It's all about the elements! (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Obviously, it's sorta sad that the pieces of Debbie Reynolds' collection aren't able to be seen by everyone but I try to think of the positive side of it is that those pieces have gone to a home where someone will treasure them.

 

[DeWilson]

Oh, and as for archives, I hope no one here values the Paley Center (or whatever their name is this week) very highly as they have material that's been sitting in their storage for decades on film or tape that they still have never transferred to a viewable medium. Not to mention donations they've been given which they can't even locate. Other than UCLA, and maybe Wisconsin or Library of Congress, any other entity is like a black hole when it comes to receiving television donated properties.

Let's not forget UCLA's high costs to access their collection. It's amazing THE GOLDBERGS (The REAL ONE!) ever saw the light of Day.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Licensing, for pete's sake... That's the keyword for classic TV on DVD these days, or so it should be. A pity we don't have TMG always operating on their own anymore, good regarding VEI, etc.

 

[jimmyjet]

I'm constantly amazed at the level of naivete that I read on this forums, even discounting e.e.'s posts.

but ee can sure put patton in his place when patton becomes too arrogant and uppity

patton has a good grasp on current actions, but fails to see beyond his nose, sometimes

things do not remain the same

and for the few instances where people may indeed have thrown stuff away, there are thousands of instances where original film remains in safe places, waiting to be used when the owners decide to use them, not when viewers want them to do so.

let me repeat this very important phrase - WHEN THE OWNERS DECIDE TO USE THEM.

what patton fails to recognize is that he, along with most everyone else, has no idea as to the long-term plans of the bigwigs.

the reason for that, which i am guessing most everyone will agree to, is that they have no reason to tell us anything, because it does not benefit them.

quite the contrary, it would greatly hurt them. if all of us knew what they were gonna do, and when and if blu-rays were coming out, then people would tend to wait to spend their money - the opposite of what they want us to do.

ee is not all naive as patton likes to make him out to be. but one thing that ee does very well - is discern the forest from the trees.

 

[DeWilson]

...what patton fails to recognize is that he, along with most everyone else, has no idea as to the long-term plans of the bigwigs....

Past track record and corporate culture is a good indication of the future actions. The ownership of the major players has not changed in a couple of years, and there is no reason to expect they are going to wake up one morning and bust open the floodgates, especially for material not already mastered down to modern formats for use. It is not only elements, but as stated cost to transfer them to modern formats. If you owned a studio and you had a choice between putting out on Blu-Ray your current hit TV Series, or a legacy series that has been sitting in your vault for decades which requires costly transfers and works for a limited audience, not even cable or ota retro channels, what would you push out? The Advent of Blu-Ray and Digital has changed the playing field even more.

I say we revisit this thread in 12 months and see if anything has happened, shall we?

It would be different if the studios could find a way to reign in costs of making transfers, but I doubt that will happen.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi dewilson,

again, look at my statement regarding time frame.

viewers (especially ones here at htf) are very excited about viewing this stuff, so their time frames are naturally much smaller than the studios.

people here focus on the stuff that we dont have. but look at all the stuff that we do have.

i have never disagreed with them putting out stuff that they can make profit on.

but there are some good shows not released yet. and they will be - simply because they have meaning for the human condition. that is not true for a bunch of junk that is current.

the wonder years is a perfect example of such a show.

before the wonder years was released, the general consensus here (and i mean almost unanimous agreement) was that it was a holy grail - an almost impossible situation.

not only did i say it would be released, but i said it was a shoo-in. once it got released, then all of a sudden, other shows "were not the wonder years".

well, i havent changed my mind one iota about room 222, for example. it will come out, as a decent release, instead of the botched up mess that they currently have.

i dont have the slightest idea about the specific technicalities about any particular show, so i have no idea as to WHEN it will be released.

for example, when they started putting out all the oldies on cd, the one artist that was hung up for what seemed like forever, was chubby checker. i only found out a month or so ago that all the backroom haggling had finally worked out. after about 30 years, his stuff was finally released.

all the rights haggling, etc. can sometimes last a long time. but in the end, people will decide to make some money, rather than no money.

if the studios did not see value in all this film, they wouldnt keep it. the only thing that will change my opinion of the long-term is to have evidence that they simply threw it away or destroyed it.

the ozzie thread - we have had disagreements. i am so thrilled that sam is in charge of it - such that i am willing to wait as long as it takes. the sacrifice - not being able to see it anytime in the near future. the reward - ending up with a much better product than we would ever have otherwise.

