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Joined: 17 Nov 2001
Post Count: 6540
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  Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2024 8:14 pm |
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| ChAnOoD : | | I think everyone would frame the whole thing to give some space on top, so you can see every head in the shot. That´s why I think PD would have some kind of aspect ratio change during post-production. It makes zero sense to chop heads on purpose. |
Checked out Dark Justice a bit just now and wow, hadn't really thought about it before but yeah, everything is definitely zoomed in.
Very rarely is there any kind of head space above people and usually they are just cut at the top. It's all very claustrophobic.
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ChAnOoD
DC-L4
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Post Count: 2774
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2024 8:31 am |
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| Archive : | | Checked out Dark Justice a bit just now and wow, hadn't really thought about it before but yeah, everything is definitely zoomed in. |
Yeah. I find it hard to believe it was done as a stylistic choice. And, as I said earlier, I could even believe that if they wanted to hide something from the sets, but it happens in outdoors scenes (the begining of Dark Justice has the same problem). As I do edits for fun, I noticed it more and more, and that makes me nervous 
I did test with The Bombz scene and you could reframe some of the stuff, since they´re on a black, blurry background in most of the shots. And having some space above heads makes things breathe a little. Not too much, since a bunch of shots are the star´s faces, but...
| Archive : | | Very rarely is there any kind of head space above people and usually they are just cut at the top. It's all very claustrophobic. |
I really noticed on Cable´s talk with Jimmy at his office. Lemke´s head is chopped even in wide shots, which makes zero sense. If PD was made as open matte, they could take that footage and reframe it for widescreen, and you could avoid that problem. It feels like the transition from TV´s aspect to widescreen in The Series, where in a bunch of scenes they could move the frame a little to avoid that problem as well.
| ireactions : | | One amusing exercise: I watched the 4K upscale of the final scenes of "Crash & Burn" where Murphy's helmet is off. The prosthetic on Fletcher's head looks terrible in 4K. I activated the ShaderGlass CRT shader which downscaled the image with CRT dimming and dots, making the upscale look like 480i. Instantly, the helmetless makeup looked blended and TV-adequate. . |
My main problem with the makeup is the fact they could have done it better. Here´s the explanation: back then, the excuse for the makeup change was time (and money, but they admited they couldn´t film with Fletcher expending hours in the makeup chair). PD was a rushed production. I know. But, with these elements in mind, I´d try to schedule a "make up" day: check all the places we need to film Fletcher (and Wint) helmetless; give the makeup guy time to make it good, and film all these scenes over a day. So you don´t have to worry about that anymore.
Don´t know, maybe they´d have trouble with some locations (I don´t know if they got some only for a day or what), but as far as I know, the RoboChambers (both Murphy and Cable) were sets, so I assume they´d have access to them without any big problem.
And then, the makeup itself. I talked briefly with the guy who did it: he didn´t have any casts of the actors, and had to apply the bald parts and such in 30 minutes. Then, as he told me, he had to go back home, as the production didn´t have the money to have him on set Plus, the back of the head was... bland. I meant, they used the upper back of the head from the same molds of the films/previous TV shows (sans the wires) and slapped the lower back of the helmet to complete it. Which is "clever" when on budget but... Why they didn´t add something on the sides? I meant, they could add the "ears" from the helmet on it, so it´d have some detail that resembled the helmetless Murphy from previous productions. The jaw part didn´t have any kind of detail as well. They could do something with that too.
And they could find a way to make the skin less flat, putting a little bit more above the ears, like in the film, adding more of the back piece on the sides, to trying to make that ilusion possible.
I can understand why they were thinking on SD back then, because we didn´t have 4K in early 2000´s, but I´d try to give Fletcher´s some rubbery black neck piece instead of cutting the neck from RoboCop´s helmet and putting some black fabric on the front. Even with SD, DVD´s looked way better than broadcast television, so they could think it´d be visible...
| ireactions : | | The PRIME DIRECTIVES fan upscale looks (technically) good to me because Owen Davies, the editor, has a good process of de-telecining the DVD files to get the full resolution possible. After the HD upscale, he has reapplied film grain. |
I think he did a superb work with it, considering he had to work with DVD instead of some masters or anything that would give him more data to work with. And I don´t have any issues with PD on HD, it looks good and sharp. The problem, at the end, are production issues.
