TMP Re-Edit & Restoration Project - Ideas, Feedback, Advise

[Synnöve]

I've come to realize the topography of the flyover perhaps isn't clear because the movie doesn't explain that their "conic section flight path" involves flying around V'ger in a non-treatening manner and approaching it from the rear (instead of interecpting it head on like the Klingons), so the first view of V'ger is the rear of the ship, and the "maw" is actually the front. This is explained in the novel, and obviously properly communicated to the FX team, since the flyover is from back to front.

This is somewhat pertinent issue in the film that is indeed under explained. My solution to this is to excise the tactical shot that appears after Kirk orders the course change, and replace it with one similar to the Regula tactical from WOK whereby the virtual camera switches its viewing from the side of the plot to the top. This way I can have the course line articulate to the audience how the ship will come parallel to V'Ger.

 

[beamMe]

- the travel over V'Ger itself - though beautiful - could be omitted entirely, with the Enterprise being pulled straight into the ship after having passed through the cloud (the topography of those scenes isn't quite clear anyway)

I've come to realize the topography of the flyover perhaps isn't clear because the movie doesn't explain that their "conic section flight path" involves flying around V'ger in a non-treatening manner and approaching it from the rear (instead of interecpting it head on like the Klingons), so the first view of V'ger is the rear of the ship, and the "maw" is actually the front. This is explained in the novel, and obviously properly communicated to the FX team, since the flyover is from back to front.

I've come to realize the topography of the flyover perhaps isn't clear because the movie doesn't explain that their "conic section flight path" involves flying around V'ger in a non-treatening manner and approaching it from the rear (instead of interecpting it head on like the Klingons), so the first view of V'ger is the rear of the ship, and the "maw" is actually the front. This is explained in the novel, and obviously properly communicated to the FX team, since the flyover is from back to front.

This is somewhat pertinent issue in the film that is indeed under explained. My solution to this is to excise the tactical shot that appears after Kirk orders the course change, and replace it with one similar to the Regula tactical from WOK whereby the virtual camera switches its viewing from the side of the plot to the top. This way I can have the course line articulate to the audience how the ship will come parallel to V'Ger.

My cut would get around that issue


I hope you get your equipment-issues sorted out soon, so that we can see more of your work on the film.

 

[Synnöve]

My cut would get around that issue

I hope you get your equipment-issues sorted out soon, so that we can see more of your work on the film.

Possibly I do not think the film would flow very well using those edits. If you can put a rough cut together as an example I'd be happy evaluate it.

It doesn't seem likely that many wholesale changes will work in this film... sure I have aspirations of doing this or that however changing the editing in a drastic way, aside from trimming this or adding that, tends to introduce many problems.

It might be a couple months or never! Depends upon when I can get 1200 dollars together.

 

[beamMe]

My cut would get around that issue

I hope you get your equipment-issues sorted out soon, so that we can see more of your work on the film.

Possibly I do not think the film would flow very well using those edits. If you can put a rough cut together as an example I'd be happy evaluate it.

I'd love to, but I don't have the software or patience and certainly not the editing skills to do that kind of edit. This is hard work.

 

[Synnöve]

*dons professor's voice*

Good news everyone!

I've found a good deal on a Panasonic Plasma broadcast monitor, along with some inexpensive SDI card solutions which'll allow me to actually see what I'm doing without windows or anything else messing the color up. Hopefully in about a month I can restart work on this project again.

 

[Synnöve]

Back from the dead with a new set of powertools!

I'll save the update post for another time but I'd like to present a frame from a restored version of the E reveal. The Blu-Ray transfer is missing the dark and highlighted areas of the image, and I was able to restore those using the HDTV transfer, along with the film grain that was removed from the Blu-Ray. Best the film has ever looked in my humble opinion!

https://image.ibb.co/co68zb/REVEAL_BLU.png
https://image.ibb.co/dZ3csw/REVEAL_HDTV.png
https://image.ibb.co/bDbVCw/REVEAL_COMP_GRAIN.png

I'm also working on dust-busting the deleted scenes and concocted a superb upscaling script so they'll feel less out of place amongst the HD footage.

 

[Gary7]

Wow, 3 years later -- were you working on it during that time or had to suspend for loss of the free time you originally had?

I agree, that TMP had rather shocking flaws to it in terms of poor blue screen trimming and color balancing. And the HD release, while correcting some problems, introduced others. People have done far better with other movie efforts, so it baffles me as to why TMP has been haunted with sub par efforts like this. Synnöve, your described approach sounds terrific and it would be so cool to see you achieve what professional people managed to bungle. I also applaud the trimming. There's a good 5 to 10 minutes that can be trimmed from that long slow crawl through V'ger... as some of the effects are plodding and inferior, plus repetitious.

 

[Synnöve]

Had to suspend; not only did I lose the HDD that contained most of the project files, I also lacked the horsepower to get this down in a reasonable amount of time. I now have a workstation outfitted with fast SSDs, a 14 core Xeon, nVidia graphics, have a plasma display that I've calibrated, and will soon have access to a 5.1/7.1 mastering studio to do the soundmix.

