Proposal: The James Cameron Project

[borisanddoris]

I did a regrade of Titanic ages ago when I first started tinkering. After years of learning more, it seems as if I got a lot of wrong. I’d like to take another stab at it but given the length of the film, it’s going to take time. I also predict a 4K release this year so maybe they’ll get it right but I highly doubt it.

Looking at my previous work, it will need much more of a shot by shot correction to fix whatever they’ve done to it. It looks nothing like the prints I’ve seen over the years and feels like a whole new reimagining with no reference. Just awful.

I popped a few of my LD pressings in and wow, love the colors on there especially the Japanese pressing.

[PDB]

I did a regrade of Titanic ages ago when I first started tinkering. After years of learning more, it seems as if I got a lot of wrong. I’d like to take another stab at it but given the length of the film, it’s going to take time. I also predict a 4K release this year so maybe they’ll get it right but I highly doubt it.

Looking at my previous work, it will need much more of a shot by shot correction to fix whatever they’ve done to it. It looks nothing like the prints I’ve seen over the years and feels like a whole new reimagining with no reference. Just awful.

I popped a few of my LD pressings in and wow, love the colors on there especially the Japanese pressing.

I say go for it.

In our heart of hearts we know the 4K is going to have the wrong colors (beside that frame rate nonsense).

I wouldn't be hard on yourself about old projects, we do the best we can with the info on hand. For years there were only guesses as to what movies truly looked like or using your favorite LD or DVD as a color guide. Now we, as a community, just have access to a lot more information. Certainly not perfect but in a much better place then even 5 years ago.

Besides I enjoy watching certain projects even if theatrically inaccurate. Sometime the LD or DVD looked great and its fun to watch those colors given lease again in the HD/UHD realm.

[zoidberg]

I did a regrade of Titanic ages ago when I first started tinkering. After years of learning more, it seems as if I got a lot of wrong. I’d like to take another stab at it but given the length of the film, it’s going to take time. I also predict a 4K release this year so maybe they’ll get it right but I highly doubt it.

Looking at my previous work, it will need much more of a shot by shot correction to fix whatever they’ve done to it. It looks nothing like the prints I’ve seen over the years and feels like a whole new reimagining with no reference. Just awful.

I popped a few of my LD pressings in and wow, love the colors on there especially the Japanese pressing.

This ties up with a lot that I have read online WRT restorations, especially from O-neg. Films that were 'pushed' hard at the timing stage seem to suffer horrendously when graded digitally, as digital simply doesn't behave the same way as analogue film.

[Bilbofett]

enjoyed the hell out of this thread! Big Cameron fan, especially the Abyss & True Lies (and Aliens, lol). Its insane there's so many sound mixes for even things like T2. Very impressed with the work and color timing discussion held so far. I'd offer my resources to help, but it really sounds like you have a wealth of what you need! Following this thread with hyper-interest & fan adoration! P.S. I think we technically *could get Titanic and Avatr offered in regular FPS format in addition to the HFR (which sounds like variable frame-rate HFR to eliminate the 'soap opera effect')?

[PDB]

Here are some Abyss WIP pics:







The HDTV isn't as far off as say the Aliens or T2 BD masters are. It does have the standard too much green and yellow look about it. Blues become aqua, aquas becomes teals, teal is super green, etc. There should be a lot of green in the picture according to 35mm print pics but the HDTV destroys a lot of the picture that should be blue. I have a LUT the regains about 75-80% of the original colors (read: blue). So the results is a picture with a lot more blue but still with a lot of greens. The shots above are also re-framed to the original SE DVD.

Some colors are just wrong from the get go and I'm going to try to fix that as much as my 35mm examples will let me.

I've also answered a few questions I've had about the last two reels. The "alien" city is very purple on the HDTV and DVDs. The 35mm does show a lot of purples but it is overall still very blue. The scene on the surface at the end is very yellow, even more yellow then the HDTV has. I still have several questions about the beginning reels to solve....

I might do the SE and then cut is down the the TC. Debating that one.

very interesting work, I will say more about the Abyss, an old Korean HDTV with a hardsub, has better quality in extended scenes, unlike the German source that used random in its hybrid, I compared it after the creation of the hybrid.

Is that the same HDTV as the Japanese one? Or has that just been Korean all along?

There was always Korean, I have it 1080p in the cloud storage, if it is useful I can send a link to it.

This is the "Japanese" one I have, does the Korean one look much different and have more detail?


And some super, super early work on Aliens with a general 1st pass colormatch



No contrast, saturation, grain, skin tone or exposure work yet. Just seeing how the colors turned out. Still long way to go.

[Nfsfan83]

Aliens on this screen looks very teal like BD awful. I'm manniac about DVD colors pink and warm

Best Aliens colors for ME:

https://imgur.com/70u0c9o

[PDB]

Aliens on this screen looks very teal like BD awful. I'm manniac about DVD colors pink and warm

Best Aliens colors for ME:

Cool, good luck on your project then.

[Nfsfan83]

No, maybe I understand wrong. You want make Cameron movies in colors like 35mm print? But aren't they still too many teal?

Maybe this can be useful

https://filmcolors.org/galleries/aliens-1986/

[alexp2000]

No, maybe I understand wrong. You want make Cameron movies in colors like 35mm print? But aren't they still too many teal?

Maybe this can be useful

The DVD caps you posted look nothing like the 35mm images and file that’s out there. PDB’s are a lot closer (and a nowhere near finished as he said).

All Cameron films will have some teal in them, it’s just that the DVD’s removed it and the Blu-rays have pushed it too far.

[Kreeep]

I would be in for a double barrel: First you need to auto-overlay the 2018 BR with the 2018 UHD as many of the shots are framed differently, to get the larger image height. Then you add the 2015 version grain and colors back in.

What the hell, wow. Those example screenshots look great. I suppose you may as well have the output resolution be 4K if that's possible. I've never used auto-overlay before. How easy/hard is it to do?