More edit checking notes

0:04:44 - Title is well outside of title safety and will get cut off on most TVs. You should probably reduce the font size.

The preview version was cropped to remove the unused black edges, so yes, the titles and subtitles would look as if they were far too big for the screen size.

0:49:59 - Strange edit right when Freder sits up. This might have been a different take from the Moroder version, but the cut  breaks up the shot dramatically and affects the timing of the fade to red tint. You may wish to consider using the Moroder LD as source for that shot instead.

This is the same as the Moroder version as far as I can see. Yes it is a weird edit but Moroder did it first!

0:51:07 - Audio offsync with steam whistles.

There were issues with the sync at this point - I have correct them now. I hope.

0:51:18 - Moroder version should still-frame halfway through the fade to black, before Freder falls back into bed.

I had more footage to play with than Moroder did, I guess. I liked the complete fade-out. I've reverted back to his version.

1:00:52 - Title slate missing fade-in.

Fixed that one.

1:04:24 - Scene change audio out of sync.

More sync slippage - now fixed.

1:07:55 - This tinting seems inconsistent, but this might be intentional.

The purple-blue is for the worker's city. The 'royal' blue tint is the machine level. The deep blue is the upper city in darkness. I think these are all consistent.

1:12:36 - Scene change audio out of sync.

This is the first of many audio sync errors now I look at it (video sync errors actually). I hadn't realized there was as many audio sequences cuts as there were. I've re-worked the entire movie from here on to synchronize the cuts properly.

1:13:34 - Missing comma in title slate. "in a state of confusion,"

Good spotting.

1:18:30 - Wipe is too fast

Ooh, it is, isn't it. Kind-of killed the moment :-)

1:20:10 - Moroder version should slow down, rather than just stop at a still frame at fade-out.

This one was a pig and took a lot of playing around. The footage stops just as they are about to shake hands properly. Moroder fades out just as the start to clasp hands. I prefered it with an actual hand-shake hold - frame freeze - and then fade-out.

1:20:11 - Fritz Lang is misspelled!! - "Freund" is misspelled. "Günther" is missing the umlauts. - "Schultze" is misspelled. - "As Grot" is in the wrong font size. "As Rotwang" should be deleted. - The Produced By credit has "Giorgio" and "Squier" both misspelled. - "Enno Patalas" is misspelled as "Ennopatala"

How embaressing. This is why I shouldn't proof my own work. Nice spotting.

Credits are cut off prematurely at 1:21:42

The credits in the preview version were chopped to save space. They were straight off the laser disc version anyway.

Edit checking report

I've had a great set of comments from one of the people checking my edit. I thought I'd post the notes and my comments here for reference:

The timing is off when including your email at the beginning (compare to your Youtube clip).
The timing is actually synced to the sudden increase in music volume at the start.

I would suggest keeping your tag (since you DID do the edit and all) but get rid of the strong blue and change the font to the same as the "Mororder Presents... Fritz Lang's" and color it that same orange or red.
I was trying to be different but I have now used the same font as the titles throughout the film. I've used the same blue as the intro titles.

I would also keep the image timing with the first beat of the music per the Youtube clip (as opposed to the box popping up on the second beat).
This should have been right but I have adjusted it. The diamond box fades in with the increase in the baseline and the text appaears in sync with the synthesisers.

It looks like the whole soundtrack is set off by a few seconds (the ticking of the time clock is heard while we can still see the moving gears in the previous scene), so it looks like the opening box scroll has to start on the first beat for the rest of the soundtrack to fit.  The timing may also be due to the quicktime movie file too (compression and all).
The preview Quicktime version may have sync issues - I noticed that it was from an earlier edit. The clock ticking actually preceed the appearance of the image. this is in the original and is a standard editing trick (drop in the audio before the video appears - it just seems to work).

4:05 it is still possible to include the "reveal" shot.  Moroder took the moving elevator wall in the previous shot and just added it for a second to create an artificial reveal.
The improved elevator edit somehow didn't make it into tis preview. Rest assured the good version is ready to go.

Not sure how I feel about the green tint on the garden scene.  I think the original gold tint worked better (since it seemed the only tints used were bluish (blues or purple) or reddish (red, orange, yellow).
I agonised about this one a bit. I thought that gold was used too much and I wanted to have a different tint to the garden area as it's only seem once.

