Frankenstein (1931) Audio Preservation

[crissrudd4554]

But in essence youre telling me the LD track is inferior on how they made the attempt to 'clean it up'. So my opinion on this lately has been conflicting. I still prefer the VHS/LD for its clarity and feel all the elements are brought out more but now it seems the BD is from what most are saying more representational of how the movie should sound so I can't really comment anymore. Wouldnt a more dynamic track that uses all the appropriate elements be more acceptable than a regular flat sounding mono track?? This isnt like the discussion between the surround mix of Jaws vs the mono mix of Jaws where the former was completely revisionist with updated sound effects which IMO made the movie lose its authenticity. In this case its about bringing forth the elements that are already there.

[jerryshadoe]

Maybe I confused you. The LD audio was NOT "cleaned up," but I DO see evidence of tinkering with volume levels of some of the sound effects. It's the BD audio that has been DNR'ed too much and, even with some of the flaws of the laserdisc audio, I still think the LD is superior.

Again, this comes down to the noise, that is present on the LD and nearly scrubbed away on the BD, because in that noise there is also legitimate audio. The only point I was making about the BD audio is that they attempted to re-balance some of the elements back to what I see on the dubs. This does NOT make the BD audio superior by any means! Most of the volume tinkering (boosting in all cases) can be fixed or, if too distorted, replaced with a splice from one of the dubs.

IMHO, the laserdisc audio is still a superior audio track from what's available commercially and it is STILL my base for most of the film. The ONLY changes I will be making to it, is when there is something missing, the sound effect is wrong/distorted/incomplete, and the music cues and this will all be multi-sourced from the various dubs. I am estimating, including all the music (which I mentioned earlier adds up to over 11 and a half minutes) that the total length of all the chnages/fixes/etc is going to be roughly 20-24 minutes, which is pretty substantial for a film that is only 70 minutes long!!!

Even IF the music does NOT belong, that still means that there is about 10-12 minutes worth of audio missing on the English track, PERIOD. And with the "status" of this film and all, not only am I amazed how much the studio has dropped the ball here, but I'm also worried what other films of that era suffer similar fates

EDIT: But, unfortunately for most of them, I will not be attempting what I'm doing here because I don't care as much. Still think it's worth checking out and that maybe someone could do it, but not me. I have too many other projects I need to finish first and the only reason I took this project on, is because I love this film...

[jerryshadoe]

STATUS UPDATE:

I am now half-way through the last source I have, splicing out all the parts that will be useless (i.e foreign dialog) and will be able to start the process of splicing everything into the reconstruction track, hopefully, tomorrow night. I already have the first seven minutes "pre-done" but it looks like I will still be making a couple of changes (mostly just swapping the splices with better sources)

Based on what I have seen so far, it looks like I was right about being able to reconstruct all the music cues in their entirety, without any dialog overlap from the foreign dubs. The only one I'm still unsure of is that "outro" music cue during the last scene, where the Baron is making a toast because I haven't gotten that far on the last dub yet.

So, this is actually going a little faster than I thought it would and now will be easier to work with; since now I have splices throughout the entire film (for all the sources) which makes syncing, moving around, etc., a lot easier as moving one splice won't affect the rest of the audio.

Once this is finished, before I do an "official" release, I will post a low bitrate sample mp3 copy of the reconstructed track which will be a side-by-side comparison meaning that the Left channel will be the "original" English audio track from the LD, while the Right channel will be the reconstruction. This will make it easier for people to spot the differences and I don't have to worry about someone trying to claim my work as theirs. Reason for this is because if this turns out the way I want it to, I might try to approach "the powers that be" to get it on an official release. Pipe-dream? Probably, but you never know

[crissrudd4554]

I was trying to post a comment last night when the site I guess was momentarily shut down but anyways I'll try to say what I was gonna say haha. Anyways fortunately there isnt much else Universal Monsters wise that Id like to pitch at the moment. Any other things that may bug me about the current prints of the other films are minor compared to this. The shot of the Monster approaching the hermit's cabin in Bride springs to mind. The best for that is splicing in an uscaled version of the original 'approach' from a DVD and hope it blends in well with the BD footage. Someday I may pitch a project for something like that but that wouldnt be til long after this project is complete. And yes I'll try to keep you out of that but I'll probably still seek tips from you. Youve put enough blood sweat and tears into this project that we cant thank you enough. And fortunately its the only aspect of fixing/restoring etc. about the current prints that I think is a MUST!!!

