Highlander 2 - 35mm Scan

[HippieDalek]

I've been experimenting with colour matching clips and I've not been having much luck. I think this may be in part due to my inability to perfectly align the clips. If anyone has any advice on this I'd really appreciate it. 

In the meantime here's a sample clip of what I've been able to cleanup so far. There's no audio and I'd recommend going fullscreen and making sure it's set to 1080p rather than just viewing it in the tiny preview window. 

https://vimeo.com/426313358

You can compare it with this unrestored video

https://vimeo.com/420285494

I know this sample is evil and compressed on vimeo so PM me if you would like the MP4 file. 

Even though this is my first attempt I'm very happy with the results so far and I'm rather enjoying the cleanup process. I just wish I could work out the next step of matching clips to patch up the missing frames/shots. If anyone has any particular skill in this area and would like to give me a few pointers or help out then let me know. 

I'm open to all feedback and constructive criticism on the restored clip. I'd rather fix anything I'm doing wrong now rather than redoing everything later

[LucasGodzilla]

I've been experimenting with colour matching clips and I've not been having much luck. I think this may be in part due to my inability to perfectly align the clips. If anyone has any advice on this I'd really appreciate it.

Usually, I find it easy to align the clips by paying attention to super tiny details. For example, in the sample clip, you could pay attention to the pedestrians in the background that occasionally walk in front of the out-of-focus light. It's usually much harder for me though when it's a frame where nothing is really moving. I then take a snapshot of the frame from both sources and try to Photoshop Auto-Align them together and then crop it down.

[HippieDalek]

Thanks for the advice, LucasGodzilla. I've done similar stuff in the past, but where I struggle is when there is any kind of non-linear distortion in the picture; i.e. the edges of the frame are more out of alignment than the centre.

I'm still playing with it all, I'm determined to work it out and get the best result I can

[deleted user]

Hey Hippie, how deep are you willing to dive into this rabbit hole?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Feature-Hi...4227080724

[HippieDalek]

Hey Hippie, how deep are you willing to dive into this rabbit hole?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Feature-Hi...4227080724

Ha ha! It was multiple people sending me links to that print that got this project started! The price is insane! It is however the US Cut of the film so there's the additional Katana scenes that are the only thing lacking in the EU cut inn my opinion.

[deleted user]

Seller accepts offers, for what it's worth. Heh

[HippieDalek]

Seller accepts offers, for what it's worth. Heh

Well if anyone is seriously interested in obtaining and scanning that print too then get in touch. As we've already seen; if there's enough interest then anything is possible.

[LucasGodzilla]

Seller accepts offers, for what it's worth. Heh

Well if anyone is seriously interested in obtaining and scanning that print too then get in touch. As we've already seen; if there's enough interest then anything is possible.

I mean, in theory, you would be able to get your money back by just re-selling the print after scanning it. It may take a while but I'm sure someone will buy it at some point once you're done with it.

[HippieDalek]

I mean, in theory, you would be able to get your money back by just re-selling the print after scanning it. It may take a while but I'm sure someone will buy it at some point once you're done with it.

Probably, especially if it's in decent condition, but I'd probably have to wait a while to find someone to buy it, and in the meantime I have no way to properly store and care for a 35mm.

If we were to do anything with this print it would probably be best to try and organise it all to be done in the US to keep postage costs down. The scanner I used for the EU print was based in Europe.

[HippieDalek]

So I've finished my first pass on cleaning up the Bar scene. I was learning as I went so going back and watching some of the earlier shots I notice quite a few things I'll tidy up on a second pass, but I thought I'd give you guys the opportunity to give me any feeback. I've uploaded it to Vimeo, but feel free to PM me if you want a download link for a version without Vimeo added compression.

https://vimeo.com/436071918
(Full screen recommended!)

The biggest 35mm related issue that I'm yet to work out a full fix for is the red discolouration that sometimes shows on the right hand side of the image. I've got a few ideas but I've just not had the time to try them out yet. I've also yet to carry out any colour balancing.

I'm very curious to know what people's opinions are on my attempts to patch the footage. This scene on the Blu Ray is very poor quality with a lot of video tape artefacts and excessive cropping. I've used a combination of the German DVD (EU Cut) and French DVD (US Cut) to patch this shot, and while I think the French DVD shots merge very well, the clip used from the German DVD is painfully obvious ("There are some people in this world who know when to stop, and some people who don't..."). Sadly the German DVD is the highest quality source I've been able to find of this shot. 

As most of the shot is available on 35mm, I've used what I can of the shot and then faded to the DVD (colour matched as best I can). A different approach would be to replace the whole shot with the DVD (or Blu Ray), this might be less jarring but it would mean some of the native HD footage would be going un-used. 

I'm going to park working on this scene for now and start going through the film, re-assembling it from the highest quality sources for each shot. There will be other parts of the film that need patching from lower quality sources, so any feedback you guys are able to give here will affect how I go about them in the future. 

Let me know what you think!