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B.J. AND THE BEAR - Page 4

post #91 of 106
7/12/11 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeWilson View Post


The Vault affected in the fire was a "working" vault - not the master vault (which is off site),It Wasn't even the only only "working" vault on the lot.

It's worth repeating - NOTHING was truly lost in the fire.

NOTHING film-wise was lost. Countless one of a kind irreplaceable music master recordings were destroyed from all of the Universal music west coast labels - Decca, Uni, ABC, Dunhill and many others. Lacquer discs (before the invention of audio tape) recordings from the 1940s and earlier, all burned up, including many Bing Crosby recordings. Basically anything on a 4-track tape or less, gone. As for TV material, Universal didn't produce or syndicate a great deal of videotaped shows or specials but what they did have, such as Don Adams Screen Test for example, were in that vault and destroyed. I can't really think of too many Universal series produced on tape (Sirota's Court, Semi-Tough) but those are probably gone as well.

But the problem is, even if the 35mm negatives are safe and sound, who is going to pay the 7K or so an hour that Universal charges for transfers? If they don't think a show has a lot of syndication value in it, they aren't going to pay for new transfers. And that's an awful lot of money for small independent companies to pay. As for this series, do the math. 48 hours times 7 thousand before you even get to the costs of licensing and then doing all of the music replacement that would be needed. The show would have to sell like Friends or Seinfeld to make a profit.
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post #92 of 106
7/12/11 at 11:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Brock View Post

But the problem is, even if the 35mm negatives are safe and sound, who is going to pay the 7K or so an hour that Universal charges for transfers? If they don't think a show has a lot of syndication value in it, they aren't going to pay for new transfers. And that's an awful lot of money for small independent companies to pay. As for this series, do the math. 48 hours times 7 thousand before you even get to the costs of licensing and then doing all of the music replacement that would be needed. The show would have to sell like Friends or Seinfeld to make a profit.

There are probably other video masters of this show floating around somewhere. It's doubtful that every video syndication master of this show would've been in that archive. I'm sure there are conversions out there somewhere in the Universal archive, whether leftover from syndication or from digital conversion for the archive.

That said, however, who knows what masters are out there. If there are digibeta masters, that's all well and good, but what if the only tape masters are the formats that would've been used in the '80s? Not every label (especially if licenced out to a third party) can produce a release themselves from 1", 2" or U-Matic tapes.

And as I already said a few posts earlier:

... Universal may not bother with re-transferring stuff seen as "not commercially viable" (or, at least, put that stuff at the bottom of the list).


I still say the problem(s) with B.J. and Lobo probably aren't related at all to what masters exist, but more down to the fact that they're probably not perceived as being worth the effort to put out there.
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post #93 of 106
7/15/11 at 12:39am
As usual, in the end it's the fans that get screwed, the ones who made these shows popular for the studios in the first place. "BJ and the Bear" for instance is a 30 year old show but still the studios would rather deny the fans it's release all because enough coin might not be going into their pockets at the end of they day, because the most important thing is to keep the these honchos lined with cash right? Let's keep this show under lock and key and never let it see the light of day unless of course we can wrought some little independent of tons of cash for transfers and licensing! Then we might get to see it again. The fans are the last consideration if a consideration at all in the dealings.
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post #94 of 106
7/15/11 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Brock View Post


NOTHING film-wise was lost. Countless one of a kind irreplaceable music master recordings were destroyed from all of the Universal music west coast labels - Decca, Uni, ABC, Dunhill and many others. Lacquer discs (before the invention of audio tape) recordings from the 1940s and earlier, all burned up, including many Bing Crosby recordings. Basically anything on a 4-track tape or less, gone. As for TV material, Universal didn't produce or syndicate a great deal of videotaped shows or specials but what they did have, such as Don Adams Screen Test for example, were in that vault and destroyed. I can't really think of too many Universal series produced on tape (Sirota's Court, Semi-Tough) but those are probably gone as well.

But the problem is, even if the 35mm negatives are safe and sound, who is going to pay the 7K or so an hour that Universal charges for transfers? If they don't think a show has a lot of syndication value in it, they aren't going to pay for new transfers. And that's an awful lot of money for small independent companies to pay. As for this series, do the math. 48 hours times 7 thousand before you even get to the costs of licensing and then doing all of the music replacement that would be needed. The show would have to sell like Friends or Seinfeld to make a profit.

Yes, I meant Film Wise - I knew about the loss of the master sound recordings. Wasn't it later discovered there were duplicates on some of the sound recordings on the East Coast? I can't beleive there were not duplicates on the VT shows someplace.

7K - you gotta love the inflated in-house transfer costs smile.gif Is it any wonder TIMELESS used 16mm (and VHS) for their budget releases!
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post #95 of 106
7/15/11 at 12:09pm
That's the cost per transfer that someone like Shout Factory that licenses a show and request transfers to be made has to pay.

I imagine the actual cost for doing a transfer for an in-house Universal project is just a small fraction of that $7,000 (I thought it was $5,000?). I really doubt they spent over 1.6 million, for instance, doing those new HD transfers for the entire run of Leave it to Beaver a while back.
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post #96 of 106
7/16/11 at 1:49am
HD " BJ and the Bear". mmm. Now I'm really dreamin'!!!
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post #97 of 106
9/7/11 at 2:19am
Fabulous Films in the UK is releasing "Tour of Duty" with ALL the original music intact, including the theme song, "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones. Season 1 is scheduled for release on Nov21 and is a region 2 release.

Obviously music rights in the UK are easier to clear? This show had tons of 60's music so I wonder why it's harder in the U.S for shows with popular music to be cleared?

