Recoloring the last scene in Taxi Driver

[Radio Radio]

So this is probably an ambitious undertaking but I want to play around with my DVD of Taxi Driver and try my hand at recoloring the final shootout scene. The scene had to be desaturated in order to avoid an X-Rating so the red blood ends up looking like a strange pinkish brown. The other colors in this scene appear quite dull.

There are some photos of how the "real" colors looked:



Now I know I will never to be able to get it to look EXACTLY like these photos. But I'm hoping I can make the colors a bit more vibrant. And have the blood look like a real red.

So far I've been experimenting with virtualdub and avisynth filters, playing around with hue, saturation, brightness/contrast etc. But I don't really know what I'm doing.

Any help/advice/tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Brad]

It isn't possible. The guy in charge of transferring the film negative to 4K said so.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/featured/interviews/grover-crisp-restoration-of-taxi-driver

[Radio Radio]

It isn't possible. The guy in charge of transferring the film negative to 4K said so.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/featured/interviews/grover-crisp-restoration-of-taxi-driver

I know its not possible to "restore" it, I'm just talking about trying to recolor it to get it closer to what it was supposed to be.

[budwzr]

You're going to need an NLE. Create a red channel mask, then Secondary Color Corrector. You may have to channel blend too, to isolate the right hue.

[smrpix]

I know its not possible to "restore" it, I'm just talking about trying to recolor it to get it closer to what it was supposed to be.

Did you notice this sentence? "The director feels it best to leave the film as it is."

Perhaps next you'd like to cut to a close-up in the scene where Travis is alone in the campaign office with the Cybil Shepard character because you're supposed to be closer to him when he's revealing himself this intimately.

Maybe you'd like to fix the matte jump in the opening titles of "New York New York" because obviously you know better than Scorsese how these things should be.

Actually, nothing wrong with playing with it for your own amusement -- but don't mistake your opinion for the way it's supposed to be.

[Radio Radio]

I know its not possible to "restore" it, I'm just talking about trying to recolor it to get it closer to what it was supposed to be.

Did you notice this sentence? "The director feels it best to leave the film as it is."

Perhaps next you'd like to cut to a close-up in the scene where Travis is alone in the campaign office with the Cybil Shepard character because you're supposed to be closer to him when he's revealing himself this intimately.

Maybe you'd like to fix the matte jump in the opening titles of "New York New York" because obviously you know better than Scorsese how these things should be.

Actually, nothing wrong with playing with it for your own amusement -- but don't mistake your opinion for the way it's supposed to be.

Yikes! I'm fully aware of both Michael Chapman's and Martin Scorcese's opinions of the color issue with the final scene. In no way was I trying to assert myself as the authority on Taxi Driver. It's one of my favorite films, and I was asking about this because: 1) I'd like to learn more about recoloring 2) This seems like a fun little personal project.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "closer to the way it was supposed to be" and instead have said "closer to these example photos taken by Steve Schapiro" and "closer to what it might have looked like before the image was desaturated."

[Radio Radio]

You're going to need an NLE. Create a red channel mask, then Secondary Color Corrector. You may have to channel blend too, to isolate the right hue.

Thanks for the tips budwzr! What NLE would you recommend? Sony Vegas Pro? Or is there another NLE you might recommend?

[budwzr]

You're going to need an NLE. Create a red channel mask, then Secondary Color Corrector. You may have to channel blend too, to isolate the right hue.

Thanks for the tips budwzr! What NLE would you recommend? Sony Vegas Pro? Or is there another NLE you might recommend?

I'm not familiar with any others.