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.