it goes without saying that we all want to see the stuff, ourselves.

but a portion of my desire is to have this stuff available for people still to come. and to put out the best product that we can.

our american way (of needing everything immediately) hurts our long-term in ways that we have finally started experiencing with this worst economy since the depression. it takes some maturity and an ability to care for something other than one's self, to develop more of a "long-term" outlook on aspects of life.

one bird lands on a tree, sees another bird, and asks him if the tree is alive. the other bird replies "i dont know, it hasnt moved since i have been on it".

until we realize and accept that our timeframes are not the same as the studios, we will forever be disappointed that products are not coming out as fast as we hoped they would.

so we can certainly re-visit in a year. but that time-frame does not necessarily coincide with theirs.

it will be interesting to see what shows are released next year, though. i think that would be something better to re-visit.

just like this year, i think we will see a few nice releases for us in the following year.

 

[Mark Collins]

but ee can sure put patton in his place when patton becomes too arrogant and uppity

patton has a good grasp on current actions, but fails to see beyond his nose, sometimes

things do not remain the same

and for the few instances where people may indeed have thrown stuff away, there are thousands of instances where original film remains in safe places, waiting to be used when the owners decide to use them, not when viewers want them to do so.

let me repeat this very important phrase - WHEN THE OWNERS DECIDE TO USE THEM.

what patton fails to recognize is that he, along with most everyone else, has no idea as to the long-term plans of the bigwigs.

the reason for that, which i am guessing most everyone will agree to, is that they have no reason to tell us anything, because it does not benefit them.

quite the contrary, it would greatly hurt them. if all of us knew what they were gonna do, and when and if blu-rays were coming out, then people would tend to wait to spend their money - the opposite of what they want us to do.

ee is not all naive as patton likes to make him out to be. but one thing that ee does very well - is discern the forest from the trees.

What a fantastic response. Jimmy I would not have had the guts to come out and respond as you did. You used the code name given to you and were so eloquent I heard fireworks!

Congratulations my friend and a very Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm constantly amazed at the level of naivete that I read on this forums, even discounting e.e.'s posts. Major studios are in business to make money. They don't have sentiment or historical perspective, just the bottom line. That's why 90% or more of all silent films are lost. They did not appear to have any future financial value. No financial value, no incentive to keep them. The only studio whose silent history is fairly well preserved is Columbia's and the rumor is that its only because Harry Cohn was too cheap to pay people to get rid of them. None of these entities care one iota about the historic value, or any other kind of value other than monetary value. That's why Jack Webb dumped all of his elements on Noah's Ark, Pete Kelly's Blues and the black and white Dragnets. Its why Jack Chertok chucked out his elements on My Living Doll. Its why hundreds of thousands of hours of game shows, talk shows and sporting events were taped over or thrown away. The people who own these properties DON'T CARE. I can't stress that strongly enough. They have no vested interest. If it involves family, such as Sam Nelson with his grandparents show or the Thomas siblings with their dad's, that's a different story. But no one at Universal or Sony or any of the majors has the slightest interest in obscure shows from decades ago that no one working there has ever seen or heard of. These companies are in the business of making millions and they are not about to waste valuable worker time dealing with shows that will earn pennies. Oh, and as for archives, I hope no one here values the Paley Center (or whatever their name is this week) very highly as they have material that's been sitting in their storage for decades on film or tape that they still have never transferred to a viewable medium. Not to mention donations they've been given which they can't even locate. Other than UCLA, and maybe Wisconsin or Library of Congress, any other entity is like a black hole when it comes to receiving television donated properties.

The discussions in this area of the forum can get personal and abusive very easily because there seems a general lack of respect towards people with different POVs. Let's stop using rhetoric that is used to demean other posters. It's not polite and it doesn't work.

This warning is for all parties involved in this thread!

 

[Wvtvguy]

I was amazed in my teens when I got into old movies, at how little care was given to films. Entire careers of major silent performers are nonexistent because no one saw any value in the movies. I think many of Buster Keaton's films were found in a closet at one point. I work in local tv news. I learned when I started that we have virtually nothing saved of old broadcasts or news footage. Occasionally something is saved but usually we keep things for a year. Some things were donated to an archive years ago but most is gone.

