Highlander 2 - 35mm Scan

[HippieDalek]

Things have been progressing pretty slow but I owe you guys an update: 

The mystery reel has crossed the Atlantic and has just finished a 12 day stay in customs! Looking at the tracking it *should* arrive at the scanner any day now. As soon as the scanner has given it a look over I'll report back exactly what it is that we've found. 

While waiting for the reel to arrive I bought a 35mm trailer and had it sent to the scanner too. He's scanned it using his new setup and it looks fantastic. It's the infamous "Highlander Endgame" trailer which features loads of footage shot just for the trailer to make the film look more exciting! I've only seen the 1080p preview, but the raw scan was done at 4K so once I get the original files I'll render a full resolution version and share. 



The latest Davinci Resolve update has scuttled my current work on the EU 35mm print so it's on hold for now. I need to use Resolve to get the correct colours from the scan, but due to a bug in the latest version I can't "unsqueeze" the anamorphic frame correctly without cropping it, and apparently there's a whole host of rendering bugs too. I have found a method of getting the correct ratio by using a combination of various nodes to stretch, zoom out and then zoom in again, but I'm worried that this will cause a loss in quality.

The scanner seems to have found a workaround for the aspect ratio bug, but I can't seem to replicate it. Once I receive the raw scans files I'll go through the full setup with him and see if we can get it sorted. Who knows, maybe Davinci Resolve will be fixed by then. 

So not too much to report just now, most of my work is on hold for one reason or another, but I'm keeping myself busy with a few other exciting projects that I can't wait to tell you about eventually.

[HippieDalek]

I can finally shed some light on this mystery reel! It was scanned at the end of last week and yesterday I received a preview render (I'll get the reel and the raw files soon). 

First thing this isn't a negative, but it's pretty close. This is 6 and a half minutes of dailies/rushes, which are essentially the first positive images made from the original negative and often shown to the director and crew the day after they were shot. 

I was close but still out with my first guess; this reel contains 4 takes of scene 113A. This is part of the flashback transition from Neyman's office to the shield going up scene; specifically the part with MacLeod turning round and removing the goggles. 

Here are a few sample frames: 





Sadly there is no audio on this reel. Somewhere there will be a matching audio reel, but who knows where that would be; my guess would be in LionsGate's vaults as they now own the film. It's especially a shame as these takes include dialogue that's in the script but didn't make it into the finished film. 

As far as I can tell none of these takes were the one actually used in the final film. Some footage is missing from Take 6 that suspiciously last as long as the take in the final film, but the end of the take as they walk towards the window doesn't match at all, and neither do any of the others. I've only compared it to the EU cut so far, but it's possible that other versions use different takes (the Renegade and Special editions use many alternate takes throughout).

This may be disappointing to some, but as a fan of this film, and movies in general, I find this glimpse behind the scenes fascinating. We get to see the clapper boards (shooting at 25FPS?), technicolor calibration, actors reacting to "cut", Russell Mulcahy wandering on at the end of every take, it's a lot of fun. 

Once I have the reel and the raw scan files in my hands I think I'm going to put together a small video documenting it, explaining what it is and how it was found. I'm still looking into how it ended up getting sold in the first place! I'll probably put that video up on YouTube but I'll also make a less compressed version available to anyone who asks here. 

Some people really helped out with this one, and I know some collectors held off bidding to allow this to be scanned, so for now I'm only sharing the scan with them. The collectors in particular could have just snapped this up and made it disappear just to have it sitting on their shelves, so for now I want to "pay them back" by making this exclusive to them. I'm not putting this behind any kind of "paywall", I'm just trying to give back to the people who helped. Once I've put together the YouTube video I'll also start giving out the raw scan to anyone who wants to see it. Think of it as currently a "timed exclusive" for those who helped make this happen. I hope everyone is ok with this. 

So the mystery of what's on the reel has been solved, but I'm still curious to know more about this reel's history. If I find out anything else I'll let you know.

[HippieDalek]

Sorry things have been really quiet about the reel of rushes/dailies. Due to perfectly acceptable other priorities the scanner wasn't able to send the reel onto me for a while, but it arrived this morning along with the Endgame trailer and the German trailer for Highlander 2: all scanned in 4K!

   

I'll be playing with the scanned files and hopefully sharing them soon!