Toho Kingdom

That's great! I'm really excited to see how this turns out!

Finished the editing last night! Now it's on to restoring the audio - a process that will take a little time but will hopefully yield decent results!

Really excited about this one. The Titra dub for this film was one of my first experiences with the franchise. Honestly, I doubt I'd be on this site today if I didn't see Monster Zero and Sea Monster that one spring night all those years ago. I'm glad I'll finally get the chance to hear it as I did the first time.

Well, I think I've done all I can for the audio. Hiss and hum have been reduced and I've tried to make sure everything is understandable but, given the quality of the source, there's only so much that can be done without having access to the actual audio masters. One thing I've had to do is master the sound levels slightly lower compared to the Japanese dub from the HD source because it's too harsh at those levels.

Other than that, there's the question of whether or not I should include any opening logos - be they Toho or a restored version of the Walter-Reade - before the opening titles. Any thoughts on this? Otherwise I'm pretty much ready to hit Export.

If you felt like including a logo, I'm thinking maybe a Walter Reade Logo? The question is, if you use a Walter Reade logo, what audio would you have over it? I'd assume that since the WR logo is a still image you could just trim it to fit the audio from the Toho logo. Or you could just use the WR logo audio. Here's a version of it I found.

I'd say, if we don't have any sources to confirm what, if anything, came before the title card, I'd personally probably leave it alone. That's if fidelity to the original broadcast version is your highest priority; if you're willing to take some liberties with it then plastering over the Toho logo with a Walter Reade-Sterling logo would work as a kind of buffer before the title card.

Well, after doing some careful thinking and consideration, I decided to take a slight liberty and assume that the Walter Reade logo played before the film. I think it was more likely than not to have been included in the original broadcast. So, I used the audio from this version used at the end of Son of Godzilla:




...then tried fiddling around with creating masks for the logo and lettering. Unfortunately, this source was too fuzzy, so after some digging I discovered a 720p version taken from a DVD rip of Night of the Living Dead. The problem? It was in black and white:



So I keyed out the dark background and made separate layers for the logo and the lettering. I would have liked to mask the letters, but even at the highest possible quality it was too fuzzy to get a decent trace. So I simply luma key'd the background from the letters and added a red curve adjustment and glow to "colorize" them to a close approximation of the first version.

Then, I did another layer where I keyed everything but the stars out.

Finally, I created a new background using a two color radial color ramp based on the SOG's colors, added some film grain, and this is the result:


Finally, I ran the sound through Audition to remove hiss and adjust the levels to match the film.

At this point, I just need to finish my ending credits and we're all set!

Really looking forward to this being completed! I can't tell you how many times I've watch this movie in full screen because I prefer this dub.

The Walter Reade logo looks absolutely perfect. Excellent effort on that one.

Love the logo! If it's not too late, I might suggest leaving just a touch more space around the edges (especially on the right), but it looks terrific as it is.

Wow, that looks great! Can't wait to see the finished product!

Thank you everyone for your patience! As of 25 minutes ago I hit the magic EXPORT button and the movie is rendering. I will try to upload it to Google and/or MEGA in the morning!

That's terrific! Give us a shout when it's uploaded

goji1986 wrote:Thank you everyone for your patience! As of 25 minutes ago I hit the magic EXPORT button and the movie is rendering. I will try to upload it to Google and/or MEGA in the morning!

Hooray. Can't wait to see the magic.

Alrighty, I'm ready to share! PM me for the link.

I've skimmed through it a bit and it looks really nice! The audio's a little rough, but there probably isn't really anything that can be done about that. I really like what you've done with it, and I really appreciate the shout-out in the end credits

omgitsgodzilla wrote:I've skimmed through it a bit and it looks really nice! The audio's a little rough, but there probably isn't really anything that can be done about that. I really like what you've done with it, and I really appreciate the shout-out in the end credits

Figured you'd appreciate the shout out

If I were to revisit this, I would re-record the dub through a more advanced setup via soundboard to EQ the majority of hiss and hum manually - before even touching it digitally. The "lofty dream" plan would be to sub just the vocals into the existing Japanese dub, but since everything is in mono that would be damn near impossible (at least not with what I have to work with).

Another reconstruction! I have the VHS tape! You and omgitsgodzilla rock!
I have different rips from VHS that I have that they do not have out today because they are the old VHS tapes from the US. I have a G vs. Cosmic Monster that was chopped down to 1 hour and 9 mins. They deleted alot from that movie.

Regarding the audio, I wonder if there's an appreciable difference in quality between the different VHS releases? I don't think this movie ever got an LD release in the US, but that might be something to look into.

omgitsgodzilla wrote:Regarding the audio, I wonder if there's an appreciable difference in quality between the different VHS releases? I don't think this movie ever got an LD release in the US, but that might be something to look into.

I've never heard of an LD release for this particular film in the US, so I don't think I"m going to have that as an option. Beyond that, a quick search on VHSCollector.com says the Goodtimes release is only preceded by the 1987 Video Treasures release (in the US, at least). No idea, though, if that initial release is better quality or not. I'll have to do some further digging.