Highlander 2 - 35mm Scan

[deleted user]

Interesting. Might the red (more magenta?) cast be fading through the print lying in the sun for an extended amount of time or something like that?

[HippieDalek]

Interesting. Might the red (more magenta?) cast be fading through the print lying in the sun for an extended amount of time or something like that?

Possibly, I've also heard damp suggested as a cause. Watching reel 4 in motion can be a bit distracting as it pulses, and can cover a large amount of the right hand side. It doesn't affect every frame so at least for stationary shots it should be easy to bring back the correct colour from nearby frames.

[CSchmidlapp]

Ive got to say the person who sold you the print is a 'Liar Liar' and his 'Pants are on fire!' on his comments about the condition.
We should take note to never buy from him again!

Still for the purposes of your project I'm so glad you got what you need from it.
I am looking forward to re-watching it as a grind-house presentation, despite my comments above it will be quite a rare experience

[zoidberg]

The red/purple could be lab marks. If the print had gotten damp/wet you would know it as the emulsion would separate from the base and you would possibly have microbe growth.

The scratches are most likely platter marks, cinches would be vertical

[HippieDalek]

Ive got to say the person who sold you the print is a 'Liar Liar' and his 'Pants are on fire!' on his comments about the condition.
We should take note to never buy from him again!

Still for the purposes of your project I'm so glad you got what you need from it.
I am looking forward to re-watching it as a grind-house presentation, despite my comments above it will be quite a rare experience

Yeah, the scanner is planning to put out a warning about the seller on the 35mm forums. I could name (and shame) the seller here but I'm not sure if that would be against the rules or not. He did half the price of the print before selling but it's in nowhere near the condition it was described as. 

It could be better, but considering the troubles that the scanner had with the print it's all turned out a lot better than I expected. On top of that I've still not seen another print of the EU cut available anywhere, and the only version of the US print I've seen for sale anywhere is around $900! So I think this is the best we're likely to get. The scanner does rent a lot of films for his own projects so I've asked him to let me know if he comes across a better quality copy in the future. 

I'm uploading the rendered reels just now so they should be available shortly.

[HippieDalek]

The rendered reels are now available if anyone wants to see them in their unrestored glory. Consider this a pre-grindhouse release.

The raw files are 1.32 TB in size but this render brings it down to a more manageable 24.3 GB. Each reel is roughly 4-5 GB and all I've done to them is zoom in to crop out the sprockets and soundtrack on either side of the film.

Other than that I haven't done any cropping at all, so expect to see the curved edges of the frame, glimpses of adjacent frames at the top/bottom of the image, some sort of scribble between shot changes, and all sorts of stuff that would usually have been masked off in the cinema.

I've not had any time to sync the English soundtrack yet so if you want to see these then come prepared for Russian!

There's quite a bit of wobble in the picture, but believe it or not the scan has already been stabilised! The sprocket holes in the unzoomed scan are rock steady and never move, but watching the corners you can see the image moving about. So the wobble is "built in" to the print. It'll be fun trying to stabilise that.

Now that all the reels are rendered I'm going to start work on a proper grindhouse release that combines the separate reels into one continuous film, and sync up the English soundtrack (which may take a while due to all the splices in reel 1). I'll probably also crop the image a bit to mask off the stuff that wouldn't have been seen in the cinema.

After that I think I'll work on a "grindhouse+" version where I try to patch the splices using other sources to provide a smoother viewing experience. It'll also give me a good feel for how all the sources mesh and will help me decide how best to go about bringing the film to true HD; a combination of Blu Ray and restored bits of the 35mm, or bite the bullet and try and restore as much of the 35mm as I can. 

PM me for links, and please let me know if you have any feedback.

[deleted user]

I've worked with the guy who scanned this for you, his setup is rock solid, hardly necessary to stabilize at all in my opinion. At most I'd stabilize around the splices since those can throw the whole thing off a little.

[HippieDalek]

I've worked with the guy who scanned this for you, his setup is rock solid, hardly necessary to stabilize at all in my opinion. At most I'd stabilize around the splices since those can throw the whole thing off a little.

I agree, the scan is beautifully stable, it's the print that's not  It must have been some sort of error in duplication.

[deleted user]

Just had a first look at the first reel of the Russian previews ... oh man it's beautiful! The official release doesn't even compare. The Zeist (?) parts now actually look good instead of lame. Thank you for doing this project, it's a real pleasure to watch, even if every second frame is missing in the first reel.

[HippieDalek]

Thanks Tom, hearing that makes this crazy project feel worthwhile

Once I've finished syncing the English Audio and got a grindhouse release out I'll be starting on the long process of restoration. I've done a bit of experimentation with dirt clean up and I'm encouraged by the results.

I've a feeling that patching the missing frames/footage will be the real headache. My plan is to use the Blu Ray where possible to patch the missing bits, but sadly there will be parts where I have to fall back on SD footage, so I'll have to look into upscaling too.