Don't know if that edit at 11:55 was in either the K or M cut, but it was cool none-the-less (how when the car moves we can already see the background of the next scene).
This cut was in the Moroder version but I have also improved it. It was originally a wipe as the car drove off revealing the cityscape but I actually used a shaped mask around the car body.

13:33 regarding the subtitles, maybe you could use the Arial font and make them a little smaller (example: size 12 to size 10).  The intertitles are good, since they are seperate and the font is close to the original M edit font. 
The subtitles are the best match I could manage to the original Moroder version, except I addeda drop shadow so they were still legible against light backgrounds (Morodr's bustitles are almost impossible to read sometimes).

14:39 to 14:40 Maybe consider tinting the window and outside shot the light blue for the earlier city shots (don't worry about the window frame being orange -that would be hell).  Not that it is a MUST, but a suggestion (to match consistency with earlier shots)
That's a really nice idea - I'll get onto that.

19:31 I would change the green tint to blue
I needed a different colour to indicate a montage sequence - other than just having a montage sequence :-)

19:54 - 19:56 Don't know if you recreated that, but the Yoshiwara sign edit looks good!
I 'enhanced' it to increase color.

20:43 There is a split second shot of an alternative intertitle card with thick white letters.  Probably have the set you have fade to black and delete that split-second shot.
Well spotted! I fixed that one - the source clip was mis-aligned.

30:44 Cool shot!

32:43 - 32:44 don't know if the fade transition edit could be smoother when Rotwang and Frederson are shaking hands (or replaced with a regular edit), but something to keep in mind. 
I didn't have much to work with for that sequence. The restored and Moroder edits are quite different there.

45:16 I understand not including the purple rings, but would it be possible to wash a sepia tone over the entire scene and add in the blue eyes at the end without having to re-rotoscope the rings?
I left the background gray so that the rings would be white - it was easier to rotorscope it that way. If I change the background, I'd have to rotorscope each of the individual rings. Sigh.

46:19 Freder says: "Wherer is she?"  Extra "r" on the "where" subtitle.
Doh!

51:09 Don't know if it's the Quicktime movie, but there is a flash of Maria right when the grim reaper is coming out of his alcove.
Another mis-aligned edit.

53:35 On a side note, NOW he thinks of the consequences?!  You think he was the first mad scientist in movie history... um, oh yeah ..
Oh, hindsight is SO great!

1:13:16 don't remember if the extra fire effect was there in the M edit, but I like it (when the woman is throwing the fireball onto the wood pile)
That's a new addition of mine. I really got sick of doing animated masks after that :-)

:13:32 Maybe consider coloring the background city plates to blue (like you did earlier when the mob is running down the highway) for consistency.  Not a biggie, just a suggestion.
Nice idea. At least that only requires a static mask.

1:20:18 Drected by Fritz Laing (extra "i")
Sheepish grin. I spelt it right at the start of the film

1:20:48 Consider placing your name credit here with Moroder as opposed to the beginning of the movie.
I had wanted to isolate myself from the Moroder re-edit contents. Not sure here, as the entire re-edit is my work, but the source footage is not, neither is the soundtrack. Maybe I'll sneak an extra in there...

New video post - Rotwang Chases Maria

It's been a while since I posted anything new, so here's one of my favourite musical sequences from the movie.

Rotwang chases and terrorizes Maria down in the catacombs just after she and Freder have met for the first time. Rotwang wants her to give her likeness to his newly finished robot.

Youtube now seems to be display the high quality video by default now - which is good news!

The DVD Cover Rises From The Ashes

A big thanks to Justin S. who scanned his album artwork for me. I've been a pig in mud for a few hours re-working the album art into a DVD cover. Below are the front and back covers so far.

