Someone’s Trying To Fully Restore That Obscure Super Mario Anime
So, as one does when one runs a Twitter account that’s centered on video games, I tried to be “part of the conversation” by participating in this year’s Mario Day. Generally speaking I avoid hopping on the bandwagon, yet I like retweets as much as the next person, so as with all other similar situations, I use the chance to unload everything that happens to be related and which I’ve been saving for some time now.
In this case, a ton of various odds & ends from suppermariobroth & smallmariofindings that’s been in my war chest of stuff to post… Point being, the day (which might be one of the fakest of fake holidays to be concocted by some company’s marketing department in recent memory) was hardly special. That was until I came across a Twitter account belonging to one Stian Schultz.
I honestly don’t know much about Stian; he has a homepage that has a few precious morsels of personal information, largely due to the fact that much of his official web presence is apparently offline. Though the placeholder, I guess, tells us that he’s based out of Norway and runs a company that handles Norwegian/English video game translations.
I plan on reaching out to him shortly after I publish this point… or maybe I’ll wait till this coronavirus deal blows over, not sure which first yet… cuz I need more info on what Stian is doing. Something that has me so excited that I absolutely needed to say something ASAP (yes, this is a transparent attempt at me going “I saw it first”; at a time in which everyone is hunting for game culture artifacts, you basically have to lay your claim ASAP as well).
Anyhow, are you familiar with the Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!? It’s an anime circa 1986 and is a loose translation of the very first Super Mario Bros. According to its Wikipedia entry: “It is notable for being the first movie based on a video game, predating the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie by seven years.” And a self professed video game cinephile… that sounds about right actually.
Here it is for those who haven’t seen it…
… The above claims to be “Restored” & “Best Quality!”, with both descriptors being technically true. At least for right now. But Stian is in the process of fully restoring the rather obscure anime. Actually, from the sounds of it (again, I hope to get more details eventually), it’s a project that’s been in the works for some time now.
To make it happen, Stian is utilizing elements hailing from “Two VHS tapes, vinyl soundtrack and single, and a cell comic. All digitized through an LG RC185 and an ION iTTUSB Turntable.”
Though the heart of it is an 16mm print! Not only that, but also: “The vinyl soundtrack has been re-ripped via a combination of this rega turntable, hooked up through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 via a rega Fono Mini A2D pre-amp (which has it’s own USB interface, but I prefer the Focusrite).”
At the very top of this post is one of scanned frames. Some additional intel: “I want to avoid using DNR filters (no Disney level detail butchery on my watch). Thankfully, since the movie is basically done in doubles, it’s very easy to clean up dust/lint — even horrible splices like this — by simply using the nearest frame as a partial donor/match.
In the same sequence, despite the tape harming an identical frame, there’s still matching duplicates available to use as donors, making it very easy to remove dirt — and even the tape itself — whilst [simultaneously] keeping as much of the original frame intact as possible.”
“For those curious about technical stuff: Each frame in the current editing flow is at a resolution of 2736x2192(!). The project folder is currently at nearing 300gb(!!). Each manually edited frame is a 22.9 MB tif.”
Once again, this all so crazy awesome that I had to share! I hope to sooner or later speak with Stian and provide a closer look at the history of the project, specifics regarding the workflow, and more! Also, apologies in advance if this is old news; been so damn busy with grad school that I haven’t been on Tumblr proper in ages.
Originally published at blog.attractmo.de.
