Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by G-MAN »

omgitsgodzilla wrote:We have the 4K scans of the first three reels. Servanov is working on color correction, stabilization and so on now while we wait on the last two.

Right now, I think the plan is to do as much cleanup as we can on the print with the resources currently available to us. The biggest issue at the moment is that we don't currently have access to any tools that could adequately deal with the numerous vertical scratches on the print. The best option we can find would require us to ask people for more money, which I don't think either of us is thrilled about, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Once we've done whatever we end up being able to do, I'll be taking the result and assembling the final package, including extras.
Any chance of a sort of grindhouse release of the reels without any clean up, and say just a release with color correction? Just for preservation sake? Also how bad are the vertical lines? As I know sometimes it's just something that even big studios don't bother with on films. And depending on how frequent it's not really an issue for me personally.
Last edited by G-MAN on Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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4K 16BIT RAW DPX files

Holy fuck would that take up some space, someone would have to seed that motherfucker for a while lol

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by ultrase7en »

If you need additional funds don’t hesitate to check with the forum. I would be glad to donate as this is an important preservation in my eyes.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

G-MAN wrote:Any chance of a sort of grindhouse release of the reels without any clean up, and say just a release with color correction? Just for preservation sake? Also how bad are the vertical lines? As I know sometimes it's just something that even big studios don't bother with on films. And depending on how frequent it's not really an issue for me personally.
I suggested such a release, but Servanov has reservations about the idea, which kind of make sense to me. The whole idea of a "grindhouse" version of a film is named for the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse, which applied absurd amounts of fake damage to the two films that made it up. It was meant to evoke an idea of a time and place, not to really be an accurate recreation of anything -- hell, the splices are seen and heard at the same time, which anyone at all familiar with film can tell you isn't how that works.

The "grindhouse version" itself is also an ahistorical concept -- often they're billed as recreating the experience of watching a print in a theater, but that's not really true. If you take a print, scan it, and then release the result as-is, what you have is a reflection of how it looks and sounds now, with the accumulated wear and tear of the print's entire theatrical lifetime, and often decades' worth of fading on top of that. Some people who caught it at the very, very end of its theatrical career would've probably seen about that much physical damage, but they wouldn't have seen it that faded.

A "grindhouse" version can give you an idea of what a film print looks like after it's used extensively in theaters, sits around aging for twenty, thirty, forty years or longer, and is then dug out all those years later and projected. What it will never give you is any idea what the film looked like when anyone saw it in 1985. Their only real educational value is as something to compare to a restored version, and you don't need the whole movie for that.

As for what we're going to do about the scratches, I guess that all depends. PFClean, the software we're looking at, costs something like $2300 for a 90-day rental. We have a few hundred dollars left in funds for this project between donations, money I've put into it, and Patreon donations I haven't cashed out yet, and I'll be putting part of my tax return toward this as well when I get it, but that'll still leave a lot of money to be raised. If we can't manage it, I guess we'll have to do without that aspect of the cleanup.
airforce111 wrote:4K 16BIT RAW DPX files

Holy fuck would that take up some space, someone would have to seed that motherfucker for a while lol
I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but I believe we're actually getting them as some type of ProRes files to save space without sacrificing much in terms of quality. They're still huge files, though -- we've been handling it by mailing our guy hard drives, which he puts the scans on and then mails to us. The final release will be 1080p, probably as a Blu-ray ISO if possible -- not nearly as large.
ultrase7en wrote:If you need additional funds don’t hesitate to check with the forum. I would be glad to donate as this is an important preservation in my eyes.
We probably will ask once we've gotten as far as we can without that software, but it is a lot of money. This project has taken a long time already, and we don't necessarily want it to sit around uncompleted too long while we try to scrape the cash together.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by Tamura »

Some notes:

Damage isn’t always a cumulative process over the lifetime of a print. Damage doesn’t just occur from merely using a print or just letting it sit there for years, something has to trigger it. Not every print that has gotten a lot of use is guaranteed to be shotgunned. The print’s age doesn’t say a whole lot, either. I’ve seen prints from both the mid ‘40s and the mid ‘80s in gorgeous shape. There are many factors at work.

