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Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right
Often when you're watching an old genre film you can pretty much guess what the scriptwriter put down on the page and figure out what they were hoping would get shot versus how the budget restraints dictated the scene would actually end up being. If a film has got a lot of heart I'm usually happy to ignore the visible strings and shoddy CGI and glimpses of stagehands or what have you but for some reason I'm always thrown by visible matte lines.

But then again I guess people like me who grew up watching the old 1960s/70s episodes of Dr Who really didn't have much choice, you just had to put up with lovely special effects or you stopped watching. :v:

Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Sep 18, 2016

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Dylazodelan
Nov 9, 2009

K. Waste posted:

Well, also, by then they blew up Godzilla to twice his original size, ironically to compensate for how much higher the average building height had gotten in major metropolitan areas. Trade off is less detailed miniatures.

Totally, and I'm glad they went back to Godzilla's original-ish size for the 2000's films, if only because the miniatures got better.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Snowglobe makes and important point, in that it's all but certain that the entire pre-production stage of every significant tokusatsu eiga - or special effects film in general - comes down to an uphill battle between the filmmakers' imaginations and what they're functionally able to achieve not just because of technical constraints, but economic and creative (the 'vision' of the producer(s)/director) ones.

For instance, this is concept art from the 1961 Mothra:





Notes from Tomoyuki Tanaka: Make it more female-friendly.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right
That concept art for Mothra is awesome. :allears:


I love reading about the original concepts and scripts for films that fell through the cracks but thinking about the films that went into turnaround or got completely mangled while they were dragged backwards through development hell or completely rewritten because a particular director or star got attached can be pretty depressing.

Charlie Brooker's segment about how to get your idea onto broadcast television is roughly applicable to the process of getting a script turned into a movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MszYiKczYls&t=370s

Bimmi
Nov 8, 2009


someday
but not today
I'm kind of sad now that we didn't get fuzzydoodle Mothra tearing through Tokyo, but having seen it on the big screen not too long ago the shots with the big larva prop hold up amazingly well.

Choco1980
Feb 22, 2013

I fell in love with a Video Nasty
I would love it if other kaiju concept art got posted in the thread.

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012
mothra is my fav kaiju and she's adorable the way she is

Dylazodelan
Nov 9, 2009

Choco1980 posted:

I would love it if other kaiju concept art got posted in the thread.

http://www.tohokingdom.com/concept_art.htm

Enjoy.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Bimmi posted:

I can't recall offhand any attempts to clean up quote unquote "bad" old special effects which were not horribly ill-advised, so it's just as well that Toho is one of the least likely studios to do something like that anyway.

The only one that comes to mind is Raiders of the Lost Ark, in that they got rid of Harrison Ford's reflection in the snake pit when they did the 4k restoration back for the Blu-ray release. But it's usually smaller things like that when it works well.

I think part of the challenge would be how far do you go and what do you clean up? A few times, in Godzilla 84, for example, the position of Godzilla's eyes made him looked stoned. Do you clean that up? Or how about when the louse attacks them early on in the ship? Do you make the attack motion look better? It's a lot of work to get of rid something like a film scratch (I remember seeing how they did on the Akira DVD), and that's something that's usually pretty small and only appears for a few frames. Imagine something like strings. It would be expensive and time consuming to do right.

And then there's the fact that these films aren't exactly special effects marvels to begin with. Even without strings, the special effects are not particularly great. They work for the film, and they're fun.

Now, my biggest annoyance with the 84 Blu-ray is that they subtitled the English speaking parts. It was really distracting for me.

Cemetry Gator fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Sep 19, 2016

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
The biggest problem today with high resolution transfers is actually when they eliminate texture, tone, and detail for the sake of an arbitrary standard of "clarity" or "smoothness" or "immersion."



Detective No. 27
Jun 7, 2006

mandatory lesbian posted:

mothra is my fav kaiju and she's adorable the way she is

Mothra is a he.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

K. Waste posted:

The biggest problem today with high resolution transfers is actually when they eliminate texture, tone, and detail for the sake of an arbitrary standard of "clarity" or "smoothness" or "immersion."





Nice fuckin 2XSAI emulator filter on the classic Disney cartoon.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

Nice fuckin 2XSAI emulator filter on the classic Disney cartoon.