I would really love to put some other images on the back but I'm trying to stay true to the original VHS art. So many of those shady VHS or Laserdisc rip DVDs out there have crummy cover art. Note that I have not squashed the artwork to make it fit the DVD cover size, so the robot doesn't look super-model skinny :-)

The text reads:

“METROPOLIS” is a spectacular instance of Expressionist design, with moments of incredible beauty and power, absurd ineptitudes, and other oddities that defy analysis.” -The New Yorker

World-renowned Oscar winning producer and composer GIORGIO MORODER (FLASHDANCE) has captured the essence of Fritz Lang’s legendary futuristic masterpiece, METROPOLIS, in his brilliant re-creation of the 1926 silent film classic vision of tomorrow. Using his award-winning musical expertise, MORODER has composed an electrifying soundtrack to match the film’s visionary style, performed by some of today’s top rock artists, including Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury of Queen, Loverboy, Adam Ant and more.

This immense science fiction epic is a bizarre vision of the future. The year is 2026 and the inhabitants of the world are divided into two classes: an elite “ruling” class who spend their time in futile pursuits, living in luxury on the planet’s surface, and the working class, who toil below ground, doomed to serve from birth to death as slaves to the monstrous machines they tend. When the son of the ruler of the great city of METROPOLIS fails in love with a woman of the lower class, the stage is set for an earthshaking confrontation.

This revitalized METROPOLIS has all the immediacy and excitement of the original with the added impact of GIORGIO MORODER’S vibrant soundtrack, surging new power into some of the most striking and moving images ever put to film.

Where's My LP Soundtrack Gone?

OK, now I'm stuffed. I just went to find my LP of the Metropolis soundtrack and can't find it. I now have to find a hi-rez version of the album cover to scan. The CD cover art is just too small for me to use.

I really don't want to create all-new cover art, as I'm re-creating the Moroder version.

And my cleaned-up sampling of Rotwang's party (Love Kills single b-side) is MIA.

Hrumph.

Decent into the Worker's Underground City

I've re-edited the worker's decent into their underground city from the start of the movie to include the city reveal. I've used old footage for the city as there is no recently restored footage available.

The big questions are: does the other footage match nicely enough in the background and is the background footage too wobbly?

Comments welcome.

Interesting to note that the restored footage is so good, you can actually tell that the men and the elevator above is a painting, moving down in front of the city model in the background.

DVD Cover Design Time

I've had some changes to the edit which have been pointed out to me, so things slip back a bit. Meantime, I've started on the DVD cover art. Below is the VHS release cover.

Now guess what the DVD cover art is pretty much going to look like...

Yup, pretty easy to guess.

I'll be scanning my album cover art to get a nice hi-rez image for the cover. The back image comes straight from the restored film of course.

Opening Titles fro Giorgio Moroder Version of Metropolis

I had some concerns expressed that the new opening title I have created wouldn't fit in with the 'old' look of the film. I think they're fine - and so here a new post of the first 2.45 minutes of the restored film. Bearing in mind YouTube's low quality, you can decide for yourself...

NTSC Metropolis-Redux DVD finished for testing

I've just completed the first NTSC version for testing. Yet again, I have to sit down and scrutinise the entire movie to check for errors and quality. Oh, joy.

Restoration Technical Notes

Here is some of the technical/background information on how I did this restoration.

I had four different sources of the movie to work from (collected over some years):

1. The 2002 restored PAL German DVD version (not Moroder's version at all). This was used for almost all of the restored video sequences.
2. My original VHS recording of Moroder's version which I made in the 80s. This is a PAL version with very poor mono sound. This version was used for some colour reference only.
3. A Greek 'commercial' PAL DVD release of Moroder's movie. This DVD version is actually a video rip. Its video sharpness isn't great (nor is the audio quality) but it has good colour. This version was used for colour reference, some of the Moroder special composite elements and extra footage.
4. An NTSC DVD version ripped from the Moroder laserdisc. This has good video sharpness but terrible colour quality. This version was used for the restored soundtrack, which was uncompressed PCM.

I started by exporting the Greek DVD in a Quicktime format (including audio) and loaded this as my base reference track, as  a PAL edit. I exported the restored version in a lossless Quicktime format and started to rebuild the video over the reference on a shot-for-shot basis. I chose the PAL version as this is the source version that the German restored version was released in. I didn't want an NTSC conversion of that original.