Which is a shame. I still believe PD had a chance to be a beloved production if it could be polished in some form. If you stick with what´s written, scenes flow faster from one scene to another. If you crank the colors, if feels less dull. Now there´s an opportunity to isolate vocals, so you could avoid the western trumpet, or even you could re-score it with something closer to Poledouris work. Even you could cheat Fletcher´s height cutting some seconds of some of the scenes where he´s with taller actors. Of course you´d still have the clunky movements and other issues, but you can change stuff and try to stick with the original idea to make less "offensive" to others. Action scenes tend to be quicker and way shorter when you cut the reused footage, slomo parts* and other things, which isn´t a big problem when you notice the first film had around 15 minutes of action. Yes, the scifi Legion virus would need more rewrites, but you could try to make it more ambiguous and cut the over the top parts. You could lift some The Series footage to do stablishing shots, something this miniseries needs.
And you could make Fletcher´s sound more natural. I did tests. It kinda works 
Instead. Of. The. Pauses. He. Does. With. Each. Word. He. Says, you could accelerate the pauses and dialogue to change the way he talks. "Technology is your friend", they said. I have a test of the Robochamber scene after he was beaten by Bone Machine, and he talks without pauses. Plus, I took off a bunch of the blinking to make him more "robotic". Upgrades could be made.
* I dislike slomo myself. I don´t HATE it, and I think if it´s used well, could be cool. Yesterday I tried to watch Snyder´s Justice Leage and he overuses slow motion too much it becames a joke. When you put that for the majority of the footage, it doesn´t have a purpose anymore. And it feels less impactful.
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ireactions
O-L1
Joined: 26 Apr 2015
Post Count: 58
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2024 2:27 pm |
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| ChAnOoD : | My main problem with the makeup is the fact they could have done it better. Here´s the explanation: back then, the excuse for the makeup change was time (and money, but they admited they couldn´t film with Fletcher expending hours in the makeup chair). PD was a rushed production. I know. But, with these elements in mind, I´d try to schedule a "make up" day: check all the places we need to film Fletcher (and Wint) helmetless; give the makeup guy time to make it good, and film all these scenes over a day. So you don´t have to worry about that anymore.
And then, the makeup itself. I talked briefly with the guy who did it: he didn´t have any casts of the actors, and had to apply the bald parts and such in 30 minutes. Then, as he told me, he had to go back home, as the production didn´t have the money to have him on set
I can understand why they were thinking on SD back then, because we didn´t have 4K in early 2000´s, but I´d try to give Fletcher´s some rubbery black neck piece instead of cutting the neck from RoboCop´s helmet and putting some black fabric on the front. Even with SD, DVD´s looked way better than broadcast television, so they could think it´d be visible... |
I like your idea of filming all the makeup scenes in one day.
Even on DVD, the prosthetic problems are were not visible when I played the disc on a CRT television. The fact that the prosthetic is too big and improperly sized to Fletcher's head (due to the lack of cast) is hidden by the darker screen and shadows which add contours to make Fletcher's head seem smaller.
I even dug out an old HDMI-to-composite cable and used it with my laptop to play the 4K upscale of the "Crash & Burn" helmet scenes, and the makeup problems were still masked and polished by the low-resolution screen.
I imagine that PD was, while shot on film, transferred to digital videotape and the footage reviewed and edited on CRT monitors where it looked fine, adequate, good enough for TV. And before 2004, the approach to television was to not worry about flaws that wouldn't show up on a standard definition TV screen. The helmetless makeup seems to be at least partially the result of that.
The other issue, as you established: makeup artist David Scott didn't have a headcast for Page Fletcher to work with in order to prepare the prosthetics in advance. I've seen Scott's work on some RESIDENT EVIL movies and while those films were terrible, Scott's makeup effects were terrific and deserved a better movie. The lack of a headcast on PRIME DIRECTIVES meant that Scott was guessing and improvising without precise measurements.
From what I can tell -- and we are entering the realm of theory here -- Fireworks Entertainment refused to fly Page Fletcher to Toronto for pre-production, and would only have him present for brief rehearsals and then filming. As a result, the crew weren't able to get his headcast, couldn't get his measurements, and this created further problems down the line, and not only with prosthetics.
Without measurements, the RoboCop suit couldn't be adjusted in advance for Fletcher's height and build, nor could a new suit be built for him. Instead, Rob Bottin was asked to send over an already existing set of suits. When it arrived and didn't fit, the PD crew had to hack away at the legs so Fletcher could put it on. Allegedly, Bottin was enraged when the suits were returned afterwards.