 

[howard1908]

I think Neil brought up a good point, it is all about profit, that's why the majority of live television up until the 70s were wiped or destroyed, because the networks decided it was exercise in futility to maintain upkeep on shows they could syndicate, one of the best examples of this business practice was the ill-fated DuMont TV network ,who's archives were dumped into the river in the 70s, and now all that remains are bits and pieces. The same goes for other forms of live medium, such as game show, soap operas and to an extent anthologies, in fact the practice of wiping still continues to this day on local level, so Neil is one hundred percent correct when ue says that corporation care not one iota about preservation in the interest of posterity.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Sure, but it's not only about how they did it in the past (for economics reasons) it's really about how it is now and how it should be handled today by the studios, with what we have surviving. I just bang the drum for more licensing to smaller companies, it seems to be one of the best of the few options and luckily it's happening globally as the current Universal deal in France with Elephant Films or Revelation's ditto with Fox in the UK attest.

 

[jimmyjet]

i dont think anyone is basically disagreeing with that general premise of studios caring about profit.

but i think most of us are referring to tv shows, not game shows nor news shows, etc.

if one saved all the news tapes over the years, there would not be a warehouse big enough to cover all that.

and who in the heck wants to save that crap, anyways ?

i think we are mainly referring to prime time tv shows, many of which have been released. and still many that we would still like to see get released.

and as a rule, as far as i know, the original film still exists for this stuff. which is a good thing for all of us, since without it, there can be no release.

so the question to ask is - "why do they keep this ?"

i have formulated my answer, which i have already stated. others need to come up with their own formulation, with what makes the most sense to them.

 

[Jack P]

if one saved all the news tapes over the years, there would not be a warehouse big enough to cover all that.

and who in the heck wants to save that crap, anyways ?

Um, speak for yourself, Mister. I'm a historian by trade and there is for me NOTHING more valuable than having at my disposal the original news coverage of historic events as they happened and these merit preservation for the SAME reason that we save newspaper coverage of events. These perform a valuable service to scholars and researchers and I think for you to diminish the significance of that as secondary to prime time TV shows is a pretty sad comment if you ask me.

How poor we would be if we didn't have preserved how TV covered the JFK Assassination or the elections and conventions or other significant news events. Valuable interviews with historic figures exist thanks to news archives like those at the networks and at Vanderbilt (which I might add has been digitizing their work to cut down on space). That you can't see the value of that even if its not something you have any desire to see is really lame. (and it certainly doesn't make me view your arguments for why things are still being kept by studios have any ring of credibility. Maybe the reason why they're still keeping what to them is just "crap" is because like all of us who don't remember what's in our attic, they probably don't even know it's there).

 

[smithbrad]

so the question to ask is - "why do they keep this ?"

i have formulated my answer, which i have already stated. others need to come up with their own formulation, with what makes the most sense to them.

Why does anyone keep things stored in there attic or basement? I know I have put things away that I plan/hope to use in the future, and others things that I know will probably never see the light of day that I just don't want to get rid of yet. Why? Is it the cost/hassle to dispose of it? Is it that the space is available, so why not? Is it laziness or a pack-rat mentality? Or is it just that I don't want to have to make a decision about it?

So which scenario is it? It would help to better understand the cost of storage, the availability of storage, and the cost/effort to dispose of it. I know for myself that I don't need a good reason to keep something, but i do need a good reason to get rid of something, and that is usually related to cost to maintain or space I want to use for something else. Everyone hates to later regret disposing of something that didn't needed to be disposed of.

Personally, when something sits unused for over 40 years, I tend to think the majority of it will stay sitting unused.

 

[jimmyjet]

Um, speak for yourself, Mister. I'm a historian by trade and there is for me NOTHING more valuable than having at my disposal the original news coverage of historic events as they happened and these merit preservation for the SAME reason that we save newspaper coverage of events. These perform a valuable service to scholars and researchers and I think for you to diminish the significance of that as secondary to prime time TV shows is a pretty sad comment if you ask me.

