[Proposal] The Abyss (1989) BD

[spoRv]

The idea of using the OM, at least to let the project have some value when (if) the BD will be released (unless they will release it OM as well, maybe as an option, but I strongly doubt it) is good; but the OM is the Special Edition, while Amazon is the Theatrical Cut... yes, the clip should contain also shots for the SE, but more for the TC, and hence *should* lead to a better color grading - and the Amazon quality is better. Or, just wait for the BD, and see its color grading, then eventually use is as the source.

Post 105 updated - https://fanrestore.com/thread-268-post-5...l#pid51343 - added 1.33:1 HDTV open matte version; another different color grading, seems ungraded...

[maksnew]

They talk about an official BD release since... forever, maybe?

Link (please keep it inside FanRes):
https://streamable.com/lzu9l

Tell me, do you have a full 35mm film?

[LucasGodzilla]

They talk about an official BD release since... forever, maybe?

Link (please keep it inside FanRes):
https://streamable.com/lzu9l

Tell me, do you have a full 35mm film?

Judging by what spoRv said before it was posted, I would say that's a no...

Just found a clip - like 30s more or less almost 4 minutes; dunno if it could be enough to regrade, though... I must admit I do not like Amazon color grading, and love the film scan!

However I will admit that the fact this singular scan exists and I suppose is just floating around (since I'm just guessing spoRv stumbled onto this by chance), there may be a way to ask the original person who made the scan and see if it was done only for those four minutes or for the entire movie even.

I also want to say on the topic of this...

The idea of using the OM, at least to let the project have some value when (if) the BD will be released (unless they will release it OM as well, maybe as an option, but I strongly doubt it) is good; but the OM is the Special Edition, while Amazon is the Theatrical Cut... yes, the clip should contain also shots for the SE, but more for the TC, and hence *should* lead to a better color grading - and the Amazon quality is better. Or, just wait for the BD, and see its color grading, then eventually use is as the source.

I would have to say that the fact that the OM is Theatrical or Special Edition has little matter in this situation for the simple fact that if a grade were to be made, it's be made only from those four minutes you posted which simply cannot completely and accurately represent the entire movie for obvious reasons. What this means, is that for the added scenes the SE brings to the table, it'd make little difference grading since there isn't much to go off, to begin with (and those scenes don't seem to be inconsistent with others color-scheme-wise).

Now it may be possible to do what I've been doing for my Hellraiser regrade and create specifically made compilation LUTs for topside shots and Deep Core shots and underwater shots and etc, as well as a whole, encompassing compilation LUT for shots without any remote reference of. As I said before, it wouldn't be perfect, but it's better than nothing.

With all of that being said, I will have to say that if Maksnew's wish is fulfilled and that there is a full scan of the print floating around, I would be happy to try and do a full regrade of the movie (most likely open matted despite it being lower quality since I'd rather wait till the Blu-Ray release for a widescreen regrade). In fact, it'd probably be kind of easier–albeit longer term–and more accurate than the one I am doing for Hellraiser since I have a proper reference to go off of for likely every shot (excluding the SE scenes but those would likely be accurate as well if I had access to the full print and made a proper compilation grade from that).

[spoRv]

Dunno if complete scan was made, or only that clip...

[Bigrob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_uVE4wRlHY

just in case anyone is interested

[Stamper]

The guy did all this for nothing. The HDTV that has been around for a few years of the TC remastered has the exact same lenght of credits. And it's in full 1080p HD glory it's about 4mn45

The SE have 7mn35s of credits

My Pal DVD with the TC have those credits running at 9mn25s.

I'm guessing it's longer on the NTSC disc.

I hate those interminable credits, they send me snoozing.

Whenever you wanna get to sleep, just put on The Abyss DVD credits.

[spoRv]

Whenever you wanna get to sleep, just put on The Abyss DVD credits.

Or Lord Of The Rings EE... they must be even longer, I guess...

[Turisu]

Credits? The LOTR EE's would have me snoring long before I got that far.

[spoRv]

Credits? The LOTR EE's would have me snoring long before I got that far.

Think that me and my friend did at least twice a complete marathon of the EE... almost 12 hours!

[LucasGodzilla]

So it was with this test grade that I decided to mess with white balancing to fix fading. I decided to take two stills from the four-minute film scan (which upon closer inspection has quite some compression artifacts) and then use the hard-burned caption as a white point and a colored near-black area as a black point.

I think the results speak for themselves.

From there, I cropped, stretched and aligned the posted still of the HDTV Open Matte (1.78:1) Special Edition version with the fixed film scan still and ran it through Dr. Dre's Color Matcher.

Although the details from the film scan do not carry over, it certainly has the colors. However, compression artifacts do become far more apparent.

I think the biggest issue I mainly see right now is the fact that the film scan was riddled with compression artifacts and the HDTV open matte is also riddled with its own compression artifacts, but since I don't have any real plans to fully pursue a project in regrading the entire movie at this current point in time, I'll leave it as it is and consider it merely as a little first-time-experience with white-balancing in Photoshop.