In contrast, a new suit was made for Maurice Dean Wint with the exterior built from the original RoboCop molds, but the interiors sized to Wint's measurements. The fact that Maurice Dean Wint's measurements were taken but Page Fletcher's were not suggests to me: Fireworks was willing to have Wint present for pre-production because Wint lived in or near Toronto and they didn't have to pay for transport and accommodation.
As a result, production had the measurements needed to make a custom suit for Wint. Meanwhile, Fletcher had to wear the old suits from the original films. Wint's suit was much lighter than Fletcher's, which is why Wint's movements are so capable, while Fletcher was carrying so much extra weight in comparison.
A lot of people blame Julian Grant and that's fine, but I would suggest that Fireworks Entertainment's stingy, tight-fisted attitude to budgeting was where all these problems started... and maybe Fireworks took the view that nothing needed to be that great for SD television.
Certainly, the low budget for PD meant the series quickly became profitable after international broadcast and distribution sales. I'm told that some people working on PD earned enough money to basically go on vacation for 10 years because of how well it did... which probably helps them stay good-humoured and amused by how much fans hate their work.
However, the lack of investment at the start meant that PD shined on CRT television but visually imploded on LCD a mere three years after its first 2001 broadcast, when LCD started to outsell CRT.
I had noticed that in 2001, the majority of the reviews were positive: The Toronto Star, Sci-Fi Weekly, Ain't It Cool News and other genre outlets all rated PRIME DIRECTIVES highly. Anecdotally, I remember my classmates at school talking about how they were thrilled by how RoboCop and RoboCable were firing their Auto-9s at each other, and a teacher saying he saw it and didn't understand why two robots were shooting at each other so pointlessly as the bullets didn't seem to do any damage. My classmates informed the teacher that they were cyborgs, not robots, and that the image of two bulletproof cyborgs shooting at each other is beautiful and doesn't need to make sense.
As an experiment, I was hypercritical of PD at school. I described how offended I was with the "Crash and Burn" error where Murphy orders Ann to "Try not to hurt them too badly" regarding the OCP guards only for Ann to murder two of them and for Murphy to comment, "Nice moves." (I was told that this was a mistake where the creators wanted to liven up the action, and didn't realize the mistake until editing.) My classmates told me, "You're such a buzzkill. That was cool," which made me wonder what kinds of sociopaths were in the student body.
I claimed that I found "Crash and Burn" boring as a relentless walk up a flight of stairs. I was told, "That scared the shit out of me! Even if RoboCop beats RoboCable, that Legion thing is going to end them. Even if they stop Legion, OCP still wants them all dead. I thought the building was going to kill them all." The structure of "Crash and Burn" created so many possible outcomes of doom that my classmates were able to overlook the restricted, low-budget situation.
But beginning in 2004, there seemed to be a massive downturn in PD's reception with negative review upon negative review. People who spoke well of the series in 2001 seemed to reappraise and despite it after 2004. I think it likely that all reviews from 2004-onward were written after viewing the series on LCD.
I'm 90 percent sure that all my classmates from 2001 would rewatch PRIME DIRECTIVES now on a massive, quantum dot enabled, superbright television and declare that it looks terrible and they were too young to see how bad it was back in 2001. But they would have seen it on CRT.
| ChAnOoD : | I still believe PD had a chance to be a beloved production if it could be polished in some form. If you stick with what´s written, scenes flow faster from one scene to another. If you crank the colors, if feels less dull. Now there´s an opportunity to isolate vocals, so you could avoid the western trumpet, or even you could re-score it with something closer to Poledouris work. Even you could cheat Fletcher´s height cutting some seconds of some of the scenes where he´s with taller actors. Of course you´d still have the clunky movements and other issues, but you can change stuff and try to stick with the original idea to make less "offensive" to others. Action scenes tend to be quicker and way shorter when you cut the reused footage, slomo parts* and other things, which isn´t a big problem when you notice the first film had around 15 minutes of action. Yes, the scifi Legion virus would need more rewrites, but you could try to make it more ambiguous and cut the over the top parts. You could lift some The Series footage to do stablishing shots, something this miniseries needs.
