To Universal, Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, Columbia, and all others:
Please clear up rights to allow Kevin Brownlow's excellent 13 hour documentary on silent cinema, "Hollywood."
This is the most important miniseries about film ever made, and it needs to be presented to modern audiences in the best quality format.
Since WB did a great remastering of Cosmos a few years ago, it would be amazing if Hollywood was remastered. Most of the WB and Paramount films featured have since then been restored or have better quality material. It would be even neater if the soundtrack was remixed to 5.1 to allow Carl Davis's score to be presented in full clarity.
Not only the full documentary is around, there's a ton of unused interviews, photographs, and other stuff that was excised from the final cut. There's also the companion book, also titled Hollywood, which has been out of print for time time. It would be neat if the book was reprinted and included with the DVD set. Universal, Fox, WB, and othet studios aren't exactly making money by supressing the clips to be renewed, are they?
Sure, it may cost a lot to renew the clip rights, but every silent film buff with a DVD player will buy this miniseries regardless of cost.
HBO Video currently distributes the VHS version and Image distributed the laserdisc. If someone could clear up who owns the video rights to this miniseries, that would help a lot.
(Added note: I have the entire 13 episodes from ANTENNA recepted signals onto VHS. Most look pretty good, but they all look awful in comparison to digitally remastered DVDs. I'll turn these VHS tapes into trash if I have the series on DVD.)
Please clear up rights to allow Kevin Brownlow's excellent 13 hour documentary on silent cinema, "Hollywood."
This is the most important miniseries about film ever made, and it needs to be presented to modern audiences in the best quality format.
Since WB did a great remastering of Cosmos a few years ago, it would be amazing if Hollywood was remastered. Most of the WB and Paramount films featured have since then been restored or have better quality material. It would be even neater if the soundtrack was remixed to 5.1 to allow Carl Davis's score to be presented in full clarity.
Not only the full documentary is around, there's a ton of unused interviews, photographs, and other stuff that was excised from the final cut. There's also the companion book, also titled Hollywood, which has been out of print for time time. It would be neat if the book was reprinted and included with the DVD set. Universal, Fox, WB, and othet studios aren't exactly making money by supressing the clips to be renewed, are they?
Sure, it may cost a lot to renew the clip rights, but every silent film buff with a DVD player will buy this miniseries regardless of cost.
HBO Video currently distributes the VHS version and Image distributed the laserdisc. If someone could clear up who owns the video rights to this miniseries, that would help a lot.
(Added note: I have the entire 13 episodes from ANTENNA recepted signals onto VHS. Most look pretty good, but they all look awful in comparison to digitally remastered DVDs. I'll turn these VHS tapes into trash if I have the series on DVD.)