It isn’t easy to tell when the bulk of the print’s damage occurred. Different scratches could be from different showings, or from the same one. All it takes is one careless projectionist and a print could be dirty and scratched to hell after its first use, or after numerous perfect projections. Improper platter projection of a print creates characteristic horizontal and diagonal scratches. I know people who could tell you exactly how any kind of scratch could have occurred and on which brand of projector... unfortunately I’m not as skilled at this kind of identification yet. A really dirty print can cause the gate to accumulate gunk (if it wasn’t already dirty) that could scratch the film as it goes by. Too much tension on the aperture plate could also scratch the film. This could all happen after just one projection.

Let’s say the print got dirty, or wound from head to tail in a dusty environment, and the handler decides to pull on the film to tighten the wind afterward (horrible idea). This will cause all the dust to scratch against the film, creating little vertical scratches. If the wind is uneven and the handler presses the film down to flatten it, this could create short horizontal scratches. This could occur at the exchange, before the print has ever been projected, or in between two rentals early on (assuming it wasn’t received by the exchange projection-ready).

The significant amount of footage lost at the heads and tails of all reels of the film is a testament to how many times the print was plattered, but this is a natural result of the plattering process. I’m sure some projectionists plattered the print just fine, removing the frame or two at the head and tail as needed, but otherwise projecting the film without issue. Again, it only takes one bad handling of the film to cause a lot of damage. We don’t know how many projectionists and handlers are responsible.

The stock itself could have dirt baked into it from the time it was manufactured. I don’t know how common this is, but it’s a possibility.

The restoration of this print is a heroic achievement that will also make for a more inclusive, easily accessible option for people... most people just want a clean version of the film and aren’t acclimated to print damage like audiences used to be. Not everyone wants to see the print in all its shotgunned, untouched glory. I think it would still be of interest to have the option of seeing it intact - even just a few segments as part of a comparison. The damage is educational to the extent that it reveals projection practice and malpractice in 1985, specifically to one of the few remaining prints of Godzilla ‘85.

Whatever you decide to do, this scan and the restoration are amazing achievements, and you have my full support. I am so proud to see so many others backing you... that so many people see the value in this - the possibilities of a fresh scan of even a shotgunned print vs. every existing transfer of this version. It gives me hope that there will be interest in the funding of future fan scans.

Margaret Thatcher, on the subject of neoliberalism, said “there is no alternative.” She was deadass wrong. On the subject of fan scans of 16mm and 35mm US prints, however, there truly is no other option. We must keep this up. Everything seems impossible until it happens. It’s now or never. We’ve extracted all the value we could from all the existing home video and grey market copies of US versions... it’s time to move on from them, or at the very least, consider them supplementary sources.
Last edited by Tamura on Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:19 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by heiseigodzilla425 »

omgitsgodzilla wrote:
ultrase7en wrote:If you need additional funds don’t hesitate to check with the forum. I would be glad to donate as this is an important preservation in my eyes.
We probably will ask once we've gotten as far as we can without that software, but it is a lot of money. This project has taken a long time already, and we don't necessarily want it to sit around uncompleted too long while we try to scrape the cash together.
If you're concerned about asking for more money prior to the project's completion, maybe you could release an updated version in the meantime? That would show that the project is still actively and competently being worked on, and thus worthy of funding. For example, the Zone Fighter translation effort was only partially funded initially, so they didn't have funding to translate every episode. However, once the project had produced some translations, more funding came in, and eventually all episodes were able to be translated.

Maybe you could release a "v1.7" that mashes the Blu-ray footage and the color-corrected/stabilized American-exclusive footage together. Or if you wanted, it could be the entire movie with the color corrected and stabilized footage. Then, version 2.0 would mostly be the version that contained fixes for the vertical lines.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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omgitsgodzilla wrote:
G-MAN wrote:Any chance of a sort of grindhouse release of the reels without any clean up, and say just a release with color correction? Just for preservation sake? Also how bad are the vertical lines? As I know sometimes it's just something that even big studios don't bother with on films. And depending on how frequent it's not really an issue for me personally.
I suggested such a release, but Servanov has reservations about the idea, which kind of make sense to me. The whole idea of a "grindhouse" version of a film is named for the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse, which applied absurd amounts of fake damage to the two films that made it up. It was meant to evoke an idea of a time and place, not to really be an accurate recreation of anything -- hell, the splices are seen and heard at the same time, which anyone at all familiar with film can tell you isn't how that works.

