Original Effects Cleaned up with the help of AI...????

[Dar70]

Some people are starting to restore or expand old films with Ai.

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Now I would not want TOS altered with additional footage or expand it to widescreen. But I was thinking with the help of AI Could the original effects be easily upscaled and cleaned up now. I still watch the episodes with the original effects but I would love to see them match the live action scenes in clarity.

 

[Maurice]

Re Trek's VFX, since so many episodes re-used the same elements for Enterprise flybys, etc., I'd have suggested finding the best copies of those shots—say the earliest ones where the elements were the least beat up—and use those as the basis for rebuilding the shots via upscaling or whatnot.

Re the video: To date such colorization almost always looks like an old-timey tinted postcard and not realistic at all. For one thing, everyone gets the same flesh tone, and skin isn't uniform even on a single face.

 

[Firebird]

Re Trek's VFX, since so many episodes re-used the same elements for Enterprise flybys, etc., I'd have suggested finding the best copies of those shots—say the earliest ones where the elements were the least beat up—and use those as the basis for rebuilding the shots via upscaling or whatnot.

The Roddenberry Archive Blu-ray set had a bunch of the VFX shots in very good quality, so there’s at least something to start with.



As a side note, it’s interesting the VFX material was presented the best out of all the outtake footage on the set. The live action outtakes were all presented in wonky aspect ratios and slightly step-printed to further downgrade the material, which I still think is a shame.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Some people are starting to restore or expand old films with Ai.

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Now I would not want TOS altered with additional footage or expand it to widescreen. But I was thinking with the help of AI Could the original effects be easily upscaled and cleaned up now. I still watch the episodes with the original effects but I would love to see them match the live action scenes in clarity.

Interesting. I guess using it just to clean up the original effects would be ok. But thats it. I wouldn't want anything else altered to the original film. I worry that studios that own properties will start altering their films and tv shows. Thats something I don't care to see.

 

[StarCruiser]

The problem is - this changes the character of the film (or TV show) from what it was to something else.

Very likely to loose some aspect of the original product. Imagine someone doing that to Casablanca or Bridge on the River Kwai...

 

[Firebird]

Imagine someone doing that to Casablanca or Bridge on the River Kwai...

Ted Turner's foray into colorizing black and white movies during the 80s - including Casablanca - was about the same thing for the time.

 

[StarCruiser]

And I never even bothered to try to watch his colorized films. Just ignored them and watched the originals.

 

[Warped9]

One issue with just cleaning up the original vfx is that how we watched TOS originally on old CRT televisions hid a multitude of production sins, some of which started being visible on remastered DVD and later Bluray sets. That is unless you want to use AI to tidy up those production sins. I suppose one could use AI to remake the vfx cleanly, but using the original TOS aesthetic. But the question arises do you correct things that were done to save money such as reusing stock footage of the Enterprise from WNMHGB when we really should have been seeing the series production version of the ship? And do we use a version of the ship completed on both sides or the original filming miniature as is? How about correcting reverse images such a couple of them of Kirk where we clearly see his hair is parted on the wrong side and his uniform insignia is on the wrong side of his shirt? AI could probably correct that.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Ted Turner's foray into colorizing black and white movies during the 80s - including Casablanca - was about the same thing for the time.

There's four different colorized versions of Night of the Living Dead, and none are consistent with each other in regards to the color of Johnny's car, the clothes the characters wear, or the flesh tones of the ghouls.

 

[publiusr]

I suppose one could use AI to remake the vfx cleanly, but using the original TOS aesthetic.

I wish I had a billion tech-bro bitcoins to give you…your artwork fits perfectly.

 

[Maurice]

And do we use a version of the ship completed on both sides or the original filming miniature as is?

Only the small model was complete on both sides. The big model was only partially complete on the non-camera side used in the single opening shot of "The Cage".

 

[feek61]

I am all for cleaning up the original effects by getting the best version of each effects shot and using AI to clean the obvious flaws (scratches, dust, dirt, etc.) but I would not change much else because of losing the charm of the original production. Honestly, I can't watch the remastered effects; they totally pull me out of the feeling of the show. Regarding reversing some of the footage that is flipped, from what I have seen most of it was done intentionally, to get Kirk looking in the right direction; obviously sometimes the directors did not get all of the coverage the editors needed; so they just flipped the film (even though Kirks part and patch are on the wrong side, lol).

 

[Warped9]

Only the small model was complete on both sides. The big model was only partially complete on the non-camera side used in the single opening shot of "The Cage".

Yes, I know. And thats the basis of my question. Clean up or reproduce the original vfx as is or correct the existing production compromises?

 

[Maurice]

Yes, I know. And thats the basis of my question. Clean up or reproduce the original vfx as is or correct the existing production compromises?

I realize now I misread you post.

 

[Dar70]

One issue with just cleaning up the original vfx is that how we watched TOS originally on old CRT televisions hid a multitude of production sins, some of which started being visible on remastered DVD and later Bluray sets. That is unless you want to use AI to tidy up those production sins. I suppose one could use AI to remake the vfx cleanly, but using the original TOS aesthetic. But the question arises do you correct things that were done to save money such as reusing stock footage of the Enterprise from WNMHGB when we really should have been seeing the series production version of the ship? And do we use a version of the ship completed on both sides or the original filming miniature as is? How about correcting reverse images such a couple of them of Kirk where we clearly see his hair is parted on the wrong side and his uniform insignia is on the wrong side of his shirt? AI could probably correct that.

Yeah I'm strictly talking about the effects. Not changing any of them just making them cleaner. Get rid of the stars bleeding though the ship for example...stuff like that. As for what version of the ship to use ...EXACTLY what's already there. I just want clearer versions of the original effects and I think AI can fill in those holes now. Production errors like a reverse image of Kirk don't need to be fixed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek Continues already remade the old TOS stock shots pretty much perfectly.

 

[Dar70]

Star Trek Continues already remade the old TOS stock shots pretty much perfectly.

Right the remakes on Continues do look good. But I want to see the originals cleaned up. The excuse when they put the new effects in TOS was they could not convert them to HD. Now they can upgrade them just fine and make them look like they should. I would think anyhow. I don't care for the Remastered effects.

 

[Henoch]

Wasn't the ship filmed on 16 mm film, while the regular filming was on 35 mm film? This could cause some quality loss like with graininess.

 

[Firebird]

Star Trek Continues already remade the old TOS stock shots pretty much perfectly.

The first half of the season when Doug Drexler was in charge of VFX, definitely. The back half when Marc Bell led, things got a bit less stringent on that 60s aesthetic (though I still loved the hell out of a lot of it).

 

[Maurice]

Wasn't the ship filmed on 16 mm film, while the regular filming was on 35 mm film? This could cause some quality loss like with graininess.

This is why AI is in the discussion: to interpolate around issues like grain build-up and worn source elements.