Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction AVAILABLE NOW

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omgitsgodzilla
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Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction AVAILABLE NOW

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

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The Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster reconstruction is available now!

The 1080p HD reconstruction of Ghidrah is completed and available to download! Send a private message for details.

Notes on this release:
  • The Toho transfer had its contrast and saturation boosted slightly in order to alleviate its rather flat appearance.
  • While a “first draft” of the project was prepared using the Classic Media DVD recreation of the US version as a reference, it was revised using a VHS rip, meaning that the numerous errors in the CM version are corrected here.
  • A sound synchronization error, present in all available versions of the dub, that affected much of the scene of Naoko and Shindo at home and extended into the What Are They Doing Now?/”Call Happiness” scene, has been corrected.
  • The audio for the US version was largely sourced from a PAL DVD released by an Australian company called Siren. This DVD featured an original scan of a 16mm TV print, meaning it had higher sound quality than any other available source, all other releases being made from an old videotape master. However, the Siren version is full of splices and gaps in the audio as well as some audio distortion, so many small portions of the soundtrack had to be carefully patched using the audio from the Classic Media DVD.
  • The Walter Reade Organization logo was reinstated before the title card. The version used here was in effect a collaborative effort: The icon and text were recreated by Video Collector from OriginalTrilogy.com, and placed/scaled using an actual image of the logo. The recreation made by goji1986 for his Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster reconstruction was used as a reference for the starfield; I made the background.
  • The original “The End” title card was recreated using the Siren DVD as a reference; its “stretched” appearance (similar to the opening credits) is apparently how it really would have appeared in a scope print.
Merry Christmas, folks!

Original post:
Well, now that I've decided I'm officially done with Godzilla 1985, it's time for me to move on to my next project, an HD reconstruction of the original US version of Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster.

I'll be using the Classic Media DVD as my base/reference, and my bootleg copy of the Toho Blu-ray as my source for the HD Japanese footage. I'll also be accurately recreating the original ending title, as well as reinstating the Walter Reade-Sterling logo if I can find a reference for it. (I've read things that imply that it appeared at the beginning before the title card, but it's not clear to me whether any existing home video releases have retained it.)

All in all this should be a pretty simple project, certainly simpler than Godzilla 1985, so right now I'm aiming to have it out in time for Christmas. After that, I'll be moving on to Monster Zero in (hopefully) January, followed by Godzilla vs. the Thing, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, the US TV version of Son of Godzilla and (just for shits and giggles because Great Hierohpant sent me the Simitar DVD) Godzilla's Revenge throughout the rest of next year.

As I write this, I'm about to start ripping the Japanese version and then grab some dinner. I'll probably set up the project and get started later tonight.
Last edited by omgitsgodzilla on Sat Dec 24, 2016 11:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Bigdog
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by Bigdog »

Here's a few references to the logo.




Image

As far as I did my limited research, the original logo for the movie was replaced with just the year and copyright. You'll likely encounter this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0XE5UGRf8w&t=4s

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

I appreciate you digging that up! I'm actually familiar with the logo; what I meant by a reference was an example of how it appeared in this particular film - in particular, whether it had that little fanfare playing or the original score that played over the Toho logo. (I've seen references to the logo that implied it appeared at the beginning of the film in place of the Toho logo.)

Also, I've begun working on syncing the HD footage and I've discovered something interesting. During the scene with Shindo and Naoko at home with their mother there's an audio hiccup where the original film was spliced and had a few frames missing; the people doing the recreated version for the DVD apparently missed that and there's at least a solid 15 seconds where the audio and video are noticeably out of sync. I'm currently debating on a couple different ways of dealing with that, namely replicating the splice or hiding it in a cut that takes place shortly after the sound skips. (I'll whip up a quick video demonstration in a second here.
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by Kore321 »

Awesome! Some great reconstructions coming in the new year! Am waiting to see your Smog Monster one. I do have the Orion VHS of it. Did you ever get the reconstruction that someone did a few years ago? I was never able to find it, just screen grabs of the project.