The "grindhouse version" itself is also an ahistorical concept -- often they're billed as recreating the experience of watching a print in a theater, but that's not really true. If you take a print, scan it, and then release the result as-is, what you have is a reflection of how it looks and sounds now, with the accumulated wear and tear of the print's entire theatrical lifetime, and often decades' worth of fading on top of that. Some people who caught it at the very, very end of its theatrical career would've probably seen about that much physical damage, but they wouldn't have seen it that faded.

A "grindhouse" version can give you an idea of what a film print looks like after it's used extensively in theaters, sits around aging for twenty, thirty, forty years or longer, and is then dug out all those years later and projected. What it will never give you is any idea what the film looked like when anyone saw it in 1985. Their only real educational value is as something to compare to a restored version, and you don't need the whole movie for that.

As for what we're going to do about the scratches, I guess that all depends. PFClean, the software we're looking at, costs something like $2300 for a 90-day rental. We have a few hundred dollars left in funds for this project between donations, money I've put into it, and Patreon donations I haven't cashed out yet, and I'll be putting part of my tax return toward this as well when I get it, but that'll still leave a lot of money to be raised. If we can't manage it, I guess we'll have to do without that aspect of the cleanup.
airforce111 wrote:4K 16BIT RAW DPX files

Holy skreeonk would that take up some space, someone would have to seed that motherskreeonker for a while lol
I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but I believe we're actually getting them as some type of ProRes files to save space without sacrificing much in terms of quality. They're still huge files, though -- we've been handling it by mailing our guy hard drives, which he puts the scans on and then mails to us. The final release will be 1080p, probably as a Blu-ray ISO if possible -- not nearly as large.
ultrase7en wrote:If you need additional funds don’t hesitate to check with the forum. I would be glad to donate as this is an important preservation in my eyes.
We probably will ask once we've gotten as far as we can without that software, but it is a lot of money. This project has taken a long time already, and we don't necessarily want it to sit around uncompleted too long while we try to scrape the cash together.
Oh no believe me I know all about that. I just have seen some star wars projects for ESB and ROTJ that have had the films released with minor clean up and collie correction. I just figured it would be interesting to see the film after Seranov's color correction and clean up work done. As trust me the fans will definitely want to see this film restored and finished when you guys are ready and after the clean up that you mentioned. But I figured it would be really interesting and cool to see a release lile that of sorts. That way we can see it where some work has been done but not all.

As the term grindhouse is one I've seen generally used by some of the fan preservationists. And while I've seen different variations where it's straight up just a raw capture of the reels. The ones I'm referring to are the ones that clean the films up, do basic color correcting, and some work making sure the frames are stable. I get if you guys don't want to but I would just love to see how it looks after color correcting. As I'm just worried that depending on the program used it might result in some loss of detail or elements. As I've seen that be an issue with some scream factory releases like The Thing.

Also I'm curious are you guys doing absolutely no DNR on this release or gonna attempt something that some star wars restorations gave done where they have different levels for their releases that say have no dnr, then some have minimal to maximum dnr. Preferably it would be awesome to have no dnr at all so there is no loss in the amazing details that I'm sure are still ok this print.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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heiseigodzilla425 wrote:
omgitsgodzilla wrote:
ultrase7en wrote:If you need additional funds don’t hesitate to check with the forum. I would be glad to donate as this is an important preservation in my eyes.
We probably will ask once we've gotten as far as we can without that software, but it is a lot of money. This project has taken a long time already, and we don't necessarily want it to sit around uncompleted too long while we try to scrape the cash together.
If you're concerned about asking for more money prior to the project's completion, maybe you could release an updated version in the meantime? That would show that the project is still actively and competently being worked on, and thus worthy of funding. For example, the Zone Fighter translation effort was only partially funded initially, so they didn't have funding to translate every episode. However, once the project had produced some translations, more funding came in, and eventually all episodes were able to be translated.

Maybe you could release a "v1.7" that mashes the Blu-ray footage and the color-corrected/stabilized American-exclusive footage together. Or if you wanted, it could be the entire movie with the color corrected and stabilized footage. Then, version 2.0 would mostly be the version that contained fixes for the vertical lines.
Exactly what I'm referring to as the star wars fan preservationists are able to get more help by after stuff like that as well and think a color corrected and stabilized version would be amazing in 1080p to see how everything looks and help build the anticipation for 2.0's release with all the clean up. I rrally think aomerhing like a 1.7 with the footage just color corrected and stabilized with some cleaning would be a phenomenal idea and would honestly bring even more attention to this then there already is. And just be a great way to show off your work and like I said preserve that version of the film as I would gladly donate even more just to see that version of the film and see all the current work that's being done. Not to mention being more excited for the final release.
Last edited by G-MAN on Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

