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The New World: The Hybrid Cut

Heavisyde

Heavisyde

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THE NEW WORLD by Terrence Malick is a fictionalised telling of the founding of Jamestown and covers the lives of Pocahontas, John Smith, and John Rolfe. It has been released in three different forms, all available on the 2016 Criterion blu-ray release:
  • FC: December 2005 - 150 minute cut shown to critics. Called The First Cut on the blu-ray (also called "The Italian Cut" elsewhere).
  • TC: January 2006 - 135 minute cut released in most cinemas. Called The Theatrical Cut on the blu-ray.
  • EC: October 2008 - 172 minute cut released on DVD. Called The Extended Cut on the blu-ray.
Criterion have "remastered" all three cuts on blu-ray. Although, with some unfortunate issues.

The Extended Cut is by far the best of the three. Entirely new sequences are added and several scenes edited differently, as well as additional voice-overs included and some small changes in the score. The Extended Cut also fills more of the frame filled (EC: 1920 x 816, FC & TC: 1920 x 804, but with vertical letterboxing meaning they're effectively 1916 x 804). However, interestingly enough, the Extended Cut also cut some of the footage and dialogue available in the First Cut and Theatrical Cut. All in all, just under 11 minutes of footage is scattered throughout the First Cut (mostly) and Theatrical Cut (a small amount) that is not present in the Extended Cut. Mostly extended shots, but also a few sequences that were deleted entirely. There are also a couple of instances of alternate footage for the same scenes.

A big issue is that the Extended Cut features a green tinted grade rather than the original grade of the First & Theatrical Cuts. Some screenshots showing this:
ibb.co

The New World screenshots

The New World screenshots album hosted in ImgBB
ibb.co ibb.co
(left is Extended Cut, right is First Cut, bottom is Theatrical Cut)

To me, the Extended grade looks quite unnatural compared to the FC/TC.

The First Cut also has, weirdly enough, a ton of single shots at the beginning and end of scenes - which has made syncing the three cuts together very difficult, but is mostly done. The number of differences in cuts between the three cuts is surprisingly high.

So far, virtually all the cuts are done, and about 3/4 of the footage has been synced. The real challenge will be merging the audio tracks. Additionally, I'll have to decide how to best merge the three pieces of footage together (for duplicate footage). Should the First/Theatrical footage be favoured, due to its better colour scheme? Or should Extended footage be regraded to match the FC/TC due to it having more picture? Another issue is that if I use the Extended footage (when FC/TC footage is available), the image will slightly change in dimension between cuts. Although this shouldn't be too much of a problem. You can see the slight difference in dimensions in the screenshots. I'll try out several combinations to see which works best.
 
I hadn't looked at this since mid March. I spent a couple of hours on it today and I'm happy to say that all the footage has been completely synced up. The final run-time is a little over 182 minutes. This will come down slightly as one scene is edited more tightly in the Theatrical Cut than the First/Theatrical Cuts, and I will be using the Extended version as works better.

The goal of this edit is to follow as closely as possible the structure of the Extended Cut - as I believe it best encapsulates Malick's vision of the film - whilst adding in additional footage not included in the Extended Cut. Therefore I'm favouring editing choices and scene orders from the Extended Cut rather than the other two cuts.

Next up is merging the audio tracks. There is a number of differences in the voiceovers and scores used. I'll be using a mix of the First Cut and Extended Cut for this, with any additional VOs from the Theatrical Cut also included. I believe that the Extended Cut has the best score. First Cut audio could serve as a base at times to bridge gaps in the Extended Cut footage. Particularly annoying is that there are very frequent gaps of only 1 or 2 frames (99% of the time due to the First Cut being longer than the Extended Cut). This would force me to use the First Cut as a base to prevent the audio from dipping out for a split second, and because weirdly enough the audio tracks are not in line even when the footage is perfectly lined up, meaning I couldn't just fade several frames worth of audio from the First Cut into the Extended Cut audio. I could however just cut out these frames in order to prevent the flow of the Extended Cut audio tracks from being broken.

For the video tracks, I've decided to favour the First Cut footage as a base. As mentioned before, it tends to be a few frames longer than the others, but more importantly it has a superior grade to the Extended Cut. The only downside is that I lose a few pixels of image due to the smaller height of the First/Theatrical Cuts (804 height for FC/TC vs 816 height for EC, meaning 6 pixels on top and 6 on bottom will be lost). I could use the Extended Cut as a base to avoid this loss, but that would require regrading all 172 minutes of footage from the EC, whereas using the First Cut requires regrading only footage exclusive to the Extended Cut - which I'm estimating is only around 32 minutes of footage. That would be a lot easier, and ultimately the grade used in the First/Theatrical Cuts is going to be more accurate than my regrade attempt, and so for that reason I'd prefer to regrade only the ~32 minutes exclusive to the Extended Cut (as this doesn't exist in the First/Theatrical Cuts with the better grade) rather than regrading the entirety of the Extended Cut. Regrading the footage exclusive to the EC is going to be tricky as I have no correct grade base - will have to find screenshots from FC/TC scenes with similar backgrounds and lighting.
 