Keep up the great work!

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by goji1986 »

If you want you can use my version of the WR Logo I put before the Sea Monster reconstruction!
PM me for Godzilla versus The Sea Monster Titra Dub HD reconstruction! BLURAY-READY EDITION NOW AVAILABLE!
(Former V2.0 still available as well)
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5561

Godzilla vs The Smog Monster AIP Dub HD reconstruction COMPLETE!
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=26132

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

Here's the demonstration of that sync issue: https://vimeo.com/194136932

YouTube keeps flagging my shit for copyright infringement so I had to put it on Vimeo.
Kore321 wrote:Awesome! Some great reconstructions coming in the new year! Am waiting to see your Smog Monster one. I do have the Orion VHS of it. Did you ever get the reconstruction that someone did a few years ago? I was never able to find it, just screen grabs of the project.

Keep up the great work!
Thanks! And I think I used to have the one you're talking about, but I don't have it anymore.
goji1986 wrote:If you want you can use my version of the WR Logo I put before the Sea Monster reconstruction!
Much obliged, thank you!
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by Bigdog »

omgitsgodzilla wrote:I appreciate you digging that up! I'm actually familiar with the logo; what I meant by a reference was an example of how it appeared in this particular film - in particular, whether it had that little fanfare playing or the original score that played over the Toho logo. (I've seen references to the logo that implied it appeared at the beginning of the film in place of the Toho logo.)

Also, I've begun working on syncing the HD footage and I've discovered something interesting. During the scene with Shindo and Naoko at home with their mother there's an audio hiccup where the original film was spliced and had a few frames missing; the people doing the recreated version for the DVD apparently missed that and there's at least a solid 15 seconds where the audio and video are noticeably out of sync. I'm currently debating on a couple different ways of dealing with that, namely replicating the splice or hiding it in a cut that takes place shortly after the sound skips. (I'll whip up a quick video demonstration in a second here.
I haven't been able to find the particular logo just yet for the Ghidrah film, and from reading the post about releases, it doesn't seem to currently exist.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by GodzillaFanatic2001 »

Here's another little goof from the DVD reconstruction.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xuvf04 ... shortfilms
HayesAJones wrote:
Godzilla 2000 wrote:Its harmless fun, pure and simple.
As opposed to those dangerously fun movies.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

Ooh, thanks for pointing that out! I actually already went over that scene last night; I'd have just left it otherwise. I'll fix that in a second here.

Are there any other mistakes I should be aware of? (Is there maybe a list somewhere?)
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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None that I'm aware of, but I'm sure that someone on here could help you out. I do know that one shot of Infant Island is supposed to run a lot longer in the US cut, but I have no idea where. Also, it originally had a different end card.
HayesAJones wrote:
Godzilla 2000 wrote:Its harmless fun, pure and simple.
As opposed to those dangerously fun movies.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

I think I've read that the final shot was slowed down on the Classic Media DVD to compensate for the Japanese end title card appearing so early. Shouldn't be difficult to mask it off and re-create the original "The End" title.

Added in 21 minutes 2 seconds:
This is turning out to be kind of enlightening in the same way reconstructing Godzilla 1985 was. I've seen both versions of this movie a number of times over the years, but I never really noticed just how extensively the US version reworks the order of the scenes and even the content of the scenes themselves. For instance, the scene where Godzilla comes ashore right after the assassination attempt on Princess Salno at the hotel is really extensively re-cut.
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

Post by GodzillaFanatic2001 »