Didn't Disney also saw off the top and bottom of the picture to make it widescreen?

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

Schwarzwald posted:

Didn't Disney also saw off the top and bottom of the picture to make it widescreen?

I don't know but if so whoever is responsible should be imprisoned.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Schwarzwald posted:

Didn't Disney also saw off the top and bottom of the picture to make it widescreen?

They did.

Back in 1963.

But that's the way the film is supposed to look (aspect ratio wise, not videogame emulator gone horribly wrong).

Basically, there are two things at play here. There's the negative ratio, and then there's the intended presentation ratio. Now, everything is still true, but I only know the numbers for 35mm film. I can't talk about what the native ratio for a digital camera is. Basically, the Sword in the Stone was photographed using a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, but the shots were composed with the intention of it being cropped down to 1.75:1. This is how a lot of films that aren't shot with anamorphic lenses achieve a widescreen image.

The thing is when they make fullscreen video versions, they typically take the 1.33:1 image (unless there's a reason why they can't use it, such as a boom mic in the shot). And so what happens is when people compare the two images, they see that one is cropped, and assumed that the company is modifying the OAR when really, the opposite is true. It's just that most people are attuned to the claim that widescreen gives you more image that they don't realize that it only applies to films shot in certain ways, and not to films shot in others.

Of course, that's no excuse for the rest of what they did to the image.

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012

Detective No. 27 posted:

Mothra is a he.

hmmmmmmmmm, no

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

One term that's often used to describe this is "open matte." A Boy Named Charlie Brown was also subject to this difference in presented aspect ratios between theatrical and home video, but you can also observe it with live action films such as Across the Universe (though please don't observe Across the Universe).


It might be a translation thing, but it's technically correct. In the '61 film Mothra is identified as a "he" at least once. At least that's what the Region 1 DVD subtitles would lead you to believe. I am aware, however, that traditional Japanese really isn't a one-to-one with Western gender constructions, so it's probably more appropriate to see Mothra as not having gender at all, particularly because it's a primordial God thing which is spawned asexually.

Choco1980
Feb 22, 2013

I fell in love with a Video Nasty

Cemetry Gator posted:

The only one that comes to mind is Raiders of the Lost Ark, in that they got rid of Harrison Ford's reflection in the snake pit when they did the 4k restoration back for the Blu-ray release. But it's usually smaller things like that when it works well.

I think part of the challenge would be how far do you go and what do you clean up? A few times, in Godzilla 84, for example, the position of Godzilla's eyes made him looked stoned. Do you clean that up? Or how about when the louse attacks them early on in the ship? Do you make the attack motion look better? It's a lot of work to get of rid something like a film scratch (I remember seeing how they did on the Akira DVD), and that's something that's usually pretty small and only appears for a few frames. Imagine something like strings. It would be expensive and time consuming to do right.

And then there's the fact that these films aren't exactly special effects marvels to begin with. Even without strings, the special effects are not particularly great. They work for the film, and they're fun.

Now, my biggest annoyance with the 84 Blu-ray is that they subtitled the English speaking parts. It was really distracting for me.

I'll be seeing JJ Abrams' crazy big remaster of Phantasm on Saturday, I'll be sure to let you know if there's any scenes that suffer for it.

Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

Detective No. 27 posted:

Mothra is a he.

Moths who lay eggs are usually female.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Mothra doesn't lay eggs, silly, they're spontaneously generated from the Earth.

david_a
Apr 24, 2010




Megamarm
It's amazing how many people don't get aspect ratios. When the game BioShock came out, gamers lost their poo poo when it essentially did "open matte" - it was designed for 16:9, and when run on a 4:3 monitor it would show more on the top and bottom. Games up to that point were typically designed for 4:3 monitors and expanded the horizontal view on a widescreen monitor. People absolutely could not wrap their heads around this concept and there was a horrible whiny tempest-in-a-teapot about it from entitled widescreen monitor owners who thought the game was broken.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

david_a posted:

It's amazing how many people don't get aspect ratios. When the game BioShock came out, gamers lost their poo poo when it essentially did "open matte" - it was designed for 16:9, and when run on a 4:3 monitor it would show more on the top and bottom.

