The Matrix - regraded, v2.0

[iguanaclerk]

Hey, that's pretty cool. I don't think anyone brought that up in all of our many disscussions.

[Turisu]

This is not meant as a criticism, just a question. Is this regrade still being based on a source or is it aiming for a consensus of what everybody thinks looks right?

[iguanaclerk]

I think spoRv is still trying to match the 35mm.

[ilovewaterslides]

Okay, okay, I recant.

As you can see, ripped from Apple's Quicktime trailer site.  Encoded 1999.




That looks NOTHING like any home release.

The trailer was made from scans of the negative that weren't color corrected at all so what you see on the trailer is basically the camera raw colours.

[deleted user]

It's pedantic and I might be wrong, but I don't think a negative can be said to have anything like raw colors.

[CSchmidlapp]

It's pedantic and I might be wrong, but I don't think a negative can be said to have anything like raw colors.

It was pedantic and It's very clear what ilovewaterslides is talking about!
Although I don't think the trailer is ungraded. It's just not the final grade.

[deleted user]

It's pedantic and I might be wrong, but I don't think a negative can be said to have anything like raw colors.

It was pedantic and It's very clear what ilovewaterslides is talking about!
Although I don't think the trailer is ungraded. It's just not the final grade.

Haha, apologies then. 

Well, to my defense, my thought was that it's impossible to transfer a negative to a positive without some form of filtering or creative process in-between, in a similar way as it's impossible to take a digital photo without setting the white balance, which does affect the resulting image rather strongly. Hence I was thinking, there isn't really such a thing as an inherent look of a negative.

But I admit I don't know that much about the process, so I may be making wrong assumptions.

[CSchmidlapp]

It's pedantic and I might be wrong, but I don't think a negative can be said to have anything like raw colors.

It was pedantic and It's very clear what ilovewaterslides is talking about!
Although I don't think the trailer is ungraded. It's just not the final grade.

Haha, apologies then. 

Well, to my defense, my thought was that it's impossible to transfer a negative to a positive without some form of filtering or creative process in-between, in a similar way as it's impossible to take a digital photo without setting the white balance, which does affect the resulting image rather strongly. Hence I was thinking, there isn't really such a thing as an inherent look of a negative.

But I admit I don't know that much about the process, so I may be making wrong assumptions.

I'm fairly unfamiliar with the process myself. Ive developed still photography a couple of times at college but they we're B&W and taken through a simple DIY camera.
Creating the positive was literally projecting the image onto photo-paper with adjustments done through the projection lens
Your thoughts sound correct to me, and no need to apologies good sir. Ive reread my post and it sounds quite aggressive compared to how it was intended

I started a thread to collect information like this and discuss this entire process as there are some very knowledgeable people here

[spoRv]

Here I am!

Skirt: dunno if it was just a typo, or because I was thinking to the Wachowsky sisters!

The idea was to regrade the BD using the film as color reference, and to be as close as possible...
Following TomArrow's hint, I re-regraded TEST1; sadly, some artefacts are still present; if someone wants to give a look

TEST1.5 clip (35m49s AVC 10mbps veryfast X264 encoding, AC3 5.1 from LD, 2.68GB size):
https://mega.nz/#!ByQHVRCC!SnuGdQDmmG7TB...8WxdLsYZc4

What I think? Not taking in accounts artefacts, and despite the fact colors are really close to film, I'm not entirely satisfied... I tried a lot of combinations between luma and chroma from various script; one has the same film contrast, while colors are off, and vice versa...

Then, I analyzed the film, and found some things I don't like: interrogation scene is not green enough; there are quite many shots with a magenta blanket; there are clipped whites and black crush inherent to the print nature.
So, I take a step back to TEST2, and modified it somehow as TEST2.5; it would take A LOT of time to encode, as it involves various script, median etc.

film Vs TEST1.5 Vs TEST2.5 Vs BD
https://diff.pics/NjBWjnK2ggap/1

as you can see, colors, even if not as much faithful as TEST1.5, are nice and retain the film "spirit", while contrast is around middle way between film and BD; by the way, just take a look at how green is the BD!

So, if I'll go for TEST2.5 grading, I know it would not be a color match; still, I think it could be a good compromise.
But, if you think TEST1.5 is better - apart artefacts, please let me know. And be ready to check every single frame for artefacts, because I would not do it (again)!

Going to eat and drink and have a bit of fun now... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ANYBODY!

[deleted user]

It's official bois: https://www.amazon.de/Matrix-4K-Ultra-HD...B079FGSYBZ

Matrix 4K UHD to come out this month. Let's see who will be first to come up with an awesome regrade without the blown highlights problem!