The PAL version is in 720 x 576 25 fps progressive format. The final NTSC conversion of that is 720 x 480 23.97 fps progressive, so the frame size is shrunk from the PAL version and the frame rate is lower also, meaning higher quality overall. Going from PAL source to NTSC edit (and then back to to PAL) would be bad. The NTSC version is progressive because the PAL version is. Some DVD players may do 3:2 pull-up and interlace the output but a good player/TV should handle 24 fps natively.

Due to the difference in footage and takes available on the 2002 restored DVD, there are some minor shot variations and cut changes. Where possible, the cuts match the original Moroder version to the frame.

Another issue was the differing frame rates. The Moroder version uses old analogue technology to alter the frame rates of the original footage (there's a whole debate about what the 'true' frame frame should be). What I did was match in start and end of a shot and then use digital time remapping to make the restored footage duration match the Moroder version. I have done this without frame interpolation, so every frame is nice and sharp. Sure, sometimes the motion isn't as smooth as it could be, but let's face it, the motion isn't that great in the 1927 footage to start with!

Some shots from the Moroder version had modern SFX and these have been rebuilt using the restored elements where possible. For example, the moving clouds in the background of the stadium for the 'chosen few' (near the start of the movie) come from the VHS rip Moroder version, while the foreground comes from the restored DVD footage.

The whole movie was re-edited in it's original black and white, before I started adding the colour tints.

Because there are three different versions of the colour tints Moroder used on my three sources, I have redesigned the colour tints throughout the movie, based on those three versions. The worker's city has one consistent tint, the cityscapes another, the underground tunnels another, etc. This makes the colour tinting very cohesive, and in fact I've dropped in the correct 'location' tints that weren't there in the original moroder version.

For example, when we cut away from Maria entering the Worker's City near the end of the movie, to the big machines blowing up, Maria has the Worker's City tint and the machines have the Machine level tint. These 'locational' tint changes don't seem to be honored very well in the original Moroder versions.

All of the inter-titles and subtitles have been rebuilt from scratch - including the opening title notes. You can check the quality on another post on the Opening Titles.

The soundtrack which was taken from the PCM uncompressed laserdisc version was digitally cleaned up and synchronised with the newly restored movie. I also repaired a soundtrack error - I suspect that was where the original laserdisc needed to be turned over!

The unfortunate side-effect of doing this restoration is I'm far too familiar with this movie now and could quite happily never see it again for some time :-)

The final edit was then exported via a professional DVD MPEG encoder at the highest bit-rate I could fit on a standard DVD-R disc, along with the soundtrack at a high 320 Kbps. I considered using uncompressed PCM audio, but with only around 4.4 GB to play with, I'd rather use the space for better video quality.

There are no 'extras', however there is a bit left over and I may well add an low bitrate Editor's commentary track. Not sure yet ... why not tell me if you like the idea?

I also have the single release of 'Rotwang's Party', which was the b-side of Freddie Mercury's 'Love Kills'. I have sampled and cleaned up this hard-to-find track and would like to include it but I'm wondering what to do with it.

The Recently Found 'Full' Original Metropolis version

I am aware that a 'full' version of the original had been found recently in Argentina but hadn't mentioned it here before as it's not directly relevant to the Moroder version which I have re-created. Actually, the latest found print can't the 'full' as that was only shown briefly for the movie's first release in Germany in 1927. The film was re-edited right after that due to poor audience reaction ... and so the butchering began.

Still dead keen to see the latest discovered version though.

Found a few more bugs - darn

Just a quick note to say that I found a few more editing errors, so I'm having to do another re-compress (see you in 8 hours).

There's not a lot of space going to be left on the disc after the high bit-rate audio track and the video, but I think there might be enough to do an audio commentary of the re-edit. 

Metropolis Background Information

Austrian Director Fritz Lang made what is arguably the first true science fiction movie in 1926. The film was released in 1927 and like modern day movies featuring special effects, cost a whopping cost 7 million Reichmarks.

Written by Frit'z wife, Thea von Harbou, Metropolis has a moral tale on the human condition. The head plans, while the hands build and a mediator is need between them both. Set in the year 2026, it features a future dysopia in which the workers are exploited and oppressed by the ruling elite.

Thea (Frit's wife) wrote the screenplay in 1924 and it was published as a novel in 1925. When the movie was released in Germany it was a flop and so the re-editing began. There are now many different version of the 'original movie' from a brief 63 minutes to a more substantial 139.

