Despite the fact that I recently announced that I would edit WDC5 in 4K and release in Full-HD.
Blade Runner White Dragon Cut 5 will be edited in Full-HD and released in Full-HD.
The reason why I changed the way of editing is because the image quality of the unused SD quality scenes were too different from the original 4K quality when they were converted to 4K. The limit of SD quality upscaling would be Full-HD. However, I’m planning to edit some scenes composited with CG in 4K.
Also, I completely shifted my editing environment from “Final Cut Pro” and “Shake” to “Premiere Pro” and “After Effects”. I am used to using “Final Cut Pro” and “Shake”, but “Final Cut Pro” is not compatible with the latest version of “Final Cut X” at all, and “Shake” has already been discontinued. These software don’t work on the latest MacOS, so I had to shift environment someday.
Now, I’m redoing the editing of WDC5 from scratch in Full-HD, and I often notice new things in Full-HD quality.
For example, this main title used in White Dragon Cut 4
This is the main title of White Dragon Cut 4 using the main title of alternate version included in Bonus Disk of “Blade Runner Final Cut”.
The image of water droplets falling seems to be suggestive of Roy’s line “Like tears in rain” at the end of the film, which is my favorite main title. However, when I took a second look at it, I noticed that the title character is not noticeable because it is separated on the left and right side of water droplets. And there is quite a bit of noise in the blue background of the water droplets.
I want to make the title character stand out while leaving a drop of water image.
So I decided to do a good portion of the main title of the original version and alternate version of the main title.
By the way, this is the main title of the original version.
I composited the water droplets in alternate version on the main title of the original version. Fortunately, the background of the water droplets was all blue, so I just pressed a button on “Premiere Pro” to complete the compositing without some adjustments.
I used the “Super Key” effect in “Premiere Pro” for the compositing with chroma keys, and it’s awesome! the chroma key effect of “Shake” was one of the most accurate chroma keys for its time, about 15 years ago, but I don’t think it was as accurate as this. I think one of the reasons for the increase in accuracy is that the resolution has gone up from SD to Full-HD, but I was honestly surprised at the improvement in technology over 15 years.
The title character is slightly glowed to make it easier to see when it overlaps with the water droplets. Also, the color of the water droplets is matched with the color of the film images.
I think it is getting good. What do you think about it?