Master and Commander.....Details (1 Viewer)

[JoshB]

20th Century Fox is releasing it, but several other big studios were part of the production of the film, including Miramax and Universal. I could understand several studios being involved in the project, since the budget was close to $150 million.

 

[Sten F]

Seem like the Region 1 and 2 will be identical.

 

[JoshB]

I like the cover art for the DVD, since it is almost identical to the poster art. Does anyone else think Russell Crowe's eyes seem overly dark and almost jump out at you?

 

[Alistair_M]

Thanks Mr Prior for the comments regarding the lack of commentaries on this release. Its heartening to hear that you did push for them. My own personal view is that a film like Master and Commander is perfect commentary material.
So many dumb and shallow films have multiple commentaries that when a thoughtful, literary, period film is released we have no commentary.

Even without this extra, this looks like a top release and with Mr Prior's reputation - it should have interesting supplements. I really like the cover art too.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Exellent news. I loved the movie and will be adding this to my shelf. The extras sound very substansial even if there is no commentary, and a good solid doccumentary can be as good as a commentary if done right. I can't wait to won this.

Hopefully the 20 minutes of deleted scenes will be there. Looking forward to seeing them.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Yeah, that's why I asked - with three logos before the movie, I wasn't sure who'd put out the DVD!

 

[David_Blackwell]

Thanks for answering, David. I hope the deleted scenes are on the final DVD.

Be Seeing You,
David Blackwell

 

[David Prior]

I can confirm that the deleted scenes are indeed included, along with a fantastic DTS track. In fact I'm watching the check disc as I write.

And Dan, truth be told, I'm not a fan of the HBO First Look things either. It's on the disc mainly for political reasons, but there are over three hours of documentaries that I've slaved over for the past four months which take the exact opposite approach that I hope you'll enjoy.

I'm heartened to see that there's some anticipation for this release. It's a really brilliant movie that just gets better the more you watch it.

Cheers,
David

 

[Roger J]

Any chance there will be a fantastic Dolby Digital track?

 

[David Prior]

Yes.

 

[David_Blackwell]

Great. I love deleted scenes.

I'm glad they look like they will be on the final DVD.

David, what DVDs are you involved with (you can reveal) that will come out later this year (other than Panic Room)?

Be Seeing You,
David Blackwell

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Mr. Prior,

Has there been any rumblings and grumblings in and around your line of work about HD discs and their potential ability to push the boundries of audio and video quality?

There has been reports of HD-DVD possibly (hopefully real world specs) including true 1920x1080p resolution video (it should be 9 bit or greater video to minimize banding and other artifacts) and at least DVD-Audio quality multi-channel soundtracks (24 bit/96 kHz, 6 channel PCM and 24 bit/192 kHz stereo PCM utilizing MLP lossless compression-- with the right video codec and some willingness to look towards the future, you could potentially have 8 channel discrete, high rez. PCM included too so there would be no need for stuck-in-a-rut DTS-ES or DD EX matrixing).

I don't see anything that impressive coming from the Blu-Ray camp even though they have the edge in data capacity and bitrate speeds: i.e., old fashioned and inefficient MPEG-2 and no better than DTS lossy compressed audio. That gets a big "yawn" from me.

Would the studios be willing to give us "the goods" so to speak? What are your thoughts on the future of home video media? Thanks!

Dan

 

[JoshB]

There is much anticipation for this release David. Its one of the few films of last year I really enjoyed from beginning to end. Its certainly one film I regret not having seen twice. It's too bad it didn't do better box office business or reach as many peopel as it should have. Then again, $150 million budget is hard to make back unless you reach a vast audience, which I think this film had trouble doing. But regardless, it is well deserving of its 10 Oscar nominations, and hopefully will be recognized in some categories.

Its great to hear that some time and effort were put forth to create what will certainly be one of the big releases of the new year, along with your soon to be released Panic Room: SE which I am highly anticipating. Master and Commander was one of my favorite movies, and many I have recommended it too found the film to be just as great. Excellant acting, superb directing, and outstanding effects and sound design made this film a pleasure to watch. Few movies of last year had me leave the theater feeling literally breathless.

Its great to have you chime in and offer your thoughts on this disc. I'm sure we will all appreciate the finished product when April comes around.

 

[Werner_R]

I will be adding this one to my collection, I loved it when I saw it in the cinema, one of the better movies of last year !

 

[Seth Paxton]

I was wondering what that "100 Days" featurette is on.

The two things I would want to come with this DVD would be info on the original novels, perhaps some discussion with O'Brien (sounds like the piece you described earlier might hit this), and some historical perspective like some A&E/History Channel special on the era being depicted.


Great film to get to produce. Can't wait to own it especially with the DTS showing off the Oscar winning (well, its got a shot ) soundtrack.

And my long wait for the Panic Room SE is finally paying off. There are some of us out here that will wait if only we know that we should.

