[In progress] Crocodile Dundee - Australian Cut HD Recreation

[karbre]

Coming from this thread: https://fanrestore.com/thread-982.html

I'm currently working on re-editing the original Australian Cut of Crocodile Dundee in HD using the US Blu-ray containing the shortened and altered International Cut, and the Australian DVD containing the Australian Cut.

Here is a comparison of the two versions which I'm using as a guideline for the edit: https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=172550

Thankfully, the hard-to-get (especially outside of Australia) Australian DVD containing the Australian Cut was thankfully provided by user Turisu, who also already altered it to 23.976 fps. I additionally de-interlaced it with Handbrake's default Decomb filter, which provided good results, and also raised the audio by 5 dB so that dialogue is roughly at the Blu-ray's level.

For the actual editing I'm using TMPGenc Smart Renderer 6. I'm trying to use as much Blu-ray video and audio as possible, as the DVD's quality (especially audio) is very poor. This means that I will have to touch the audio track afterwards for parts where I can use DVD video + Blu-ray audio (parts of the opening credits) and vice versa (scenes with altered dialogue but identical picture in the International Cut).

The transitions, both video and audio, are very noticeable. Additionally to quality differences, the DVD has a different color scheme and slightly different framing, and the audio is dynamic-compressed. I am not planning to do any corrections to that (that is outside of my skill range ).

I'm currently ca. halfway through. Sometimes I did cuts during longer takes that have been shortened in the International Cut. I tried to be frame-accurate, and they work OK. Just wondering whether I should also include very slight shot extensions in the Australian Cut like the ones at 20:13 and 20:18; and if yes whether I should cut these also during a take or only at edit points. Will decide that later.

Feel free to drop suggestions or hints

[Turisu]

Thanks so much for taking this on. Can't wait to see the result. .

[X5gb]

Definitely include the shot extensions otherwise it won't be a true recreation. Maybe you could use Dr Dre's colour matching tool to create a lut to better match colour/contrast of dvd to blu-ray and add it using premiere if you feel adventurious, it's not hard. I know how shockingly bad that Australian dvd is so any improvement like that would help. Croweyes did a 720p HD recreation a while back which is available over at the organ tracker, is yours going to be 1080p. Also remember, there are differences in the soundtrack as well between both US and Aus to add overdubs to remove Australian slang as well as the pimp swear word, not just extended scenes.

[karbre]

Maybe you could use Dr Dre's colour matching tool to create a lut to better match colour/contrast of dvd to blu-ray and add it using premiere if you feel adventurious, it's not hard.

Is there any step-by-step guide on how to do that, along with a link to the tool you mentioned?

Croweyes did a 720p HD recreation a while back which is available over at the organ tracker, is yours going to be 1080p.

Yeah it'll be 1080p. It will even be smartly rendered, so only the DVD footage is upscaled and cut points are re-encoded from the Blu-ray, otherwise it is the original Blu-ray encode ("remux"). The 720p version was also mentioned at the start of the other thread I linked and deemed not good enough, that's why I'm doing it again

Also remember, there are differences in the soundtrack as well between both US and Aus to add overdubs to remove Australian slang as well as the pimp swear word, not just extended scenes.

I'll include everything that is mentioned on movie-censorship. The pimp swear word is mentioned there at 01:07:47. If there are any changes that aren't listed at movie-censorship, you'd need to tell me.

[X5gb]

Croweyes is your friend when it comes to the changes, what I said is just based on what I read on his post over at the organ.

I quote:

"In some cases, only the audio from the DVD was used to change back altered dialogue. Mick says "sticky beak" (instead of "busy-body") to Sue after getting back from the Aborigines' dance, the pimp says "fuck" (instead of "screw"), Mick says "echo billabong" (instead of "echo lake"), etc. There were one or two tiny differences in lines that I did NOT "fix", because the differences were so minor and the meaning wasn't changed (ex. at one point Mick says "it took me the better part of a week to crawl this far" in the Australian version, whereas he says "it took me a week to crawl this far" in the US...in another scene, he says "but...you being a sheila and all" in the Aussie and "but...you being a sheila" in the US. I saw no reason to change those.

There was one voice-over in the US version that was not in the Australian version ("I was raised by the local tribe - I asked one of the tribal elders one day when I was born, and he said 'in the summer time'"). I've left this line in for completist's sake."

I think if you want it to be complete you need to include even the stuff Croweyes saw no reason to change.

[Doctor M]

IIRC, the DVD is 25i. You do not want to hit it with a decomb filter or you'll end up with strange frames.

An Avisynth script like this:

Code:

loadplugin("dgdecode.dll")
loadplugin("ivtc.dll")
mpeg2source(“DVDSource.d2v”)
tfm(d2v=“DVDSource.d2v”)
assumefps(23.976) #NTSC Speed

That will take care of the occasional swapped fields and give you 25p slowed to 23.976p. Then you just need to slow the audio track and you are ready to go.

[borisanddoris]

This sounds awesome. I’ve had the Aussie cut for some time and would love to have a higher quality version. With a little tweaking, I’ve gotten it to be passable for casual viewing. Great film too!

[dvdmike]

Amazing, always wanted to see this version

[Muyfa666]

Very nice project! Keeping tabs on this. :-)

[Doctor M]

Is this project still in the works? No update in nearly a year.