Another Columbia pan & scan travesty - "Castle Keep' (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

There should be no problem with the Gidget films being released flat.

Cinematographer, Burnett Guffey, did beautiful work on films like Bonnie and Clyde, In a Lonely Place, Reckless Moment, Knock on Any Door, From Here to Eternity and All the King's Men -- all shot flat.

Since only the sides are being removed, there will be no problem with dolly tracks, booms, etc. This might have been problematic if the top and bottom of the frame were to be adapted.

Further, since only the first of the series, the original 1959 Gidget was shot in CinemaScope, and the following two were not, the shape of the packaging would have to be modified to properly hold the first film. Apparently, the way that the release has been planned, all three films can fit in a standard non-widescreen DVD box, as opposed to the anamorphic widescreen variant.

On the other hand, it seems possible (hopeful) that those in the decision-making process at the studio are even now re-visiting the entire concept of pan & scan only DVD releases and may do an abrupt U-turn. I doubt that the marketing people can be happy with reviews as set forth by Glenn Erickson and others.

Home video is a new concept which can be confusing. More VHS releases in pan & scan are needed until the HiDef gates shortly open. When this occurs, and NTSC DVDs are no longer available, the VHS crowd, which makes up the greatest number of current home video sales, will be forced kicking and screaming to do anything to fill the ugly black bars on the sides of their new HiDef 16:9 televisions. They can make the move directly from VHS to HiDef, skipping the NTSC market entirely.

What is probably needed, once standards for HiDef are accepted by all, are concurrent releases of HiDef and NTSC. (Flippers?) Without this, DVD sales could easily fall into the abyss until HiDef is fully on line.

And with DVD as a niche market filled with cineastes, it must further be understood that only a paltry eighty million players have been sold. A pittance, hardly worth major vendors giving shelf space to current DVD product.

 

[Zachary Cohen]

I'm sorry but:

what the hell?

 

[Robert Ringwald]

He was joking.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Man, everytime I go into a store, no matter if it's a grocery store, a Wal Mart type or a Best Buy clone these stores are giving more space to DVDs and DVD related products because it's the one group of merchandise that's making them some serious money via sales. As I stated earlier there are still some people without dvd players, but the ranks of those people are shrinking because the players are so cheap now. Such people might not have a proper HT setup to reap the full pleasure of seeing a movie in the best home video format available to them now, but they're still buying these cheap players and hooking them up to their old televison A/V jacks. DVDS are no longer a niche market!







Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

They had a history of doing so and most of the time they still do, but the frequency of not doing so has increased the last couple of years. Off the top of my head, I just don't understand why the following Columbia DVDS were not released in their anamorphic OAR.

• Ship of Fools
• Cowboy
• Anatomy of a Murder
• Devil at 4 O'Clock??? (I got to double check this title)
• Just One of the Guys
• The Slugger's Wife
• Quicksilver
• Rocket Gibraltar
• The Trouble with Angels
• Wholly Moses

The following classic film releases were not up to standard they set with His Girl Friday.

• You Can't Take it with You
• The Awful Truth
• The Talk of the Town

Furthermore, I heard there was a problem with the audio presentation of the SE release of A League of their Own.

IMO, I think Columbia needs to cleanup their act. All of the studios are not perfect, but some are doing a better job of releasing their product in quality presentations. Warner, Paramount, Fox and even Disney and Universal to a certain degree have raised the bar and Columbia needs to follow suit. Again, all of the studios I've mentioned have misstepped in some regard with a particular dvd release(s), but from those studios I see either a consistency or an improvement upon their past performance. Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, I can't say the same thing about Columbia.

Anyhow, I'll get off my soapbox, but I want Columbia to be the type of supplier of dvd product that they were back in 2001. Again, I don't want to see anybody fired and such talk is too irrational and emotional for me to take part in because these are people livelihoods we're talking about here. In closing, Columbia has come a way with their price structure, but they would sell more of their catelogue releases if they were more reasonably priced similar to their competitors. Example being, if I'm interested in buying one of two catelogue titles, but I'm not real sure which one of them I want in my collection and it comes down to price and let's say its between a Paramount and Columbia title, guess which one I'm going to buy? However, since I'm boycotting buying any Columbia releases that example won't happen, unless, Columbia starts addressing some of the issues brought up in this thread.






Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Harris]

Crawdaddy...

Yes, of course I was kidding about many of the points.

One of the small, but remaining problems can still be found in a number of home video executivese who still don't understand the market in general. Most likely raised on VHS, there is still a few who can't seem to get beyond the VHS mentality or what they believe the public desires.

I'm not speaking solely about Sony here.

In April of 1997, when this experiment niche, very questionable market opened in a small number of cities, the majority of the studios had taken a "wait and see" attitude toward DVD. At Universal the feeling was that they didn't want to put any more product on a DVD than there was on the corresponding laserdisc -- Now THERE was a niche product.

