[Cancelled] Fight Club Open Matte (and OAR Old Master)

[PDB]

Fight Club Open Matte (v1.0)

plus a bonus

Fight Club German BD OAR (v1.0)

Project Info

This project attempts to create the best version of Fight Club in the open matte format by combining the parts from 3 separate HDTV broadcasts and the Web-DL (thanks X5gb).

Each video file (HDTVs and Web) have their own separate issues including compression artifacts, smeared grain, missing frames, etc. The biggest problem is the compression. Each file has the compression of it's broadcast but when I compare the files against each other I can tell the original master had a host of compression blocking, hatch marks and blurring. Although the master has grain a lot of it is destroyed in the the compression. I first took the parts from each video file that had the least compression and stitched them together to form the least compromised version. Then I cleaned up those compression artifacts and added grain that best matches the BD's level of grain, especially for the shots that were the grain was destroyed.

The color has been left largely unchanged with just a small adjustment to the red and blue in the shadows. The color scheme is the older one of the DVD and DVHS aka pre-BD remaster which mostly similar but with a few notable exceptions.

On the audio side I'm adding the original Cinema DTS soundtrack, the super rare PCM 2.0 and 5.1EX from the Japanese LD and the BD English soundtrack. There might be some other tracks added later.

Finally, I asked spoRv for a copy of his YAO subs. So similar to my Top Gun project you will be able to watch the project in 1.77 open matte or theatrical 2.35 with a tiny bit of crop varying per shot. Also much like TG the opening 20th Century logo be over cropped incorrectly but the rest is fine.

Notes: This project is synced to the US (and likely international) BDs for an alternative soundtracks and subs. Also their is one 3 min sequence in the film that is cropped in every HDTV broadcast and the Web and not open matte. The original master appears that way

Video:
A combination of 3 HDTV and 1 Web-DL merged together to create the best version with compression artifacts minimized and other clean up measures preformed.

Audio: (both projects)
1. DTS-HD MA 5.1 (from the Cinema DTS Discs)
2. PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the JPN LD)
3. Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (from the JPN LD)
4. DTS-HD MA 5.1 (from the US BD)
5. Dolby Digital 5.1 (Plissken1138's no narrator fanmix)

Subs:
1. English (from the US BD)
2. spoRv's YAO subs to watch the 1.77 open matte video in 2.35 mode

Pics

OM


OAR


1.77 Orignal/2.35 YAO Subs


Collaborators and Thanks (In order of help):
Doombot
X5gb
Plissken1138
Chewtobacca
spoRv
Zoidberg
maksnew
BusterD

[X5gb]

For the cropped 3 min sequence, would you consider going with the 2.35:1 bluray for that thereby making it a VAR project, best of all worlds.

[Hitcher]

1080p? I've only been able to find the 720p HDTV version before.

[X5gb]

Yes, both hdtv and web-dl are 1080p.

[deleted user]

Are the sources aligned well enough for a Median of all 3?

[PDB]

Yes, both hdtv and web-dl are 1080p.

Yep

For the cropped 3 min sequence, would you consider going with the 2.35:1 bluray for that thereby making it a VAR project, best of all worlds.

It looks like one of the broadcasts I have is from HDclub had that part substituted with 2.39 from the blu-ray. It looks iffy. I think for this I'm going to just keep it 16x9 for consistency sake.

Are the sources aligned well enough for a Median of all 3?

At least two are in perfect alignment but at this point after picking out the best parts from each one, I'm way beyond averaging them . It's a good idea and I'll have to test it on another Open Matte I'm working on.

This is a rough old test of compression cleanup. I've since tweaked the grain and deblocking a bit but you get the idea. While the HDTVs/Web do have grain, this is an example of one shot where the compression blocking wiped it out so I had to re-grain (matching the BD's S35 grain)

Original/200x Zoom


New/200x Zoom

[Hitcher]

Out of interest - How long do you spend on these projects?

[PDB]

Why I have one project that is nearing 5 years of constant work; another 3 years...

I usually have been working on a project for some time before I post on fanres. Probably weeks or months of work before it gets mentioned (for say a "quick project" and not a total regrade). Lots of gathering sources, testing codes, working on color grades and asking questions of people who know more then me. I usually only post here once I believe I can reasonable finish a project (which sometimes doesn't work out) and I want people here to know about it and offer advice, counter-point, additional sources of video and audio, get excited, etc. Sort of putting this wonderful community to work for me. When I post here I'm close to or around render point.

So short answers: weeks, months or years, just depends.

[Hitcher]

Well it's really appreciated.

[PDB]

Going through my second test render and found some pixelization errors. Normally, I'd copy and paste in the frames from another copy of the OM but strangely it appears that all copies have the same problem. So have to try to take them out by hand:

Pixelization/Fixed



Hopefully I can fix all the issues by matting in frames that are ok or coloring out the errors otherwise might have to use the dtheather to paste over the errors.

Also normally I don't like taking out on-set mistakes but since this open matte is an unholy abomination anyway, I matted out two instances of boom mics I found.

Mic/no mic