WIP and that will change.

Second, I guess it behooves me to be specific about my goals with this project or more to the fact what I hope to achieve. I'm grading to what the DVD looks like. That means beyond technical limitations and errors of the medium I'm grading from, it's making the decisions for me. I don't choose the colors, what looks best or grade to what I personal like, the DVD is making the decision. So when the DVD say a blue night filter:

DVD
[Image: rw_dvd_1a.jpg]

That's what I go with (frankly I like it anyway) regardless of it not looking naturalistic. I doubt its meant to be natural. Not to say I'm rigid and dogmatic. One is ON scan and the other is a lower order scan. One is Rec 709 another 601. So even being the same film, its not apples to apples. Hell, when Max crashes the DVD is a mess of colors from what seems to be a semi-damaged print. That's hard to match with the better looking BD. But like I said the goal is for the BD to look like the DVD. The BD is wrong period. I can say that with confidence. Is the DVD exactly right? Without a 35mm print in front of me who can say but I made numerous notes seeing it on the big screen in 35mm and the DVD is more right then the BD. I can also say that with confidence.

As for your concerns about feedback kk650. I too believe in constructive criticism. Hence me posting this project here for ideas and to gauge interest. Otherwise what's the point to me posting? I could make my regrade and keep it for myself. I don't have an giant ego where I need to be told how great what I'm doing is. But previous to posting I wasn't operating in a vacuum. I have asked some good people here about their thoughts. I did another grade 25% of the way through with an auto technique only to abandon it when the wasn't working properly. So I do value opinions.

But frankly, a call to criticism strikes a very negative tone. I prefer a more positive approach. More focus on ideas. Ideas to make projects better. Ideas here helped me shape my Aliens project into something I hope will be better in the end. Through the fiery crucible, so to speak. I don't know what Andrea's specific goals were and I can't speak for him but I always hoped as a place for the exchange of ideas and knowledge so that we can all benefit from these projects. Moral is important. You know that better then me. These projects are hard to do and if people seem excited that only helps you. I see nothing wrong with people expressing interest.

If someone wants to do the same project I'm doing I say have at it. Competition and cooperation create better products. Hell, I'm only doing this since Andrea put it in his "project drawer". After that, I made up my mind last year that I wanted to do color regrading. I welcome anyone who can grade to the DVD better then me. Because you know what I want to watch that version, I won't be the least bit jealous. I would just be happy to watch one of my favorite movies with the right colors.

Anyway, back to the Saul Bass logo. I created this test file:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDh9kXYa...e=youtu.be

using the 2.35 logo from Enter The Dragon. I cropped the logo, duplicated the last frames to remove the "presents" and added a fade to black. But as you can see to get it right I have to stretch the logo out. So its not perfect but clean and more stable then the DVD one. Still looking for the logo from a 1.33 or 1.85 to see if it has more real estate above and below the logo.

[PDB]

Thanks, lightsabre and Doombot.

Doombot has been super generous with his time, helping me with many projects.

[jerryshadoe]

First off, awesome project

Now that I got that out of the way...
In that first shot in post#17, the regraded to DVD shot looks a little "washed out," but the second shot looks very nice. IMHO, the "blue filter" night shots in that same post seem to work, but the ones showed in the post #6 look awkward. I understand that you are using the DVD as the color-reference, but personally, in those particular shots I like the BD color-grading more. Again, this is just my opinion. Either way, kudos on your work

As far as the shots you posted in post#1, it looks really nice, but IMHO they are just a tad-bit too redish, but only for the parts of screen where flesh isn't present, as the flesh-tones seem to look pretty decent. The fact that you are doing everything shot by shot instead of an automated method speaks to your devotion to the project and is admirable. It will make for a much better final result.

Concerning feedback: like you stated, you could just do this regrading for your own personal collection and never release it to the world. The fact that you are open to comments, suggestions, advice, etc. is how projects can end up having a much better result. Sometimes you can become "blind" to what you are doing because you have been working on it so long and an "outside" perspective helps a lot in situations like that. It's the reason I have posted my TWD project here - what I had was decent, but after all the help and discussions here, it will now be a quality release and looking back on my first versions it's like looking at "crap" vs "gold," there is a night and day difference. I am sure you can relate with some of your projects in the past

[spoRv]

PDB, the latest comparisons seems very good t me; now that screenshotcomparison.com is online again (finally!) why don't you post there some pics (DVD vs regraded BD)?

About regrading it shot by shot: you are very devoted to this project, and completely crazy, too! Keep on working, and if one day I'll decide to make my own version, we'll do a contest!

[Stamper]

It's good to note that according to the Mad Max Fury Road trailer, both the desert shots in the DVD and the night shots in blue are what Miller always achieved in that film. Both of those color choices including the orange sunburned skintones are in Fury Road shots.

[kk650]

Firstly like Andrea said before, doing a manual shot by shot regrading to match the DVD colours is kinda crazy but incredibly devoted as well so I must take my hat off to you in that regard PDB.

I understand that the purpose of this project is to recreate the DVD colours shot by shot, which is great. That is the reason why I was so surprised that nobody had pointed out the overly red fleshtones of your regrade, on my big monitor the difference between the DVD fleshtones and the fleshtones in your regraded screencaps are very obvious. You really need to get those fleshtones spot on if your ultimate aim is to recreate the DVD colours faithfully, warm is good but sunburnt is not and certainly nothing like the DVD fleshtones.

In terms of the nighttime shots, if thats how the DVD looks then based on your project aims to recreate the DVD colours shot by shot, that is naturally what you should go with and I never said otherwise. I don't like it all that much but thats just my subjective opinion, all that matters objectively for you is getting the night scenes as blue as they are on the DVD, the same hue and saturation as the DVD etc etc.

Considering constructive feedback criticism and something negative is not a helpful frame of mind to be in, believe me, I know from experience. You should welcome it. The greatest help you'll ever get as a releaser will be from those that point out inconsistencies or things that can be improved. You don't have to act on everything or indeed anything that's been suggested of course but at least you'll be aware of what others perceive as issues, that will only help your release to be better and by extention you to become a better releaser. Moral support is very important for a releaser but I think that this place Andrea has created has the potential to be so much more that just that, a place to provide support for releasers of course but also a place where people are not afraid to post objective observations or subjective opinions that may be perceived as 'negative' and 'criticism' by some but in reality will very often make the release better and therefore should be welcomed.