Heavisyde said:
I hadn't looked at this since mid March. I spent a couple of hours on it today and I'm happy to say that all the footage has been completely synced up. The final run-time is a little over 182 minutes. This will come down slightly as one scene is edited more tightly in the Theatrical Cut than the First/Theatrical Cuts, and I will be using the Extended version as works better.

The goal of this edit is to follow as closely as possible the structure of the Extended Cut - as I believe it best encapsulates Malick's vision of the film - whilst adding in additional footage not included in the Extended Cut. Therefore I'm favouring editing choices and scene orders from the Extended Cut rather than the other two cuts.

Next up is merging the audio tracks. There is a number of differences in the voiceovers and scores used. I'll be using a mix of the First Cut and Extended Cut for this, with any additional VOs from the Theatrical Cut also included. I believe that the Extended Cut has the best score. First Cut audio could serve as a base at times to bridge gaps in the Extended Cut footage. Particularly annoying is that there are very frequent gaps of only 1 or 2 frames (99% of the time due to the First Cut being longer than the Extended Cut). This would force me to use the First Cut as a base to prevent the audio from dipping out for a split second, and because weirdly enough the audio tracks are not in line even when the footage is perfectly lined up, meaning I couldn't just fade several frames worth of audio from the First Cut into the Extended Cut audio. I could however just cut out these frames in order to prevent the flow of the Extended Cut audio tracks from being broken.

For the video tracks, I've decided to favour the First Cut footage as a base. As mentioned before, it tends to be a few frames longer than the others, but more importantly it has a superior grade to the Extended Cut. The only downside is that I lose a few pixels of image due to the smaller height of the First/Theatrical Cuts (804 height for FC/TC vs 816 height for EC, meaning 6 pixels on top and 6 on bottom will be lost). I could use the Extended Cut as a base to avoid this loss, but that would require regrading all 172 minutes of footage from the EC, whereas using the First Cut requires regrading only footage exclusive to the Extended Cut - which I'm estimating is only around 32 minutes of footage. That would be a lot easier, and ultimately the grade used in the First/Theatrical Cuts is going to be more accurate than my regrade attempt, and so for that reason I'd prefer to regrade only the ~32 minutes exclusive to the Extended Cut (as this doesn't exist in the First/Theatrical Cuts with the better grade) rather than regrading the entirety of the Extended Cut. Regrading the footage exclusive to the EC is going to be tricky as I have no correct grade base - will have to find screenshots from FC/TC scenes with similar backgrounds and lighting.
Click to expand...
Sounds awesome! How different is the AR in the extended cut? Is it worth cropping it all too match, even if you lose a little visual data?
 
spence said:
Sounds awesome! How different is the AR in the extended cut? Is it worth cropping it all too match, even if you lose a little visual data?
Click to expand...
I'm considering that, for the sake of avoiding AR changes. The first and theatrical cuts are 1920 x 804 (2.39 AR) whilst the extended cut is 1920 x 816 (2.35 AR).
 
Heavisyde said:
I'm considering that, for the sake of avoiding AR changes. The first and theatrical cuts are 1920 x 804 (2.39 AR) whilst the extended cut is 1920 x 816 (2.35 AR).
Click to expand...
I guess the next question is what was the intended ratio? I'm fairly certain it was 2:39 when I saw it theatrically, it felt wider than usual.
 
i thought this was presented in 2.35 at the cinema.

This is a strange one for me to get my head around because i totally agree with what you are doing regarding using the more warmer colour of the theatrical as a base but a part of me thinks as Lubeski and Malick surpervised, the restoration of the criterion extended cut, then that is the preferred version by the creators...but then again Ridley Scott did the same thing to Blade Runner The Final Cut and thank the lord TM2YC sorted that out for us.

Thanks for doing this - i really appreciate it, the meticulous detail that must go in to a project this can be cumbersome.
 
thanks LI I appreciate it. regarding the aspect ratio, the theatrically released version would've been 2.39. The EC I don't think was ever in cinemas, only Blu-ray. I personally favour the 2.35 Extended AR as it fills more of the screen, but it would take a lot of work to regrade it. At the moment I'm considering keeping all the footage EC and FC as I go through the project again and choose footage/audio, so that if I decide to go with a 2.35 release in the future I can just regrade all the Extended footage that won't be used the first time around (ie 172 minutes minus ~32 minutes). So basically, first release will be 2.39 with the FC/TC as a base, then perhaps a second release in 2.35 if regrading isn't too tricky with the EC as a base. The most difficult regrading will be done the first time around (footage exclusive to the EC with no comparison shots from the FC/TC), so I guess it actually won't be too hard to get out a v2 with the remaining EC 2.35 footage regraded.