And you could make Fletcher´s sound more natural. I did tests. It kinda works
Instead. Of. The. Pauses. He. Does. With. Each. Word. He. Says, you could accelerate the pauses and dialogue to change the way he talks. "Technology is your friend", they said. I have a test of the Robochamber scene after he was beaten by Bone Machine, and he talks without pauses. Plus, I took off a bunch of the blinking to make him more "robotic". Upgrades could be made. |
I love fan edits. But I think fan edits, when they work, are effective and successful because the fan editor actually enjoys what they're editing -- the fan edit is to accomplish what the original creator achieved but was prevented from delivering or to restore something that was lost after the project was completed. For example: there are SILENT HILL fan edits that remove all the Sean Bean scenes, scenes that director Christoph Gans was forced to add by the studio but didn't actually want included. The fan edits are restoring Gans' vision for the film, and let the fans enjoy the excellence Gans achieved without the distractions he was made to include. The DESPECIALIZED versions of STAR WARS are restoring the original 70s and 80s era special effects of STAR WARS to the HD versions of the movies.
None of these edits are opposed to the original work; they're trying to restore what the director shot but couldn't include, or restore what was already there on original release but lost in later releases. But what you are describing is alteration to the point of replacement.
If you are opposed to the colour timing, the Norman Orenstein Western-styled score, the Legion biotechnology virus (which is already ambiguous), the action sequences, and you even want to alter Page Fletcher's performance to replace his line deliveries and intonations and pacing, it'd probably be best to do something original which would take less time.
You've said you think your fan edit will take you until 2050 to make. You also said you enjoyed the original PRIME DIRECTIVES scripts, the early drafts before Fireworks had the writers reduce Parts 3 - 4 to a more traditional action-oriented direction. If you still have those scripts, you might create a screenplay or novelization version with illustrations for key moments. If you need to learn how to draw to accomplish that... it still probably wouldn't take you 26 years.
I'm hoping to do a fan demastering of PRIME DIRECTIVES: changing the 24 FPS frame rate to CRT 30 FPS, darken the image back to CRT crushed blacks, apply a CRT shader and lens curvature, and then re-encode the files. This will restore the show that was broadcast in 2001 on SPACE and the Sci-Fi Channel, a series that I really enjoyed and appreciated. I'm not trying to change PRIME DIRECTIVES to something else; I'm trying to put it back where it was: within a CRT television screen. This is me working on something I really like, and it won't take 26 years to finish.
If you're more a fan of the scripts than of the show, maybe your fan edit should be with the scripts and not what was filmed.
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ChAnOoD
DC-L4
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Post Count: 2774
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2024 3:21 pm |
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| ireactions : | | The other issue, as you established: makeup artist David Scott didn't have a headcast for Page Fletcher to work with in order to prepare the prosthetics in advance. I've seen Scott's work on some RESIDENT EVIL movies and while those films were terrible, Scott's makeup effects were terrific and deserved a better movie. The lack of a headcast on PRIME DIRECTIVES meant that Scott was guessing and improvising without precise measurements. |
Oh, yeah. I´m not talking bad about the artist himself, he just didn´t have the time or tools to make that work. And I assume the back of Murphy´s head without the helmet would be a piece made by Bottin´s studio. That, or he had to mix these two pieces from previous productions into a fiberglass shell to apply.
| ireactions : | | Certainly, the low budget for PD meant the series quickly became profitable international broadcast and distribution sales. I'm told that some people working on PD earned enough money to basically go on vacation for 10 years because of how well it did... which probably helps them stay good-humoured and amused by how much fans hate their work. |
While a bunch of people considers PD a "failure" when talking about profits, it seems it wasn´t the case. With the different releases all over the world I think it made enough money. And it seems there´s some kind of interest on it (there are some new reviews and even interviews with the makers that had a lot of interest from viewers online).
| ireactions : | | I described how offended I was with the "Crash and Burn" error where Murphy orders Ann to "Try not to hurt them too badly" regarding the OCP guards only for Ann to murder two of them and for Murphy to comment, "Nice moves." (I was told that this was a mistake where the creators wanted to liven up the action, and didn't realize the mistake until editing.) |
I can see that as a goof made with the lack of time to rewrite the second half of the miniseries. As we talked before, the first half seemed more focused because, well, they didn´t have to rewrite much if you compared it with the more cyberpunk-ish second half (which scared Fireworks).
| ireactions : | | I love fan edits. But I think fan edits, when they work, are effective and successful because the fan editor actually enjoys what they're editing -- the fan edit is to accomplish what the original creator achieved but was prevented from delivering or to restore something that was lost after the project was completed. |
I like Prime Directives for what it is. I really think about it like an "Elseworlds" story, something that happens on comics from time to time: authors have some freedom to toy with the character, add their own spin, modified some stuff and such.