 

[Nick Senger]

Walter Cronkite conducted a terrific interview with Patrick O'Brian on one of the C-Span networks that I would dearly love to have on this DVD, but I don't see it listed.

Still, this is second-highest on my must-have list for this year (after ROTK) and I'm sure it will be a title I watch over and over.

 

[David Prior]

Again, nice to see there's some anticipation.

As to the O'Brian material, here's the unfortunate situation. Months ago I contacted CSPAN about using the Cronkite interview and they balked at the idea of licensing more than a couple of minutes of it. Strangely enough, they weren't even interested in the conversation, they just have a blanket policy about not licensing entire programs and wouldn't agree to a substantial enough length to make it worthwhile. I also contacted the BBC about the program they did on O'Brian and they requested a truly ungoldy amount of money, plus royalties, which was just impossible. However, some of you may know that the fact that there's so little extant interview material with O'Brian is due to his having been notoriously camera shy and taciturn, which means that even in the interviews that do exist, he's pretty guarded and non-forthcoming. As a result, his presence on the disc, while I deeply wanted it, in the end probably wouldn't have added enough to make a huge difference. Everyone else on the disc, however, talks about the man and his work quite a bit.



It's a 68 minute soup-to-nuts doc on the making of the film. Since the shooting schedule was approximately 100 days long, I stole the title from O'Brian.

As to your wish regarding historical material, I ended up creating so much material on the film itself which, in addition to all the usual Fox-related promo stuff, brought the bit-rate as low as we could possibly go, that I forewent the historically themed stuff. My reasoning was that you can find the history in a myriad other places, but there will only be one venue for the intensive film-related supplements. Hope that makes sense to you.

And Dan, the HD-DVD question is probably a topic for another thread, but in short, some fellow producers and I were involved in a brain-storming session with the Blu-Ray folks about a year ago, but in the intervening time I've been too busy to keep up with the news about the final spec. What I saw and heard at the time gave me great encouragement and the demos look fantastic, but I need to learn more before I could comment in detail.

Cheers,

David Prior

 

[JoshB]

David

Not to get too far off topic, but with the Panic Room SE, how does this release compare to previous discs you've worked on? Did you take any new approaches to the project, and what can you say about the project overall?

I'm also wondering what your thoughts are on the Master and Commander disc too?? Thanks for your time, as always.

I think that Master and Commander will find its audience when it comes to DVD. It will allow people who missed it in theaters and had reservations about it to experience it. I'm sure it will be talked about long after its release, and a fine job on the upcoming DVD will also add to that.

Its unfortunate that a commentary couldn't be included, either by Wier or by some cast or technical crew. Such a film as this would be perfect for a commentary, but I'm sure the documentaries and other supplements will give us as much insight into the film. At least we can be sure the picture and sound quality will be impressive to say the least, with a 2 1/2 hour film on the disc along with DTS and DD. This will certainly be the first big release of 2004 and I'm certain a favorite reference disc among those in the HT community. Not to mention the fact its also an excellant film.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

David,

If you ever do any more brainstorming sessions with both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps (or one or the other) be sure to let them know there are a lot of us who want THE BEST audio and video possible.

Extras should be secondary considerations and placed on a second or third disc if necessary except for audio commentary tracks that can be very, very compressed as fidelity isn't important on these types of audio files. The main feature having superior audio and video must be of primary concern.

Obviously, for video that's 1920x1080p resolution with pure progressive scan video with no artificial sharpening and/or edge "enhancement" added to detract from the video quality (interlaced video must be dumped!!) and 24, 30, and 60 fps support for all source material types, and no compression artifacts. 8 bit video streams don't cut it either as that can lead to chroma aberations and other artifacting. 10 or 12 bit would be best if they can wing it, but at least 9 bit should be considered.

As for audio, DTS and/or Dolby Digital can be used for backwards compatibilty. However, high resolution, multi-channel PCM (24/96 and 24/192) or DSD (hopefully up to 8 channel discrete on PCM and DSD formats) lossless compressed (MLP for PCM, and whatever lossless packing Sony/Philips does for DSD) from the original archival digital sources (obviously cleaned up for sound editing mistakes that can be heard in a near field environment, etc., but not dumbed down either) has got to be the law of the land from now on.

No more compromises this time!

Hope you can pass this along. Thanks for all your hard work on these projects so far. I look forward to purchasing M&C.

Dan

 

[Nick Senger]

David,

Thanks for trying to get the Cronkite interview...it's already obvious that you've put a lot of effort and thought into this release. It will make adding it to my collection that much more meaningful.

Five or six years ago, I never would have thought that two of my top three books of all time would have been adapted into such glorious, critically acclaimed movies (especially since both Lord of the Rings and the Aubrey/Maturn series were almost deemed unfilmable). And to have them released at virtually the same time has given me much to anticipate over the last few years.

Now if someone would only make an adaptation of Don Quixote with the same care and attention as The Lord of the Rings and Master and Commander, then my three favorite books would be immortalized on film forever!