How poor we would be if we didn't have preserved how TV covered the JFK Assassination or the elections and conventions or other significant news events. Valuable interviews with historic figures exist thanks to news archives like those at the networks and at Vanderbilt (which I might add has been digitizing their work to cut down on space). That you can't see the value of that even if its not something you have any desire to see is really lame. (and it certainly doesn't make me view your arguments for why things are still being kept by studios have any ring of credibility. Maybe the reason why they're still keeping what to them is just "crap" is because like all of us who don't remember what's in our attic, they probably don't even know it's there).

you have chosen to pick out a miniscule percentage of news broadcasts, and submit that as your entire argument.

why not talk about the majority of newscasts ? stuff like who killed who ? what hollywood celebrity is sleeping with who ? this is the junk that i was talking about, that is on most of the newscasts. most of it is simply filled with whatever sensationalism is apt to bring in viewers, up the ratings, and sell more advertising.

other than that you made a huge wrong assumption, i dont disagree with your premise on saving that sort of stuff.

 

[Jack P]

That is NOT on most of the newscasts. Each one in their own way preserves something of importance. You might as well be arguing that we stop archiving newspapers which pretty much report the same stuff. The database needs to be preserved because sometimes, a local station might happen to report on a speech of some obscure official who ten years later might be running for President of the United States and the item in that local newscast that in your shortsightedness you deemed as "crap", might turn out to have this hypothetical figure saying something that could be very relevant to what he's doing years later.

This same short-sightedness with regard to sports telecasts is also what robbed us of our history in that area of the 60s and 70s that could have been saved as well, and now that we have the means to preserve things more efficiently and compactly for tomorrow, we should be saving everything that has potential historic significance.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi jack,

if there is room to store stuff, by all means.

but we really cant expect corporations to store all this stuff, simply because 1 item out of a 100 may have some significance down the road.

and probably more like 1 item out of 1000.

 

[Jack P]

Who said anything about corporations? The obligation rests with the stations who aired their newscasts and the news divisions of the networks. It's *their* material and their responsibility to do so. Just like newspapers have an obligation to save a record of what they did because of the potential value to history. We've done that with newspapers so we don't have to save the bulk quantities of the newspapers themselves any longer, and we need to keep perfecting the technological capability to do so with our news broadcasts so we can look them up conveniently.

We can also extend this to why we have archives and courthouses that preserve important paper records too. The bottom line though is that this material is not "crap".

 

[Neil Brock]

The other problem is with formats and format changes. The medium of preservation for non-filmed material was 2-inch videotape from 1956, when it was invented, until the early 80s when 1-inch tape took over. There are millions of hours worth of recordings that are still sitting untransferred on 2-inch and there are few working machines left in existence. At some point, they will break and there won't be any parts left anymore to fix them and all of the material will be unplayable. Lots of tapes have already been tossed out due to lack of playback equipment. I know for instance that a station in Winnipeg had dozens of tapes of Jets WHA hilights that they threw out without transferring. I'm sure that's not an isolated incident either. But not just sports. What about all of the variety shows from the 50s thru the 70s, or all of the unsyndicated 70s sitcoms shot on tape. Talk shows as well. At some point, they will all be useless because there won't be anything left to play them on. The same thing will eventually happen to 1-inch tape as well.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi jack,

lets agree to disagree on the worthiness or historicity of any individual newscast.

but as far as responsibility, i disagree that the stations or networks or corporations (whatever you want to call them) has any obligation to do so.

and likewise, i have never said or implied that anyone has the obligation to restore prime time tv shows. in fact, just the opposite. i have stated that they are keeping them only because they do have financial interest in them.

and while they dont have any obligation to give them away or sell them, it does seem like the half-way courteous thing to do is to give them away before they toss them in the incinerator, or become unusable.

for the most part though, the only potential value that these news shows do have is historical - not something that anyone can make money on, by selling them.

and while storage of this could be a govt thing, we would then be asking the taxpayers once again to pay for something that probably most of them would not be interested in doing.

i dont have any hard and fast solution. it is one thing to talk about storage of an individual tv show. but when we are talking about storing vast amounts of what most is minutia, that becomes a daunting task. because if we ever hope to be able to use it, we had better index it as we store it, so that we have some sort of ability to search for what we are looking for.

so now all of a sudden it becomes that much more expensive. we would eventually be talking about centuries worth of news broadcasts from thousands of various municipalities.

obviously, we know that the assassination of a president has historical meaning at the time that it occurs. but that is not true of most events.

hi neil,

quite awhile ago there was a push to save old movies because of their growing loss of the medium on which they were stored - i was thinking it was film, but it doesnt matter what it was. if you recall, this was one of my bigger concerns about these tv shows that have not been restored - is that we could lose them before we restored them. and that loss could come from deterioration, or as you mentioned, becoming obsolete.