Fire at Universal Damages Video Vault! (1 Viewer)

DeWilson · Jun 1, 2008

Fire burns at Universal Studios

Contents of the studio's video-library vault were damaged, but the vault contained only digital copies of more than 40,000 film and TV titles. No negatives or film masters were affected.

Guess this means they have start from scrach making masters

Fire rages at Universal Studios - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety

The studio's film vault, which is lined in concrete and lead and contains irreplaceable film negatives, was not affected.

MatthewA · Jun 1, 2008

What does this mean for stuff that originated on videotape, or stuff that was shot on film but edited on tape? Gone for good? I hope not.

Professor_Echo · Jun 1, 2008

I can still see the smoke as I write this, a terrible fire. Thankfully no one was hurt and according to the Uni spokesperson on the local news nothing that was lost in the video vault was "irreplaceable."

Jack Platt · Jun 1, 2008

They said there are duplicates of the movies and films at a different location, so it appears nothing was lost "for good."

Jack

David Lambert · Jun 1, 2008

Corey3rd · Jun 1, 2008

just another excuse why they move so slow putting out Universal titles on DVD.

glad that nobody was killed after seeing the shot of the soundstage roof collapsing.

MatthewA · Jun 1, 2008

It's good that no one was killed.

Regarding the lost tapes, they might have to remaster their stuff just to have a video master. Then maybe something good can come out of this catastrophe.

Charles Ellis · Jun 1, 2008

ICAM, Matthew- maybe they'll actually find some titles worth releasing!

Stephen Bowie · Jun 1, 2008

Yuk it up, guys, but if the "Adam-12" and "Ironside" masters Shout was gonna source for upcoming DVD releases were in that vault, or the "Night Gallery" S2 masters that may or may not be on the slate for Halloween, or the "Laredo" and "Laramie" that Timeless is tapping into, this could hurt.

RickER · Jun 1, 2008

Thats what insurance is for. The master film prints are safe. So insurance will buy Universal new digital copies.

Gary OS · Jun 1, 2008

I don't think it's that simple. I and a friend were talking about the fire earlier this evening and came to exactly the same fearful conclusion that Stephen did. We can't assume Universal would go to the trouble of remastering those older shows again, even if Shout or Timeless wanted them. I'm not going to rest easy until I hear that none of the shows Stephen mentioned, as well as others, are safe.

Gary "very insightful comments, Stephen" O.

Stephen Bowie · Jun 1, 2008

One hopes that there are clones of every tape master stored in a separate facility (there are certainly much smaller film companies than Uni that take that basic precaution) ... but even if that's the case, you have to imagine that retrieving the backup copies of 40 year old TV shows so that a third-party licensee can make its release dates is probably about 11,000th on their priority list right now.

Brian W. Ralston · Jun 1, 2008

From Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily.com

DeWilson · Jun 1, 2008

THAT TOTALLY SUCKS! :frowning:

DeWilson · Jun 1, 2008

Same here

MatthewA · Jun 1, 2008

Totally sucks is putting it mildly. Think of what could be lost if they were not backed up, including the legendary Motown back catalog. All I can think of is the fire in the 1970s that wiped out a lot of Atlantic Records masters. The amount of stuff that is likely to be gone is much greater.

Is it overstating it to think this could be pop music's answer to the Alexandria library fire?

Jay Pennington · Jun 1, 2008

In photos I've seen firefighters carrying out DigiBeta tapes, single-reel film cans and multiple-reel film cans (the kind that are used to deliver films to theaters).

Hank Dearborn · Jun 1, 2008

Motown is stored in New Jersey as are the Polydor labels that are part of Universal music, like Mercury. What I'm hearing was destroyed was Decca, Dot, Kapp, ABC, Dunhill, Uni, A&M and many of the other Universal owned labels. And unlike film/video, they don't have backup master tapes.

MatthewA · Jun 1, 2008

I didn't know that about the Polydor labels. It's still distressing, and when I think of the absence of backups, all I want to do is shout "YOU FOOLS!"

DeWilson · Jun 1, 2008

I can't beleive that Vivendi didn't have back-ups on the audio masters - it's like the only thing they really kept after selling most of MCA/Universal to NBC/GE!

Hopefully Richard Carpenter and Herb Albert have back-up master tapes on all their A&M Material in their personal collections.

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