Hey everyone, I know I haven't posted many updates recently. My personal life/work/family commitments have not left me as much time to work on this as I had about half a year ago. I am still working on this project and have been working on it little by little as I've been able to. I've also been collecting as much extra footage as I can. However, a few people interested in this have told me they aren't sure where my progress is with this project. So here is an update of where I am, and when I plan on being done:
I am pretty close to being done with the 2 audio tracks. The ITV edit track (current version still shown on TV and original UK edited version as well) is 95% done. All the dubs are in and cleaned up. I just have to edit the music and add sound effects in places where there are none (such as the alternate toxic-melted Emil scenes) or the music is choppy otherwise. The ABC US Network track will be very similar to the ITV version, since they share some of the dubs, but there are alternate takes of dubs and different dubs all together. Plugging those dubs in won't take very long.
The Video is conservatively 70% done. The whole movie, at its base is edited down. I'm adding in alternate footage. One of the problems with the footage added in is its color. The movie has gone through many color corrections over the years. The 2014 blu-ray (which the edit is based on) has the most accurate color palette to the theatrical version on old VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD releases. The 2001 dvd and subsequent (cancelled) blu-ray and HDTV masters have a blue cast. Some of the higher quality TV footage I have was color corrected to that blue tint and I'm trying to make it closer to the blu-ray. Which isn't as easy as applying a color filter (as I'd hoped), in some instances I have to go through frame by fame and correct the palette of skin, backgrounds, clothes, etc. A handful of these shots are less than a second and stationary so it isn't a huge undertaking, but some of the longer shots take longer. Also some of the alternate footage of more obscure edits are in such bad quality, I'm attempting to "re-create" these, either compositing the edit into a still of a similar frame, or major DNR and Sharpening. I'm happy with how these are turning out through, and hope to share some examples soon. I also need to go through and pan and scan certain parts as well as creatively remove station logos.
My goal is to get this whole thing finished by the end of this year at the latest. I started this as a little pet project last year and had no idea it would become this popular and so many people would be interested in it. Thank you guys so much for the support, it really has kept me going on this project.