Yeah the flaws are rather apparent in HD, and I guess are a byproduct of the insane deadline Paramount put Trumbull under. Worse yet is the lack of a solid transfer of the film (hence why I'm having to cobble one together).

If anyone out there is good with CGI modeling & rendering, or making matte paintings, please get in touch! The scenes on Vulcan, the two shots of the E on the V'ger island, the officer's lounge, and the SF approach will need those sort of elements that I won't be able to provide.

 

[Synnöve]

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of adding some of the details of Andrew Probert’s “cargo bay” matte paintings to the version Matthew Yuricich completed for the film; no offense to the master that was Yurichich, but the rendition of the cargo-bay in the final film is very boring to look at.

https://imgur.com/a/2PrcK

Still needs to be grained and color graded. Thoughts?

 

[Transzendor]

Thoughts?

I think that the audience seeing the new Starfleet shuttles so early in the film would have at the very least diluted the visual impact of Spock's arrival.

 

[Firebird]

I think that the audience seeing the new Starfleet shuttles so early in the film would have at the very least diluted the visual impact of Spock's arrival.

How so? It's a smaller detail on a couple of matte paintings that are onscreen for a second or two at the most. I doubt the majority of the audience would register the look of the shuttle at that point.

 

[Transzendor]

I doubt the majority of the audience would register the look of the shuttle at that point.

I'm no filmmaker, but why else would they be missing from the final matte paintings if they were in the original concept art?

 

[uniderth]

I'd rather not have new elements introduced, lest we stray into the "Remastered" territory. Unless I've missed the point of this project.

 

[Synnöve]

I imagine they weren't included in the final painting because of the massive time crunch; the final painting has many little perspective errors and simplified elements that aren't typical of Yuricich's level of skill, so it's not a big leap to assume additional details were left out so they could be completed on time. I decided to add them in to bring some more visual interest and detail in to what is a very boring shot... they were elements from the original production so do not feel it stinks of Lucasesque revisionism.

Generally speaking, the goals of this project are to
-restore the image quality and proper color timing to the Blu-Ray footage
-to mitigate some of the poorer VFX shots (Vulcan and the E @ the V'ger island are great examples)
-potentially finish some of the planned VFX shots or ones that were abandoned for time's sake
-create a new 5.1 soundmix for the film using the La La Land version of Jerry's score, the Blu-Ray 7.1 track, and the digital stereo tracks from the SLV and Theatrical laserdiscs
-re-edit the film, incorporating cut footage and a few new shots to result in a more enjoyable version

 

[Maurice]

I always thought it was a mistake to leave out extra vehicles that were in Probert's matte rendering, because the ship is supposed to be rushing to get out of dock and anything that contributes to the ship looking busy helps that dramatically. Except for Kirk's arrival on the bridge, there's little sense of that in the movie.

 

[Maurice]

This is somewhat pertinent issue in the film that is indeed under explained. My solution to this is to excise the tactical shot that appears after Kirk orders the course change, and replace it with one similar to the Regula tactical from WOK whereby the virtual camera switches its viewing from the side of the plot to the top. This way I can have the course line articulate to the audience how the ship will come parallel to V'Ger.

The manuever is described in the novel, and it's basically a parabolic arc.

If you look closely at that tactical in the film you'll see that the line the Enterprise is on is in perspective, as the ticks get closer together as it proceeds towards the cloud.

 

[Synnöve]

Does anyone have some information on how the light streaks in the wormhole scene were created? Not the interior shots but the exterior shots. The shot where the E fires the torpedo is lacking the light streaks for some reason and breaks continuity with the other shots in the scene; I'm going to try and replicate the effect in Nuke to fix the shot (which shouldn't be too hard since the E isn't moving in the shot), and some info on how it was done optically might help guide the process.

 

[David cgc]

It looks like it's more or less the same process used to do the light trail in the jump-to-warp shots. The model would be filmed in passes, (a matte pass to block the background, a lighting pass with the sun light, a self-lighting pass with all the spotlights, a window pass) so they could all be put together at the proper level of exposure. For the wormhole, every frame shot would have an extra window-and-spotlight pass where the camera shutter was locked open and a long-exposure streak was created by moving it down the model's long axis.

The quick-and-dirty way to do it would be to isolate the parts of the ship that were streaking in the other shots (so, the glowing parts and light pools from spotlights) and then do a radial blur elongating them towards the vanishing point of the shot.

I may have also been thinking about doing a TMP fan-edit/HD restoration.

 

[Pauln6]

Exciting stuff!

 

[Synnöve]

Finished restoring the Wormhole exterior shots via combining the complimentary information in the Blu and HDTV copies. Took several hours... and I still have to dust bust the footage! Amazingly tedious. Hoping that my method can be streamlined somewhat. I don't suppose any of you know how do setup image registration software like elastix? The manual alignment of the footage is the most time consuming part.