In particular, the US version of the film was almost completely re-edited to provide a simpler story line. As the Nazi's destroyed the original negatives and prints, it was the US version that many people were familiar with. It seemed that Metropolis might remain an interesting, but sadly lost, milestone in cinema.

In 1984, suitable enough, Georgio Moroder released a restored version of the film. Georgio is a fan of Metropolis and not only attempted to re-create the original movie as much as possible (including adding some montages and newly-shot film element) but added a modern elements such as colour, spot SFX and a contemporary music score. Although not widely popular - and in some cases quite scorned - Giorgio's version re-introduced Metropolis to a whole new generation in the most extended form available since it's initial release.

Robot Transformation and Reveal clips

The following clips are available on YouTube. The quality has been reduced by YouTube unfortunately, but it sill looks nice.

If you jump over to YouTube, you can actually request the higher quality version.

Note at the end of the clip, when the robot face transforms into Maria's features, I have re-built it so that the Robot and Maria's eyes and mouth match up. I just had to fix this as the miss-match in the original was driving me nuts!

Here another clip showing the robot being revealed for the first time. There's ton of details in this version that simply cant be seen in the original Moroder release.

Not quite done - of course

Yup, once I viewed the final compressed MPEG version of Metropolis, I saw an error in the pre-titles which needed fixing. Great. So another 8 hours will be needed to re-compress the whole darn thing.

I thought I'd show some examples of the improvement in the video quality using the restored footage on some iconic scenes from the film. It was this improvement that started me on this whole adventure.

I've got several versions of Giorgio Moroder's edit - all of varying quality. One is from laser disc, so the images are fairly sharp but the colour quality is poor. Another seems to be a DVD rip from VHS (although I was assured that it was the only commercial DVD pressing) , so the quality isn't great but the colour fidelity is better. 

The examples below compare my red-edited versions on the left, with the corresponding frame (as close as I could get it) from the DVD-VHS rip on the right. These images are un-retouched, except for matching the image size and scaling to fit this page.

It's immediately clear that the restored footage has a much larger frame size and includes much more edge detail. The contrast is much smoother in the restored footage - even though it looks a little bit more washed out. The high contrast in the original Moroder version simply hides so much detail.

This shot also shows the detail lost in the original Moroder version. If I hadn't known there was a building right in the background, I never would have noticed it in the right half. There are also planes in the sky on the right but they're barely visible.

Look at the pentagram in the background, which is completely invisible on the right! It's also possible to make out in the restored footage that the robot is lit under spotlights but impossible to tell in the Moroder footage. There's a lot more detail of the machinery in the restored footage too.

Here's another classic shot (sorry I couldn't match up the 'light ovals' exactly). Not only do you see more of the frame but all that extra detail just jumps right out.

Here are a couple of clips showing comparisons from two of the same scenes as above. The quality have been reduced by YouTube unfortunately, but you get the idea.

The re-edit is complete! (I hope)

Finally I think the re-edit of Giorgio Moroder's 1984 version of Ftiz Lang's classic Metropolis is complete. I'm now doing a final high quality DVD compress - which should take another 7 hours, according to my compressor. I told you it was high quality.

For this re-edit I've taken the latest restored black and white footage of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic and done a complete shot-for-shot re-edit to remake Giorgio Moroder's 1984 version of the film with the latest visuals.

Why would I do such a thing?

I love the film. I first saw it on TV in the 80s and video taped it then. I thought it was great for a movie made in the 1920s but the film quality wasn't great (nor was my video recording).

Then I saw the 2002 Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation version in the cinema at a film festival and was blown away by the visual quality! There was so much detail that I'd never seen before.

So when this came out on DVD, I decided to re-edit the footage to re-create Giorgio Moroder's version but with clean visuals, new colour, fresh subtitles & inter-titles, new SFX and restored digital sound. Sounds really easy if you say it fast.

It's taken a while (interpretation: about 2 years) as I've had a couple of disk crashes and had a baby arrive.

I can't wait to burn the DVD and put it in the DVD player for a final view (and check).

Yes, I'll post some screen-shots and clips here soon.