Edit: Forgot to mention, technically a v2 in 2.35 would still contain around 10 minutes of shots that are in the shorter 2.39 AR, as this is footage from the FC/TC that was never released in 2.39. I could technically crop this on the sides to bring it artificially to 2.35, but that would mean losing footage, and the point is I'd like to preserve as much of the film as possible, so I'll just leave this additional 10 mins in 2.39.
 
The first piece of footage extended with First Cut footage:
Left is Extended Cut, Right is First Cut. (Bottom is deleted Theatrical)
 
One of the most stunning scenes in film and now in its full glory. You really capture a sense of how it must have felt for the natives seeing those first vessels arrive.
 
Still working on this. I'm currently going through the rather tedious process of listening to all three audio tracks simultaneously and comparing them for differences, as well as trimming the occasional frame (mainly from the First Cut, which often starts and ends 1 or 2 frames earlier/later) to avoid breaking up the main audio track, and choosing the ideal audio track depending on the footage. The goal is to minimise the number of transitions between the audio tracks so as maximise immersion. There are variations in score and VO placement in the three versions so it's not as straightforward as you'd think. There are also a handful of VOs found in the theatrical and first cuts not in the Extended cut (and vice versa) that I'm adding back in.

Once I'm done with that, I'll mix the 5.1 tracks into each other (currently am listening to three mono tracks as it's easier to mute/unmute than 3 sets of surround tracks) and regrade the extended cut footage. That should be it. I'll attach some extras as well, and perhaps make some subs.
 
Heavisyde said:
The first piece of footage extended with First Cut footage:
Left is Extended Cut, Right is First Cut. (Bottom is deleted Theatrical)
Click to expand...
Guess the deleted Theatrical is still deleted. I'm glad that you are showing this movie some love. I always felt like it was overlooked.
 
ArtisDead said:
Guess the deleted Theatrical is still deleted. I'm glad that you are showing this movie some love. I always felt like it was overlooked.
Click to expand...
Early on i was deleting the theatrical footage (as i had identitical first cut footage) for the first few minutes but then stopped. Now i've got all three in the timeline. For this scene the theatrical was similar to the extended cut but shorter. I'll release a version end of this month which plays all three out in parallel so those interested can see exactly what the differences are between the three cuts.
 
I reached the winter scene today and thought I'd share a clip.
Top left: Extended Cut, Top right: First Cut
Bottom: Theatrical Cut
Is it just me or did whoever edited the Extended cut drop the ball? Hard to believe Malick agreed to that grade.
 
This is going pretty well - half way through audio editing and about 2/3 of the way through comparing the audio tracks for differences.
https://imgur.com/a/rQZ2eps
Some of the FC audio is quieter than the EC audio so I've had to compare scenes for maximum audio level and amplify the FC audio accordingly. Sometimes the EC audio is favoured, whilst other times the other cuts are favoured due to better SFX as well as VOs. Here's another clip:
 
I've finished comparing the audio tracks for differences, and I expect to be done with audio editing entirely in the coming days. Which just leaves regrading. I attempted today to do some regarding using the Graide Color Match plug-in. While it is a good tool, it has no functionality to regrade using corresponding frames - only a single input frame can be provided as a reference. This means it's accuracy varies considerably. Regrading just a minute of footage is pretty time consuming. There's no way I could do the entire film, only the footage exclusive to the Extended Cut (which I believe is around 20-30 minutes). Even that will take ages, as there's no exact comparison footage with a good grade. I've got new-found respect for guys like Harmy, TM2YC, and Wraith who did this for entire films. There must be a shortcut here.

I'll give regrading a go, but unless I figure out how to automate regarding via frame comparisons, I am tempted to simply release this as "The Hybrid Workprint" after finishing audio editing, using the First and Theatrical Cuts (good grades) whenever available and the Extended Cut (bad grade) for the remaining 20-30 minutes (out of 182 minutes). Not ideal, but I've got limited time.

Edit: Did a count. It's about 29-30 minutes of footage exclusive to the Extended Cut. I think what I'm going to do is use the Graide color matcher in scenes where it works, and leave the original Extended grade when it doesn't work. Some scenes are easier than others as they have near identical references, but a chunk of the extended footage is completely unique with no similar matching shots.
 
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I had a quick go with this one you posted of a lake (using the Vegas Color Curves plugin):

ibb.co

The New World screenshots

The New World screenshots album hosted in ImgBB
ibb.co ibb.co

This kind of manipulation of the three curves got pretty close:

52327070621_592aaa26f1_o.jpg


52327315518_8aa3161494_o.jpg


The DC shot was not just more green, it was much darker, so I began by selecting RGB from the channel menu and dragging all three cures upwards until the desired brightness was reached, then began pulling the green and blue curves back towards the middle until the desired balance was reached. So color curves on RGB mode (e.g. all three curves are linked and move together) can also be used as a powerful tool for adjusting brightness.

It takes some practice to learn how shaping the curves will change the look of the image but it becomes 2nd nature.
 
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A fundamental knowledge in television station broadcasting. And Adobe Photoshop...
 
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