With an extremely limited home for track information -- the latest were streams for DTS or AC-3 in addition to two track stereo and the ability to trade space for other purposes, our request that the extant mono track for the "Vertigo" restoration could not be added to the laser.

When time came for DVD the edict was that since laser was the prime market and DVD might yet fail, that they didn't want to give anything extra to the DVD audience. Even if adding another mono track was technically easy. It was a pure marketing decision

Experiments had been ongoing at Universal's compression center for quite a while -- I recall seeing test pressings of some films in late '95, early '96...

and I was astounded at the overall quality and lack of analogue noise.

Warner certainly jumped on the bandwagon. Sony was doing HiDef transfers on their own equipment.

With immediacy a certain number of shocked studio people realized that DVD might actually be something. They had to get titles into the marketplace, but didn't have decent masters to compress.

This gave us a large number of non-anamorphic widescreen releases and many pan & scan -- both left over from either laserdisc or VHS releases.

What I found personally shocking was how little some of them understood about the the marketplace, the potential buyer and the format in general.

Rather than do nothing -- which would have been correct -- and then prepare new transfers from new elements, we continued -- and continue -- to get laser prepared masters from some and VHS from others.

While some on this board are upset with Sony for the quality of some releases, especially older black & white classics and new pan & scans, they are not the great offender.

And I do believe that the message has made its way to Culver City. Many classic titles must be either re-mastered or individually restored after the proper elements are located.

This is a major effort which has been ongoing. Titles such as You Can't Take It With You and The Awful Truth don't look as they should and most likely have been published based upon old transfers.

What I can tell you with certainty is that a superb archival system is in place with Grover Crisp at the helm. As he is able to pull together surviving elements, you'll be seeing more films looking like In a Lonely Place.

But it all takes time, and in some cases the search for proper elements continues.

I don't want to sound like Henny Youngman, but "take M-G-M."

Here is a real problem.

While work continues to preserve their library -- something which has not occurred over the past half century -- the home video executives somehow continue to relate DVD to "home video" and "home video" to VHS.

If "A" equals "B" and...

But it doesn't.

There is no excuse for a release like a beautifully packaged, but technical failure like West Side Story. It should be re-called. Period.

There was once a filmmaker named Billy Wilder.

He made some decent films. Many in black & white.

There was one called Some Like it Hot.

It was generally well received by the public and had some decent attributes.
That Lemmon fellow was in it.

Some Like it Hot is a slightly more important film than Castle Keep. I believe even Mr. Pollack would agree.

Why does M-G-M see fit to release it in a Special Edition as non-anamorphic product? What this means for those who have not yet moved up to wide screen monitors, is that the film can only be viewed with any quality on a NON wide screen monitor.

As a 1.66:1 release, using the zoom function on widescreen will cause further cropping of the image and a magnification of digital artifacts.

There was once a filmmaker named Stanley Kramer.

He made some decent films. Many in black & white.

There was one called Judgment at Nuremberg.

It was also generally well received by the public.

So why, in 2004, does M-G-M not understand that anamorphic thing?

With more and more people taking home wide screen monitors, why would they use an old trasnsfer for Judgment at Nuremberg?

While I can fully understand that someone out there is passionate about a film which hasn't made it to the lists of others, there are some which should bring more of an uproar than what is essentially a silly tactical error of releasing Castle Keep as well... half a film.

I won't even touch on Artisan. Talk about problems.

When will people learn that they can't pull a ten year old transfer off the shelf and use it DVD?

Getting back to Crawdaddy...

What I was serious about was the problem of continued sales of DVDs during that lag time between the initial HiDef players hitting the market and software catching up.

While I must believe that all studio product is transferred today in HiDef and then down-rezzed to NTSC for DVD, I have concerns about the marketing and sale of the new product while the old has not yet caught up in quality.

Will two releases be offered concurrently? One fit for the DVD (just come over from VHS) crowd, and another for the new niche market of HiDef?

With so many fine films in release in NTSC DVD, and many in the pipeline, will the buying public simply stop buying standard definition and do nothing until titles are re-issued in HiDef?

Will both formats be available on a single disc for that interim period?

I don't have the answers.

But by the time this occurs in 12 - 18 months, there will be over 100 million standard definition players in homes.

What I can tell you with absolute certainly is that with the barre being raised for the quality of the video image, that not only older transfers, but imperfect film elements will be more and more obvious as unworkable.

I'm hopeful that with HiDef DVD driving the studio libraries, and the need for higher quality images coming to the fore, that the studio preservation budgets will become commensurately higher.

There are still situations out there where there is a question about precisely what division is going to pay for a new master or the film element necessary to create that master.

If a film is newer and widescreen, should that come solely from a post-production budget. Should it be shared between the asset protectiion program and home video? Should foreign be picking up a piece of the cost, and what proportion?