Ya, I've noticed that. Same with Rodan's birth. I'm pretty sure that a bunch of crowd scenes during the Godzilla vs Rodan fight are jumbled around as well. Out of curiosity, what would you use to mask off the "end" symbol?
HayesAJones wrote:
Godzilla 2000 wrote:Its harmless fun, pure and simple.
As opposed to those dangerously fun movies.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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I'd either use part of the video you linked me to, or perhaps even just part of the same shot from the Blu-ray if I could swing that. That's what I did on Destroy All Monsters; the ending title card appears almost immediately after that dissolve to the shot of Monsterland in the Japanese version.
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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By part of the same shot, you mean just looping part of the footage from before the symbol pops up? Neat idea, I wouldn't have thought of that.
HayesAJones wrote:
Godzilla 2000 wrote:Its harmless fun, pure and simple.
As opposed to those dangerously fun movies.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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It's actually a trick I discovered when I was working on a version of Gamera the Brave with English visuals, and I discovered that because the title actually appears over a totally static shot I could actually cover it up by using an earlier part of the shot
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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I presume that you'll do the same for the opening credits?
HayesAJones wrote:
Godzilla 2000 wrote:Its harmless fun, pure and simple.
As opposed to those dangerously fun movies.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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I have an unofficial reconstruction in SD and for the shot just before "THE END", it uses VHS-quality footage (panned and scanned) whereas it used the Classic Media quality footage for the rest of the film. It did this probably to avoid the issue of using the Japanese footage and its owari.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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GodzillaFanatic2001 wrote:I presume that you'll do the same for the opening credits?
The opening credits should be even easier, seeing as they appear over freeze-frames and there are frames of the backgrounds between when one set of credits disappears and the next appears, so that won't require any masking at all.
Great Hierophant wrote:I have an unofficial reconstruction in SD and for the shot just before "THE END", it uses VHS-quality footage (panned and scanned) whereas it used the Classic Media quality footage for the rest of the film. It did this probably to avoid the issue of using the Japanese footage and its owari.
Is this the reconstruction you messaged me about? (Sorry for not getting back to you by the way, yesterday was a bit busy.) Yeah, my goal is generally to avoid actually using SD materials wherever possible - It would be easy enough to do a quick-and-dirty reconstruction by using the English credits that appear on the CM DVD, but I don't want to do that. I might have to use the SD material to mask off the "Owari" if I can't fake it well enough with other methods though.

Also, Vegas has been freezing and crashing on me repeatedly and more and more frequently to the point where I basically can’t get any work done. It also glitches and misreads the video file that I remuxed the Blu-ray video to for editing a lot, so I suspect it’s something to do with that file. As such, I’ve muxed a new file with a different program and I’m going to start over and see if that works any better. (This shouldn’t really be a significant setback; I managed to get something like 40-45 minutes into the movie with probably less than six hours of actual work - most of the time I’ve spent on it in the past couple days has just been battling Vegas.)
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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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omgitsgodzilla wrote:
Great Hierophant wrote:I have an unofficial reconstruction in SD and for the shot just before "THE END", it uses VHS-quality footage (panned and scanned) whereas it used the Classic Media quality footage for the rest of the film. It did this probably to avoid the issue of using the Japanese footage and its owari.
Is this the reconstruction you messaged me about? (Sorry for not getting back to you by the way, yesterday was a bit busy.) Yeah, my goal is generally to avoid actually using SD materials wherever possible - It would be easy enough to do a quick-and-dirty reconstruction by using the English credits that appear on the CM DVD, but I don't want to do that. I might have to use the SD material to mask off the "Owari" if I can't fake it well enough with other methods though.
Yes. In the reconstruction I have, the image (Panned and Scanned from VHS) is shoehorned to the right side of the screen for the shot where Mothra swims away in the water. I hope you can improve on it.

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Re: Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster HD reconstruction

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Looking at the last shot of the Japanese Blu-ray, it looks like the "Owari" doesn't actually cover Mothra, just some of the water, making it even easier to mask off. That shot should be no problem at all.

Added in 22 hours 6 minutes 39 seconds:


Finished syncing last night! Now all that's left is the opening credits, then rendering and testing and so on.
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