Hero trooper helmets...Green vs smoke tinted

The keyword there is COULD be green Rune i agree with that i dont however agree with it being PROOF.
I've cropped this from one of your images and it clearly shows green elements on the MG34 i've checked this with the colour picker tool in photoshop so im afraid the process used does change the relation of colours we know that there is no green present on the MG34.
greenmg.jpg
 
Jez asked for a gamma adjusted version of a tie-pilot, this is from the FF version of the recent dvd release:

tiepilot.jpg


See how you quite clearly can see the eyes through the smoked lenses? And they have no green tint at all?

Here's my take on the case:

I think the dark grey plastic was too bright for the shoot, and that you actually could see the actors through the lenses on the hero troopers. That's why they went with something darker - and a colour that is the complimentary to skin colour - in order to make the eyes/skin almost invisible to light shining inside the helmet. As you might know, green is complimentary to red - and will subtract the red away turning it black. Skin isn't red of course, it's pinkish - but using green would still be a lot more effective than just grey.

Rune
 
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You pointed at one of the things that makes this hard to see for some. Any film material with a gained gamma will expose more grain, and the grain will pop out the most in dark areas. The grain is mulitcoloured, so you'd have spots of green, blue, red all over the place. However, the eyes of the trooper has a uniform, large are of green, that tells me this is not just a splotch of grain. If you look at the more softer (meaning less sharpness and thus less grain) transfer from the OT, you can see that the green eyes are much clearer there on that same shot.

defstartrooper said:
The keyword there is COULD be green Rune i agree with that i dont however agree with it being PROOF.
I've cropped this from one of your images and it clearly shows green elements on the MG34 i've checked this with the colour picker tool in photoshop so im afraid the process used does change the relation of colours we know that there is no green present on the MG34.
greenmg.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Below is the same part i cropped from your OT image i checked this in photoshop also with the colour picker tool there is no green present in the eyes infact it shows as grey.
greyhero.jpg

I also did the same test with your saturated image from the OT this also showed no green element
 
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superrune said:
See how you quite clearly can see the eyes through the smoked lenses? And they have no green tint at all?

Here's my take on the case:

I think the dark grey plastic was too bright for the shoot, and that you actually could see the actors through the lenses on the hero troopers. That's why they went with something darker - and a colour that is the complimentary to skin colour -Rune
Click to expand...

That's quite a interesting argument and one that has some logic to it Rune.

For the record the TIE's were completed about a month AFTER the Hero's. Not that this necessarily affects your argument, only it would possibly be odd to have not done the same thing with the TIE's if they had found a problem with the Hero's.

Cheers

Jez
Edit - Anson that is funny :lol
 
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Joking aside the hero lenses were DEFINATELY green.
Look at the screen caps from the making of Star Wars - it's even more apparent if you're looking at the show itself.
I think it makes sense that if the stunt lenses were green then the same colour would be used on the hero's only in 'bubbled' form...

They're green.
 
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defstartrooper said:
Below is the same part i cropped from your OT image i checked this in photoshop also with the colour picker tool there is no green present in the eyes infact it shows as grey.
greyhero.jpg

I also did the same test with your saturated image from the OT this also showed no green element
Click to expand...

My bad on that one. That's not the best of stills, the frames right after that is much better. It has a slight tinge of green in my Photoshop, but it's just 2-5% more than the other channels. Try blurring it a bit in PS, that takes out a bit of the noise in the image.

If I get the time tomorrow at work, I can take the entire sequence and make a gained quicktime out of it. It's looks way more convincing in motion.

Jez, thanks. The more I think about that argument, the more sense it makes to me. Of course, I have absolutely zero knowledge about the manufacturers and what happened back in the day. But I would guess that if the trooper bubbles were the same as the Tie's, we would see a lot more skin colour and eyes everywhere.

Rune
 
The fact that the lenses in the making of Star wars caps look so obviously green and the ones from ANH dont makes me lean more towards the lenses being different to me
 
This thread is amazing - the making of Star Wars video quite clearly shows the hero lenses as being green.
All the screencaps that have been gamma corrected show the lenses as green.

What conclusion would that lead you to normally?

I'm thinking folks are starting to miss all those old threads about AA/SDS swoops where everyone just argued until they were blue in the face...
 
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I think i showed above that gamma correction can be misleading the image i cropped from the HD version which shows green lenses also shows a green MG34 the same section cropped from the OT version when checked with the colour picker tool shows no green in the lenses.
The making of Star wars footage showing green lenses was filmed after production wasn't it ?
On the flip side the guy that made the helmets says they were grey and has paperwork showing that the grey material was bought although i by no means accept this story as proof either.

Therefore im still unconvinced completely either way.
I'm not saying they are green im not saying they are grey
 
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Just a question with regards to the art department not having a vac-former....who did the lenses for Vader?? I'm not being a smart ass....I was under the impression that AA did not contribute anything to Vader, yet someone made those bubble lenses. Is it plausible that whoever made the Vader lenses also made the trooper hero lenses?
 
I agree.
I don't think that the vader lenses or the hero trooper lenses were vac formed at all.
 
Is there a scene we could enhance that shows a background trooper having green lenses?
Every one I've checked doesn't even show a hint of green at all and we know for a fact those lenses were green.

IMO the the screencap from the Making Of is so entirely yellowy green that the color of the lenses is suspect. Besides that you need light coming from inside the helmet for a clear color read and that highlight on the front trooper is a direct reflection of the studio lights.
 
Tell me again, why Mark Hamill's comment is dismissed? Seems to me, between that comment and unaltered screen caps, there is absolutely no disputing this issue.

After really taking a good look at some OT footage, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride F'n with you! F' pride! Pride only hurts, it never helps... You gotta fight through that shi!.
 
BactaReality said:
Tell me again, why Mark Hamill's comment is dismissed? Seems to me, between that comment and unaltered screen caps, there is absolutely no disputing this issue.

After really taking a good look at some OT footage, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride F'n with you! F' pride! Pride only hurts, it never helps... You gotta fight through that shi!.
Click to expand...

Wheres the unaltered screencap showing green bubbles then i must have missed that :unsure
 
Spend some minutes thinking about the tie pilot image I posted. If the tie and the hero troopers eye bubbles were made at the same time, they would have been bright enough to show the eyes/face of Hamill and Harrison.
 
Based on what we know, I think smoke tinted lenses were made for the hero helmets (same as the TIE lenses) by AA, but ultimately ended up not being used.
Basically, AA was not responsible for the green lenses, flat or bubbled.
He also was not responsible for the detailing of any of the helmets or pilot chestboxes.
 
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