[In progress] Hellraiser (1987) [Project: Celluloid]

[deleted user]

It does look good. My only criticism is that the blacks are now completely crushed in some places (for example the one where the guy blows up with light shooting out of him). Only detail left is in the blue channel there, other channels are completely blank in the background.

[LucasGodzilla]

Fixing the black crush problem with a bit of adjusting to the black point and curves, I have the next version for show...

Project: Celluloid Regrade (V3)

I have made a (DNxHR 444 12-Bit) render of it last night and I am currently running it through spoRv's "Perfect Setting" for x264. From there, I'll put it into an MKV and upload it onto probably Mega.nz for downloading. I admit, I noticed a few minor things I can tweak after I made this render (E.G. Less "milkiness"), but they weren't strong enough bits to warrant another whole new render, so consider this a beta run.

If you are interested in checking out this version, just shoot me a PM and I'll get back to you with a link as soon as I can.

[spoRv]

Seems nice!

About re-rendering after spotting minor issue: get used to it!

Hint: watch the lossless version before encoding - possibly with someone, that could eventually spot some problems that you may not notice.

[Turisu]

My personal feeling is that this is still far too dark. Frank is completely invisible in the shot with Julia smoking the cigarette. The BD having him out of focus in the background is a very creepy image and I'm sure it was intended to be seen this way. The BD is lacking in contrast but I think that crushing or blowing-out details in pursuit of a more 'filmic' look is somewhat wasting what is actually a nice scan of the negative.

[LucasGodzilla]

My personal feeling is that this is still far too dark. Frank is completely invisible in the shot with Julia smoking the cigarette. The BD having him out of focus in the background is a very creepy image and I'm sure it was intended to be seen this way. The BD is lacking in contrast but I think that crushing or blowing-out details in pursuit of a more 'filmic' look is somewhat wasting what is actually a nice scan of the negative.

Personally, I would have to disagree with that. I think that the darker look is actually more in-line with what may have been intended. In that shot, in particular, the darkness conceals Frank more (but still visible) and when he comes into the light, it creates a more ominous image. Keep in mind also, this scene was supposed to take place at night, so it makes more sense also that it'd look so dark and blue. I should also note that I got the sense, more often than not, that the Arrow transfer sort of brightened everything so that we can see every little nook and cranny, only that's not what was probably originally intended.

I think looking at Clive Barker's Nightbreed is a good example of this, because although the transfer was not done by Arrow, the newer transfer brightened everything which worked against the movie at times, especially in the dream sequence in the opening, which the scanned trailer provided with the disc was far darker so that you only caught brief glimpses of the creatures (versus the newer transfer which allowed you to see everything, removing the mystique and unintentionally caused a few shots to look rather stupid).

Anyways, the point is, what you like about the BD is very likely unfaithful to the originally intended look. I should also mention that if I raise the highlights as well for the night scenes, there will be some nasty clipping resultant of the LUT.

Also, for the record, it's an Inter-Positive scan from what I've heard, so a mistake on my end if I wrote Negative previously.

[LucasGodzilla]

So it turns out I made a mistake in the render I made last night and I made a few new changes since then, so bugger it!

Project: Celluloid Regrade (V4)

I guess this makes me look hilariously stupid to make another new version within the span of a single day, but whatever. I'm also simply not going to bother making a whole new array of screenshots for this since the changes are considerably minor for the most part.

The first is a change in the lower end of the curve; I slightly tweaked it so that the near black areas are a touch darker than before, fixing the milkiness issue that can be seen throughout previously without crushing it like the version preceding it.

The second change specifically ties into some of the night-time shots; I replaced the general all night LUT from a specific night still to retain the blues but fixes an issue, that's not really shown in the screencaps for the most part, where the blues become borderline neon. I didn't do this swap for all night time shots which is why it will look relatively unchanged from the last update.

I've exported a single screenshot that I think showcases both issues and fixes rather well...

Comparison

I am still standing by my decision to keep the movie looking darker than the default Arrow transfer as you obviously couldn't tell, and since no details are technically lost, I'm content.

Also, one last change I forgot to mention was that I lowered the highlights in the Hospital-Cenobite segment since I noticed there was still a highlights issue I forgot to address.

Anyways, I'm rendering it again (properly) and will run it through x264 overnight.

[LucasGodzilla]

Links are going out for the current version. Send me a PM if interested.

[DoomBot]

I have to agree with LucasGodzilla, it should be darker in the shadows and a darker look overall. Not everything is meant to be seen in films.

[DoomBot]

I finally watched Hellraiser last night. Looks pretty good with alot more depth and better color, more filmic as was the goal of this project. The only thing i would nitpick is some of the very dark scenes had sporadic noise moving around and i'm not talking about grain either. Other than that, great project so far LucasGodzilla

[LucasGodzilla]

So while browsing my social media, I randomly stumbled across this Japanese poster for Hellrasier that kind of makes me wonder about something that I have–unfortunately–no real way of checking.

There are a few things I find striking about this poster. For one, there are two stills that I guess are from unused footage or random set stills (the skinned person and an old test version of Frank's ripped up face from the opening). The other main thing that I noticed is that the stills of the fight in the climax between Kirsty and The Engineer, which is bathed in blue as I've suspected previously, but in a different shade of it in comparison to my regrade as it is right now (as well as being able to leave the rotoscoped effects overlayed on top relatively untouched / still deep yellow). Now like I said, since I have no further evidence of that, I won't try to recreate that light blue look until I have something substantial to back it up or some more 35mm scans that may be floating around.

With that said, I do have to ask out of curiosity: I don't suppose any of you people are familiar with any private collectors with this movie in their inventory? I may want to ask a few questions or work some sort of exchange with them to try and gain access to some more scans to base off of or something.