Please note: this is a preservation (or restoration, if I may be so bold). No editing, per se, has been performed, although the processes and tools used have much in common in with fanedits. I hope this is an appropriate forum and that members are interested!
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I'm fascinated both by spies and the bizarro world of Soviet culture, and thus was excited to stumble across the "Secret Agent" series of films from the USSR. (There are four, running from 1968 to 1986.) Unfortunately, though, it turns out that the DVDs are all but unwatchable--the video quality is utter crap, with multiple generations of problems baked in, and the subtitles are often impenetrable and unintionally hilarious. ("Such a cute guy with a criminal record is way better than someone else.")
But at least subtitles exist, unlike so many other old Soviet movies, and I could see that these were good movies underneath all the garbage. So I embarked on an effort to clean things up and make sense of the dialog. It ended up taking much more time and effort than I anticipated--a full two months of work for the first two films. (A lot of learning and experimenting were required, so future projects might go a little faster.) I'm only doing the first two films in the series, though--I've read that the last two aren't as good, and I've just had enough (I can hardly think or talk about anything else right now...).
I'm pretty happy with the results. I encourage everyone to have a look at the following brief before and after clips, which I think illustrate the work performed better than anything else (the second is a little more dramatic, and alas, streaming video isn't known for preserving quality):
[align=center]
Additional details and screenshots follow.
I'm fascinated both by spies and the bizarro world of Soviet culture, and thus was excited to stumble across the "Secret Agent" series of films from the USSR. (There are four, running from 1968 to 1986.) Unfortunately, though, it turns out that the DVDs are all but unwatchable--the video quality is utter crap, with multiple generations of problems baked in, and the subtitles are often impenetrable and unintionally hilarious. ("Such a cute guy with a criminal record is way better than someone else.")
But at least subtitles exist, unlike so many other old Soviet movies, and I could see that these were good movies underneath all the garbage. So I embarked on an effort to clean things up and make sense of the dialog. It ended up taking much more time and effort than I anticipated--a full two months of work for the first two films. (A lot of learning and experimenting were required, so future projects might go a little faster.) I'm only doing the first two films in the series, though--I've read that the last two aren't as good, and I've just had enough (I can hardly think or talk about anything else right now...).
I'm pretty happy with the results. I encourage everyone to have a look at the following brief before and after clips, which I think illustrate the work performed better than anything else (the second is a little more dramatic, and alas, streaming video isn't known for preserving quality):
[align=center]
Additional details and screenshots follow.