We are definitely going to include a before/after with the finished release, and comparisons with the WIP version as part of our appeal for more funding. I have gotten a suggestion that may allow us to deal with the worst of the scratches without PFClean, though, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

As for DNR, I don't think we'll be doing any, just some manual or at least carefully checked dust-busting.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by ultrase7en »

Wondering if we could collectively try to track down 35mm prints of Varan, Gorath and The Human Vapor. Doubt the English versions will ever be restored.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by Tamura »

Gorath and Human Vapor are very difficult to find in 35mm... they’ve never been sold on eBay or in the film collecting groups, as far as I know. There is one known 35mm print of Varan in a collection that is off limits. Sucks for us.

Not all of the films are extremely uncommon, though. Inframan is in a number of collections. I’ll put feelers out for more films, both rare and not uncommon. The search is absolutely worth it. Godzilla 1985 itself is a pretty rare find, so I wouldn’t give up.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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omgitsgodzilla wrote:We are definitely going to include a before/after with the finished release, and comparisons with the WIP version as part of our appeal for more funding. I have gotten a suggestion that may allow us to deal with the worst of the scratches without PFClean, though, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

As for DNR, I don't think we'll be doing any, just some manual or at least carefully checked dust-busting.
Will the before and after be a full version of the film though cuz I still think you guys should release the color corrected and whatever else work is gonna be done to it first. Then release the film once all the cleaning has been done.

And that's another reason why I think you should release it after the color correction as well to. As it would be nice to have the film as is like that and then get the cleaned up version as I love when we get fan preservation releases that do that and allow you to have one that was untouched by DNR.

That's very great to hear though and glad that if any it would be manual. And like I said just be careful with the programs. Didn't assume it would be any automated process. But again even removing dirt or specs or any vertical lines can sometimes remove details and whatnot.

Just doesn't make sense not to make a more raw untouched version available just so it's preserved nd available.
Last edited by G-MAN on Sat Mar 14, 2020 11:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by Sakamano3000 »

Hyped to see your work!
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by WaverBoy »

Still chomping at the reactor for Version 2.0, baby...it’s gonna be sooooooooo good...

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

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omgitsgodzilla wrote:We are definitely going to include a before/after with the finished release, and comparisons with the WIP version as part of our appeal for more funding. I have gotten a suggestion that may allow us to deal with the worst of the scratches without PFClean, though, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

As for DNR, I don't think we'll be doing any, just some manual or at least carefully checked dust-busting.
Any updates or chances we can see a 1.7 or so release of full film in bluray quality without the digital cleanup?
Definitely still want to see a more raw version of the 35mm print to be preserved before the digital work has been done.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by ultrase7en »

I’m eager to see the progress you guys are making.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by airforce111 »

have you guys looked at using x264 for bluray output (voukoder plugin for adobe does this)? Adobe's built in h264 encoder is not that great

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by goji1986 »

airforce111 wrote:have you guys looked at using x264 for bluray output (voukoder plugin for adobe does this)? Adobe's built in h264 encoder is not that great
It is if you know more about how compression works and what settings you can tweak to improve it.
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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by airforce111 »

goji1986 wrote:
airforce111 wrote:have you guys looked at using x264 for bluray output (voukoder plugin for adobe does this)? Adobe's built in h264 encoder is not that great
It is if you know more about how compression works and what settings you can tweak to improve it.
Yeah sure you can tweak it, but there is nothing you can do to the default adobe h264 bluray encoder to make it look as good as x264, yes I know about compression I've been releasing color correction as blurays using x264 through voukoder with more advanced settings. Please check it out. You can get better quality at lower bitrates. Voukoder has gotten quite popular now because of this (even featured in Linus Tech Tips). Try running grain footage through adobe's h264 encoder, it's not great.

edit: I see youve dabbled in re-edits yourself, if you would like to know more please pm me, I can show you samples.
Last edited by airforce111 on Sat Aug 01, 2020 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

airforce111 wrote:have you guys looked at using x264 for bluray output (voukoder plugin for adobe does this)? Adobe's built in h264 encoder is not that great
You actually messaged me about Voukoder a while back, shortly after I released v1.5! I used it for a Blu-ray encode of Cozzilla from the 2017 HD scan at a corrected frame rate; it worked quite nicely!
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