public domain (1 Viewer)

[jimmyjet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TV_series_with_episodes_in_the_public_domain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States

regarding tv shows, it was listed if it had any episodes in pd.

andy griffith, dick van dyke and soon-to-be bonanza are all out.

 

[DeWilson]

i should have been more clear

stewart was not saying that it was a big hit, when released

he just said they shot it very matter-of-factly

no special treatment was given

it was simply a movie that the studio was filming

probably no extra advertising, etc.

The film lost money for the studio

 

[jimmyjet]

i guess it must have been the little red engine that could !!

However, when It's a Wonderful Life did not turn a profit for the RKO Radio Pictures studio, Capra was considered by some to be past his prime, even though the film was eventually nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for Best Director.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/11/16/its-a-wonderful-life-2-disc-collectors-set-dvd-review

 

[Ron1973]

thanks josh,

well hopefully the owners are at least saving their stuff digitally.

and the sooner the better. cuz it seems the longer they wait, the more problems they will encounter.

i have every confidence that the copyright situation will improve for hd or dvd transfers, for that matter.

blu-ray is great. but i dont think it is tremendously better than dvd.

however, watching this stuff today on dvd versus the old television clarity is night and day.

i actually like colorization. lots of people complain about it looking fake, etc. but it does not appear that way to me.

but i think hd restoration to a film is many times more important to the average public than colorization is. for me, too.

we are talking about a process that creates a lot of added value to the public. to have copyright laws that basically keep this added value from the public is A TREMENDOUS OVERSIGHT, to say the least.

Like with anything else, the quality varies. The earliest colorization projects were awful to say the least with washed out, faded out colors. Miracle on 34th Street and Your Cheatin' Heart: The Life Story of Hank Williams are great examples as the last colorization I know of was from the mid-80's. At the opposite end of the scale, I picked up colorized versions of It's a Wonderful Life and some Three Stooges episodes and they were very presentable. Honestly, had I not have known The Three Stooges was originally b&w, I wouldn't have known they were colorized.

 

[jimmyjet]

hey ron,

that was cute colorizing my statement that you commented on !!

perhaps you should be a color commentator !!

 

[DeWilson]

Honestly, had I not have known The Three Stooges was originally b&w, I wouldn't have known they were colorized.

The Colorized 3 Stooges is THE BEST Colorization job - major studio or independent. It's even better than the "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie" which were done a couple years prior and were fantastic - you can't tell the difference between season 2 (Colorized) or 3 (first color) of "Bewitched" it matched so well!

 

[Randy Korstick]

For I Dream of Jeannie Season 1 you could definitely see a big difference. I rented it and found the colorization so distracting even though its better than the 80's colorization its still blurrier because of the artificial color and the changes to the original film are too distracting. I could not watch the episodes as I was so distracted by the color not looking or feeling right. It still has that pastel color look to me. I will take original Black and White anyday. I think I'm done with ever giving Colorization another chance.

 

[Ron1973]

For I Dream of Jeannie Season 1 you could definitely see a big difference. I rented it and found the colorization so distracting even though its better than the 80's colorization its still blurrier because of the artificial color and the changes to the original film are too distracting. I could not watch the episodes as I was so distracted by the color not looking or feeling right. It still has that pastel color look to me. I will take original Black and White anyday. I think I'm done with ever giving Colorization another chance.

I picked up S1 in color also and it was far from accurate imho. It was still better than the early stuff but it was real fuzzy and kinda-sorta pastel looking. I'd much prefer a sharp b&w transfer.

 

[Ron1973]

hey ron,

that was cute colorizing my statement that you commented on !!

perhaps you should be a color commentator !!

Lol!!! I didn't even catch that until you pointed it out. I was simply trying to highlight what you had written and you found a play on words!

 

[Professor Echo]

Of course, I don't support colorizing, but I was very impressed with the job they did on the old ZORRO series when it aired on the Disney Channel in the early 2000's. It was stunning how far the process had come and I'm sure at that time Disney spared no expense in getting it done as state of the art as they could. It was still just a novelty for me watching a few episodes like that, but at least visually it did not offend me as much as it did on principle.

 

[atfree]

It doesn't for films under copyright.

I believe the original poster was talking about films in the public domain. The studio who originally produced the film and owned the physical negative wouldn't be protected from others taking their restoration work and slapping it onto their own disc and selling it for less. For instance, Sony might not want to spend a fortune on doing a "His Girl Friday" 4K restoration, because the film itself is in the public domain and as copyright law is written, the restoration would not be protected under copyright law -- any unscrupulous third party label could buy a copy of the disc, extract the movie from the disc, and make their own disc using that restoration which might have cost the studio hundreds of thousands to do, and there would be no legal recourse for Sony. If someone else could steal Sony's work and sell it as their own, legally, Sony loses the financial incentive to do the work. I think that's what the OP was talking about.

I believe WB faces the same situation for the Errol Flynn film "Sante Fe Trail".....that's why, I presume, it's never been included in the DVD collections from WB but you can find 25 different DVD's on Amazon, plus a "Blu-ray" from some company I've never heard of....