[jerryshadoe]

STATUS UPDATE:

I now have all sources spliced to remove most (there are a couple of instances during music cues, where I left a little bit to be able to identify the music and what to insert where and so on, just reference really for now) of the foreign dialog and any parts that are identical to the English master.. This excludes parts that have identical sound effects, that were actually tinkered with on the English master, which I have found definitive evidence of while going through all of these sources.

There are now a couple of different types of work ahead of me:

- re-inserting all of the sound effects, foley, etc. back where it all belongs. This part is pretty straightforward and is just a matter of finding the best quality source in each case, syncing, and adjusting the audio to make it blend seamlessly.

- re-inserting all the music cues. This part is going to be a pain for numerous reasons. First, I have to contend with the dialog removal, then I have to make numerous sources blend together seamlessly and this will involve a lot of work. The cues are not all insync to each other, but the sound effects present are in sync to what's on screen, so I have to play some games when arranging these sections and I'm still not sure if there is enough overlap for a couple of brief sections, where there is a lot of dialog. Fortunately, I have noticed that for these instances, the entire music cue is usually longer, and certain parts repeat or sound so close that it won't be noticeable, especially considering all of the dialog in English, that will get layered on top of that.


Up until now, the work that I have been doing on this has been in "chronological" order (i.e. from start to finish of film) but with everything spliced now for the entire film, I plan on knocking out all of the easy stuff first. Then, I will go back over the harder parts and carefully work on each section. There are instances of sound effects that I will have to dub in from later/earlier portions to what's actually on screen (there are a lot of sound effects that are used repeatedly throughout the film) due to having to fill in portions where foreign dialog got cut....

The whole thing is a mess and it's making me feel kinda crazy. But, that's ok because you have to be a little crazy to try and assemble something like this. I see why the studios won't even bother with it

[crissrudd4554]

We've created a monster! XD

[Lee]

This has been some damn fine reading! Amazing effort jerryshadoe.

[captainsolo]

I don't think anyone's ever researched the audio history of these before so we're in extremely uncharted territory. The amount of damage, reprints, losses, archaic technologies and primitive techniques utilized can only lead to a headache of variables.

[jerryshadoe]

It surprises me that there isn't any research available online about the audio history. Not only in the case of this film, but others from this era, as well.

One thing that I have noticed during the reconstruction process, is that I have to be VERY careful NOT to insert stuff that "sounds" right BUT actually is NOT. I have noticed some sound effects in the dubs (that are not in the English master) that have a much "nicer" sound than the original there, but they don't match what's onscreen perfectly (although some of them are impressively close considering how old some of the dubs are and limited technologies) At times, it's hard to stay objective and not fall into "revisionist territory." I won't lie, I have been tempted to use some of them

But, fear NOTuperman: because whenever I think of that, I just take a break... then I enjoy some of our legal green, here in Oregon, and I remind myself of what the focus of this project actually is: "to reconstruct the ORIGINAL audio from the elements available and not to make a nicer audio track," even though the reconstruction will be nicer than what's available. Then, I sit back down in front of my machine and continue working...

Hmmm... ya, one more thing. On average, I have about 450 splices of audio to use from EACH source (some of which will be further spliced down into more pieces) that I am using for the reconstruction and not all of it overlaps. This means that I am looking at something in the neighborhood of over a thousand splices (due to the amount of recuts that will be needed for some of the music cues) for the entire film. That is just freakin crazy for a 70 minute film

[crissrudd4554]

Hello?? Universal?? Are you reading this??????