Like it's been said before the music in "BJ and the Bear" is not the original artists so are Universal just being tight a$$es? It certainly adds another twist to the music rights/cost issue.

Chris
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post #98 of 106
9/7/11 at 8:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by banjo78 View Post

Fabulous Films in the UK is releasing "Tour of Duty" with ALL the original music intact, including the theme song, "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones. Season 1 is scheduled for release on Nov21 and is a region 2 release.

Obviously music rights in the UK are easier to clear? This show had tons of 60's music so I wonder why it's harder in the U.S for shows with popular music to be cleared?

In certain respects, yes, rights are sometimes easier to clear in the UK versus the US. Season 2 of Happy Days is an excellent case in point. All of the '50s music underscore on the episodes is intact in the R2, but replaced with generic music in the R1s. Also, an episode commentary track on a Series 3 episode of Doctor Who had to be replaced in the US because the commentators got into a sing-a-long (instigated by John Barrowman), and so the track couldn't be cleared for the R1 release (it got replaced by a different podcast commentary in R1 land).

There are music difficulties in the UK as well, however and these have affected countless R2 titles (some which come to mind include UK TV shows, such as This Life, Being Human and Only Fools and Horses).
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post #99 of 106
12/6/11 at 3:30am
Spoke to Richard(FabulousFilms) in email today about their "Tour of Duty" release with the original music(awesome) and I asked him about BJ. He said their company (Fabulous Films) had looked at "BJ & the Bear" but he briefly told me that Universal don't have the complete masters and there were huge music issues. I'm trying to find out more info on this.

Wonder why they don'y have complete masters?

Chris
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post #100 of 106
12/6/11 at 5:31am

Could they have been destroyed in the fire a few years ago?

 

 

Quote:

The blaze began around 4:45 a.m. (7:45 a.m. ET) and was contained initially by 9 a.m. Throughout the morning, large plumes of black smoke rose as the fire burned the vault containing hundreds of videos, said Ron Meyer, chief operating officer of Universal Studios.

"Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable was lost," Meyer said. "The video library was affected and damaged, but our main vault of our motion picture negatives was not."

 

I'd hate for them to call BJ and the Bear irreplaceable though.  Of course anything could have happened to them.

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post #101 of 106
12/6/11 at 6:40am
I don't think this has ever been asked (as far as what was lost in the fire is concerned), but did they lose any magnetic reel-to-reel audio tapes, that were used to record the dialogue for Universal's motion pictures and TV programs?
Edited by vnisanian2001 - 12/6/11 at 6:56am
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post #102 of 106
12/6/11 at 11:35am
Here's Richards reply to me. His answers are in CAPS.

"G'day again Richard. Thanks for the reply. MOST WELCOME

Bummer about "BJ and the Bear". Are you able to expand on that? Do you know why Universal doesn't have the complete masters? UNIVERSAL HAD A BIG FIRE A FEW YEARS BACK AND LOST A LOT OF STUFF, THEY HAVE MASTERS BUT FROM MEMORY THEY WERE INCOMPLETE EDITED BROADCAST MASTERS
Does that mean certain episodes don't exist anymore? POSSIBLE, THEY HAVE A FULL TIME TEAM PAID FOR BY THE INSURERS WHO ARE TRYING TO REBUILD THE LIBRARY BY CONTACTING OVERSEAS DISTRIBUTORS WHO MAY STILL HAVE COPIES
I'm not sure how it all works. I was afraid music might be an issue. Like "Tour of Duty" , "BJ" has lots of music but they are all cover versions by some kind of studio band, not the original artists. That obviously doesn't affect the price for music rights I take it? SHOULD BE EASIER TO RELEASE IN THE UK THEN, ARE YOU SURE THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL RECORDINGS>
I assume TOD had massive music issues, awesome that you were able to secure the rights, I didn't think it would ever happen!IT TOOK A LOT OF EFFORT!!
There is a big following for this show and no one has been able to find out why it hasn't been released yet. Your info certainly helps but anymore would be greatly appreciated. It along with "Tour of Duty" are my 2 favorite shows!!

THANKS CHRIS, RICHARD"
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post #103 of 106
12/6/11 at 11:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by banjo78 View Post

Spoke to Richard(FabulousFilms) in email today about their "Tour of Duty" release with the original music(awesome) and I asked him about BJ. He said their company (Fabulous Films) had looked at "BJ & the Bear" but he briefly told me that Universal don't have the complete masters and there were huge music issues. I'm trying to find out more info on this.
Wonder why they don'y have complete masters?
Chris

Here's a guess. They transferred the shows to probably 1-inch tape when it went off the network. From those 1-inches, they made edited versions for syndication which were then sent out to anyone who bought the show in syndication. Or perhaps they might have still be sending out 16mm. In any event, if the 1-inch tapes were lost in the fire, that would be the reason. Of course the 35mm negatives and fine grains are still safely tucked away but then that goes back to the cost issues previously discussed. So, they don't have complete TAPE masters is what that means.
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post #104 of 106
2/7/12 at 5:42pm
No one answered my question:

During the 2008 fire, did Universal lose any magnetic reel-to-reel audio tapes, that were used to record the dialogue for their motion pictures and TV programs?
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post #105 of 106
2/7/12 at 11:29pm
Nobody knows for sure what was lost because everyone who works at the company is sworn to secrecy and they ain't talking.
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post #106 of 106
2/9/12 at 6:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Brock View Post

Nobody knows for sure what was lost because everyone who works at the company is sworn to secrecy and they ain't talking.

...which sounds like it can't be good.
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