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Brief Synopsis
A frame-accurate recreation of the original Super 8 cuts of Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, using a full-screen HD colour source taken from the Indicator release. Featuring multiple audio options, subtitles where relevant, and carefully applied enhancements to stop-motion animation for ‘Sinbad Battles the Monsters’ and ‘Sinbad Duels the Idol with Many Arms’. Black and white ‘purist’ versions with no adjustments to animation will be available where relevant.
Context
Super 8 cuts were jarringly short versions of films, distributed on 8mm film for home use. Four were made for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, covering some of the highlight sequences. ‘Sinbad and the Oracle’ was the only one presented in colour and with sound, the others were silent and black and white with burned in dialogue cards. These cuts can be viewed on the Indicator blu-ray but in very poor quality. This project recreates them to the frame, even if jarring (there's even a flash frame during one cut that I decided to preserve).
Audio
For 'Sinbad and the Oracle', viewers will have the choice of watching with the original untouched super 8 mono, or an approximate recreation using the restored mono. With the restored audio, I decided to smooth over the transitions for an alternative experience. This is available in both mono and surround. Users also will have the option of an isolated score in mono or surround. For the other 3 silent super 8 cuts, viewers have the option of viewing with a music-only track (more of a silent movie experience) or with the complete film audio including dialogue.
Animation
If you've seen my work with Jason and the Argonauts, you have some idea of what to expect. My technique with this has come a long way I feel, but it is still different to what I would (will) do with a B+ edit. Because I have gone for relative purity, I have had less freedom in terms of manually removing clunky frames or recutting the action to focus less on aspects that lack. I have not been speeding up or slowing down select movements to aid an impression of 'weight' or realistic movement. What I've done here is a straight conversion of each scene of motion using two different methods; I have then blended the best of those results along with the original frames, masked out any non-animation elements, fixed any glitches, and selectively applied motion blur where appropriate. On the whole, it's better than what I acheived with Argonauts (IMO), but it's also more of a practice run/experiment for when I do a full movie edit.
For 'Sinbad and the Oracle', there is only a very small amount of stop motion and I have left it intact. For the rest of the edits, there will be 'purist' versions available. These have the crisper, wider image and all audio options, but they retain the black and white look and have no changes to the animation applied.
Where It's At
'Sinbad and the Oracle' - Complete
'Sinbad Battles the Monsters' - Complete
'Sinbad Duels the Magic Sword' - Complete
'Sinbad Duels the Idol with Many Arms' - Complete
I have been undecided how to release this. I've considered putting one out at a time, like episodes, or releasing it as one big package. Currently I'm leaning towards putting it out in two volumes, so that I can release the two that are more or less done now while I work on the next lot.
Some example images:
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