[In progress] True Lies - open matte, film regraded

[spoRv]

OK, this movie is into my HDD since many years... I thought to start a project about it several times, but any time there was the announcement "Blu-ray will be released..." and I left it behind, and regularly the BD never appeared, so... maybe it's time to do it!

This will use the WEBdl as main source; the logo is deleted using HDTV; film scan is used as color reference and, despite the fact it's letterbox, color regrade *seems* quite good - should check the whole film when it will be ready - quite close to film; this is also one of the rare full open matte versions - where the whole letterbox image is included, so there are no cropped parts, apart very few shots (I spotted only the Harrier take off, so far).

WEBdl untouched vs regraded: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/128478
Test clip

download (1m44s, no audio, 10mbps x264, 121MB): https://mega.nz/#!ZuQlnDYS!ShNfTWncBGxFE...rwz9W1LXFw

Regraded version is also often very close to trailer (even if all we know trailers can't be taken as absolute reference, color wise, they could be taken in account somehow): https://diff.pics/2_OMj9L-18bx/1 - would be great to find out the full screen DVD, maybe for an AAP-AR version

I have the Italian AC-3 track, along with the English and Russian ones. I'd like to add the Cinema DTS track, plus English DTS-ES 6.1 from DVD, and the usual other languages (Spanish, French, German) audio and sub tracks; if anybody would/could help, please chime in!

[Beber]

Looks pretty good. I can provide the French AC3 track from the PAL DVD. You'll have to change frame rate, adjust the pitch and do the sync job. I also can provide French subtitles from the said DVD and probably TV broadcasting. If you want better ones, I can rework them, but that'll take some time, like a couple weeks, and to do so, I would need a copy of your final work, at least a frame accurate work in progress video that would be the same in the end, using the main English audio track for synchronizing purposes.

As for why the Blu-ray is always delayed, I have a theory. You guys may or may not know that True Lies is a remake of the French movie La Totale directed by and supposedly written by Claude Zidi. Well, as it happens, a few years ago, a guy claimed "paternity" of the idea, story or whatever and sued Claude Zidi and I seem to remember that this guy won his lawsuit. Maybe there is an appeal, I don't know where it's at right now, but I would assume that this has repercussions on True Lies being the remake of it, and Claude Zidi being credited at the beginning of True Lies as being one of the writers of the original screenplay Cameron's movie is based on. Remember the Harlan Ellison story? They had to change the end credits for The Terminator. This has a bad taste in Cameron's mouth.

[Stamper]

Looks great! But I suggest you dial down the clipped whites, in some shots you totally lose detail. That shouldn't happen especially as the Starz rip (the best one) master is already pretty hot in some places. All those clipped whites looks detailed on the 35mm. I'm sure it's one set you can fix for all the film as the clipping is constant even when you don't see it (very low contrast).

[deleted user]

I agree about the clipped whites, they make it look somewhat cheap. (though I haven't compared it to the print like Stamper has)

[spoRv]

Thanks guys!
Stamper, send me two or three timecodes of "hot" shots, so I could upload pics.

[Bigrob]

I don't recall seeing any fullscreen DVD's being released but I did find this director's P&S scan laserdisc

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/06208/8640-80/True-Lies

[Stamper]

Don't have the TC there, but from your grabs, the moment they kiss with the explosion behind, the moment Jamie Lee look above when she is interrogated, Arnold in the copter looking through the lenses, the spotlight on the car when Albert groans... in your clip the whites are clipped in pretty much all the shots, like when the knife breaks the glass from behind so some detail is gone.
The old D-Theater/Open Matte scan is pretty much hot, so it's best not to push the lightness further or the whites will clip even more. You might find a good balance by adding the contrast, and maybe bring down the light a bit but not as far as the 35mm.
That would make for an interesting hybrid.

[spoRv]

Strangely, the encoding didn't crash (yet!) so I think I'll let it finish until the end (if it would be brave enough) and give it a try; if the clipping whites would be unbearable, I'll dial the contrast down, but so far I like it very much - I know, I know, that clipped white is a bad thing, but I do like that film look... let's see the final product.

[maksnew]

On HDB there is a very old record of 2006 without logos but has several failures due to the fact that the file consisted of two parts and when it was combined there was a crash there too OM and the quality is not worse than STARZ

True Lies 1994 1080i HDTV DD5.1 ​​MPEG-2
Size 13.06 GiB

[zoidberg]

As for why the Blu-ray is always delayed, I have a theory. You guys may or may not know that True Lies is a remake of the French movie La Totale directed by and supposedly written by Claude Zidi. Well, as it happens, a few years ago, a guy claimed "paternity" of the idea, story or whatever and sued Claude Zidi and I seem to remember that this guy won his lawsuit. Maybe there is an appeal, I don't know where it's at right now, but I would assume that this has repercussions on True Lies being the remake of it, and Claude Zidi being credited at the beginning of True Lies as being one of the writers of the original screenplay Cameron's movie is based on. Remember the Harlan Ellison story? They had to change the end credits for The Terminator. This has a bad taste in Cameron's mouth.

That doesn't explain the delay in releasing The Abyss though. As for True Lies the last I heard they were considering making it into a series so it can't be so toxic a property, plus it's always showing on cable. It just seems to be a combination of Cameron's insistence on approving masters (which AFAIK is written into his contracts) and Fox's complete unwillingness to release/re-release catalogue titles.

Back to this release, spoRv what grain plate did you use for the regrade shots in the comparison photos?