But I can see some of the stuff people don´t like about it. So, as a guy who likes to edit, for fun, I find interesting when you can change things and make it look different. I´ve been taking serious films or shows and transform them into comedies, or giving a popular character a mood similar to other productions from its past.
With that in mind, and knowing what the writers tried to do, I think an edit where you follow the plot as it was written (that´s moving and merging scenes, and making Robo talk as he talks as written, which didn´t have beats each word) could be an interesting thing to watch. Again, like an "Elsewords", or a "What if". What would PD look if it has a "Writer´s Cut" instead of what we got? The core stuff would be there, but the presentation would be a little bit different. It´s an interesting work and I think an interesting watch.
For example, the Bombz scene. I did several tests over the years. The latest was done not too much ago, and the whole Cable/Murphy meeting takes 2 or 3 minutes since the first shot of footage. They added more text and, funny enough, you can see they re-edited the thing differently at the last second, because you can put together some of the parts with the finished edit and make it look like there isn´t any jump over the scenes. Plus, recoloring some of the scenes made the (plug-in) sparks in some scenes less artificial (and you could enhance things if you add some brightness over the armor to make reflections, etc).
| ireactions : | | The DESPECIALIZED versions of STAR WARS are restoring the original 70s and 80s era special effects of STAR WARS to the HD versions of the movies. |
That´s an off-topic discussion but Fox needs to release the original, unaltered films on a official release (and not with lesser quality Laser Disc rips as they did on DVD back then).
| ireactions : | | I'm not trying to change PRIME DIRECTIVES to something else; I'm trying to put it back where it was: within a CRT television screen. This is me working on something I really like, and it won't take 26 years to finish. |
I think the point I was trying to make is to know is how much different the same footage could be presented, and what if it went closer to the stuff the writers did (and the previous iterations). And, unlike Star Wars, everyone can watch PD on it´s original format.
I´ve been watching some of the fan edit communities and I think there are brilliant ideas on some editors. Some put blood (not really I hope), sweat and tears to bring a movie or show you know with a different twist, and it´s an interesting exercice.
Some worked on the original RoboCop film, redoing special effects like Dick Jones´ fall or recreating ED-209 as a digital creature. Did I think they make the film better? Nopes. It´s interesting to watch, even if you see there´s no need for it? Yup.
Others worked or are working on the sequels, recoloring Robo´s blue armor into the metallic tone of the original, putting Poledouris back on RoboCop 2 and all these things. Again, they´re retelling the same thing, with their own spin.
Some tried to make Schumacher´s Batman films into something closer to Tim Burton´s style. There´s a guy who transformed "The Batman" into a TV show. That´s interesting as well. Again, they´re not trying to be the official stuff, they want to make their own spin on it. Some of the Star Wars films, specially the prequels or the post-Jedi films, had edits in where some dudes added, changed and cut things, to the point they could added backgrounds more fitted to the story, plot or modified stuff while trying to make sense to the whole project. There are "Grindhouse" versions of films, making these look like an explotation film from the 70´s!
Also, it doesn´t mean they didn´t like the original stuff (but I have my doubts with Star Wars. Fandom in general could be really hostile there ). Hell, I´d like to see some "alternative versions" of my favorite movies if you find out the person who did that put his/her heart making it (I´ve tried to watch one of the "osbcure" ones but the editing skills weren´t there).
| ireactions : | | I'm hoping to do a fan demastering of PRIME DIRECTIVES: changing the 24 FPS frame rate to CRT 30 FPS, darken the image back to CRT crushed blacks, apply a CRT shader and lens curvature, and then re-encode the files. This will restore the show that was broadcast in 2001 on SPACE and the Sci-Fi Channel, a series that I really enjoyed and appreciated. |
And I´d be happy to take a look to it. 4:3 and blurry images made me nostalgic. And thinking about 4:3 again...
| Archive : | | Checked out Dark Justice a bit just now and wow, hadn't really thought about it before but yeah, everything is definitely zoomed in. |
Did every broadcasted emision of Prime Directives come in widescreen? I remember on their website back then they claimed the SCI-FI Channel broadcast would be in Widescreen. And yes, it had black bars on top and bottom. Does that mean that there was an open matte version on TVs in 2001? It´d be interesting to find something about the original aspect ratio...
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RoboCop: PD - What went wrong?
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