I think people believe that widescreen gives you more picture, since that's how it's been typically advertised. And so they don't understand that while there might be more picture in the full frame, it is not how the image was composed.

Look at the top of the full frame image. Often, you won't see much going on up there because it's going to be cut off.

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




One of the first widescreen DVDs we watched when I was a kid was 'The Man Who Sued God'. My dad insisted on using the player's zooming feature to remove the black bars. There was a fairly long shot where the lead character was leaning in a doorway at the edge of frame. We were treated to a minute long shot of an empty street.

This stuff is confusing and I'm glad we're out of the woods with almost everything being widescreen all the time. 4:3 is basically over, but I'm sure there's people watching old TV shows stretched horizontally to avoid bars.

HannibalBarca
Sep 11, 2016

History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

depends on the era/series, I think.

Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

HannibalBarca posted:

depends on the era/series, I think.

They always refer to Mothra as she if they do mention her gender.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Detective No. 27 posted:

Mothra is a he.

How can you tell?

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
That's amazing.

Hat Thoughts
Jul 27, 2012

well why not posted:

One of the first widescreen DVDs we watched when I was a kid was 'The Man Who Sued God'. My dad insisted on using the player's zooming feature to remove the black bars. There was a fairly long shot where the lead character was leaning in a doorway at the edge of frame. We were treated to a minute long shot of an empty street.

This stuff is confusing and I'm glad we're out of the woods with almost everything being widescreen all the time. 4:3 is basically over, but I'm sure there's people watching old TV shows stretched horizontally to avoid bars.

There's the reverse problem now though, stuff like Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle airing in wide-screen despite it being designed for a different ratio.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

Hat Thoughts posted:

There's the reverse problem now though, stuff like Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle airing in wide-screen despite it being designed for a different ratio.

I assume you seen the Malcolm in the Middle HD with booms in the shot and Darkside Dewey and the like.

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I assume you seen the Malcolm in the Middle HD with booms in the shot and Darkside Dewey and the like.

It's hilarious and I'm glad it exists, mostly because I did not like the show at all.

Hat Thoughts
Jul 27, 2012

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I assume you seen the Malcolm in the Middle HD with booms in the shot and Darkside Dewey and the like.

Haha yeah, I remember it took me a beat to notice what was wrong with the Dewey one. Real horror

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
Hilarious and chilling as that is, it is really cool to see how shows were tooled for their intended medium.

Mr. Funny Pants
Apr 9, 2001

Hat Thoughts posted:

There's the reverse problem now though, stuff like Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle airing in wide-screen despite it being designed for a different ratio.

And The Simpsons. One of my all time favorite sight gags is literally eliminated by going widescreen. The characters stand there silently; if you hadn't ever seen it, you'd think the editors screwed up and left a few seconds of the equivalent of dead air.

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I assume you seen the Malcolm in the Middle HD with booms in the shot and Darkside Dewey and the like.


Hat Thoughts posted:

Haha yeah, I remember it took me a beat to notice what was wrong with the Dewey one. Real horror

i want to know what you are talking about and google isn't helping

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

mandatory lesbian posted:

i want to know what you are talking about and google isn't helping

http://imgur.com/gallery/TRsE3

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


Mr. Funny Pants posted:

And The Simpsons. One of my all time favorite sight gags is literally eliminated by going widescreen. The characters stand there silently; if you hadn't ever seen it, you'd think the editors screwed up and left a few seconds of the equivalent of dead air.

Which joke homie, don't pull that

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012

you know the question im more wondering is why the little bro needed a double

i guess he was sick that day

Mr. Funny Pants
Apr 9, 2001

DeimosRising posted:

Which joke homie, don't pull that

poo poo, sorry. It was when Homer and Barney do the tour of the Duff brewery. The guide points to three tanks right next to each other, each with a different flavor of Duff. The camera pulls back enough to reveal that one pipe is supplying all of the tanks, so it's just bullshit marketing. In widescreen, the top is cut off so you don't see the single pipe. It's just like the guy says his setup, then Homer and the others just stand there staring.

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Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

mandatory lesbian posted:

you know the question im more wondering is why the little bro needed a double

i guess he was sick that day

Child labor laws mean kids have a hard cap on how many hours they can work a day so most works with kid actors will use doubles literally every time the kids face isn't in the shot

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