If a film is not widescreen, and is fifty years old or older, should home video be paying for the cost of a restoration or for new preservation elements which would allow a proper transfer?

Or should home video be looking to the assset protection area under the guise that the film needs to be saved anyway. Why should home video have to pay to restore it?

You see where all this is going.

It's going to be interesting to see how all this irons itself out.

Will Artisan will still be releasing VHS quality transfers of The Quiet Man and The Last Emperor into the new High Definition marketplace.

The other point that I was serious about is that I must believe that

1, Sony has gotten the message on pan & scan and that...

2, Ms. Eiggers should not be the HTF scapegoat of the month. She's just trying to do her job.

I'll try to remember to put smiley faces after dark humor in the future, once I figure out how to do it.

RAH

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Ah!

Now, here is the conundrum, right?

Could it be, that CTS, owned by Sony and already committed to supporting Blu-Ray starting in Fall 2005, is purposely putting out Annie, Castle Keep and other decent catalog titles in P&S on DVD, and then will release the Widescreen versions of these movies to Blu-Ray exclusively as part of the Fall 2005 launch??!

Is that why we still don't have a Widescreen Karate Kid on DVD? Will that movie be part of the Fall 2005 launch of Blu-Ray? Is Columbia, in fact, stockpiling catalog films for proper releases to Blu-Ray later?

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Ah! You could be onto something there, Joseph.

 

[Jack Briggs]

The situation with Columbia-Tristar certainly may be deplorable, but I sure am enjoying this thread — especially the dialogue between Robert Harris and Crawdaddy.

Some of the best-looking discs in my library come from this studio. And just when you think everything is good and cool in this world, along comes a marketing misstep like this.

 

[JPCinema]

It seems to me that the difference between , say, Warners vs Columbia is that the individuals who make the decisions such as aspect ratio and selection of titles is, knowledge of film history and passion about film.
The recent bad decisions at Columbia seem to be made by under 30 individuals who are working at a "job" with a bean counter mentality with little or no passion or knowledge of film. Whereas Warners and certainly Criterion seem to regard film and its release to DVD as art and treated as such.
I hope that perhaps Columbia/ Sony will re think who makes these decisions and will subsequently hire individuals who really care about film.
I certainly would volunteer, for free!

 

[Robert Harris]

In the Warner camp...

Two words.

George Feltenstein.

RAH

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, we agree on one issue. Now, that is a name that I associate with somebody that really cares about the product he's putting out there in the marketplace. There is a thread in the Software archives that I started back in the 2001 timeframe, in which I bashed Warner like they were my red-headed stepchild. My beef back then was their lack of catelogue film DVDs out the door. Today, such a concern is long gone and I spend a good deal of my money on Warner products.







Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

Jack,
My frustration with Columbia has been building up for some time and the news about Castle Keep really got me to the point of releasing some of that frustration in this thread. I don't like to worry about whether Columbia is going to release such films like They Came to Cordura and Lord Jim on DVD in their OAR.






Crawdaddy

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

If Lord Jim is released on DVD with a 4:3 pan and scan transfer then all hell will be let loose on the Net.

 

[Thomas T]

Mr. Crawford, you can remove Devil At 4 O'Clock from your list as the film is 1.85 letterboxed. So far the announcements that I've read show both Cordura and Lord Jim to be released in their original CinemaScope formats.

 

[Robert Harris]

Lord Jim was a spherical production.

 

[Christian Preischl]

According to DVD Times, the Region 2 version of Castle Keep, also released by Columbia, will be widescreen (the aspect ratio is incorrectly listed as 1,85:1 in the article, but the comments below correct that mistake). So once again, R1 gets a P&S release from Columbia where R2 gets a widescreen one (the SEs of Annie and Mathilda come to mind).

Chris

 

[JulianK]

Columbia's UK trade website says Castle Keep is in 1.85:1, which is an error, I believe. The sleeve on the site shows it to be 2.35:1 anamorphic.

I did send this information to Savant, for the benefit of his readers, but he replied saying that he wasn't interested because of PAL speedup.

The spec's for the R2 version of Lord Jim aren't on Columbia's website yet.

 

[Jay E]

Thank God I have a multi-region player.

I guess Columbia believes that people in the UK are smarter than here in America...they obviously know what side of the DVD to play:rolleyes

Columbia has a long list of DVDs released in non-OAR over the last few years. This isn't something new and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

 

[Ken Horowitz]

This is indeed a huge issue, particularly with catalog titles. I've worked at several studios and have seen this first-hand. With bonuses based on the performance of one's own division, there are often scrambles to get some other division to pay the costs.

That said, I'd be willing to bet that at all studios (yes, even Artisan and MGM), there are people who believe in doing things right -- but without the authority of someone like George Feltenstein. And these powerless folks are as angry as any of us at the quality of product put out by their bosses.