- Joined
- Jul 3, 1997
- Messages
- 66,791
- Real Name
- Ronald Epstein
In September, upon writing a review for Saturday
Night Fever, I received a wonderful letter of
thanks from director John Badham. It was one of
the finest moments of my HTF career.
Imagine my surprise when shortly after posting a
review for Back To The Future, I should
receive a letter from none other than that film's
writer/producer Bob Gale.
You can imagine I am on cloud nine.
I asked Bob Gale if I could reprint his email,
as I felt it would be of interest to all the members
here. He gave me permission to do.
======================
Hi, Ron.
I've enjoyed your site over the years, and I was
delighted to read your enthusiastic review of the
BTTF set.
I wanted to explain the decision to leave out the
DTS track in the Region 1 release, since this is
obviously of interest to you and the readers of
the site.
Like you and many of your readers, I like DTS as
much as anyone. However, putting DTS on the disks
would have meant eliminating 25 minutes of extra
features per disk. I had to decide if this was
worth it (and yes, it was my decision, so anyone
who wants to complain should curse MY name to
God as opposed to anyone at Universal). I arranged
a blind test of the Dolby Digital and DTS mixes,
played on the same equipment in the same room, a
professional mixing room at Universal. I listened
to about 10 minutes of the same material twice,
without knowing which track I was listening to.
Three people from Universal were also there. The
only noticeable difference was that one track was
hotter (louder) than the other. Other than that,
neither I nor anyone else could hear any difference
in the two tracks; then it was revealed that the
hotter track was the DTS. Two of the people were
there to advocate DTS, but they couldn't after
that test.
Now, I want to remind everyone that the original
films were all mixed with analog sound. Part 1 went
out theatrically in Dolby A, and the sequels were
in Dolby SR. There was a 6-track mag version for
a few 70mm prints of Part 1; the sequels went out
in more 70mm venues, and this was 6 track optical
sound (at least that's how I remember it).
I will tell you that on a quality home theater
system, what you will hear on these disks is BETTER
than what you heard in the theater. I sat on the
mixing stage for all 3 movies, and the Dolby Digital
tracks sound better.
So I had no problem deciding that the fans of these
films would be better served with more extra features
than by having a 2nd soundtrack that was basically
indistinguishable from the 1st.
Universal had decided to keep the set to 3 disks to
keep the price down, so I wanted to jam as many
goodies into 'em as possible (and there wasn't any
room left for anything when we got finished!).
Thus, I want to assure you that no one is getting
shafted by not having DTS. If the movies had been
recorded in that format, it'd be a different story,
but this is 80's sound, and I think you'll agree
it's pretty damned good considering!
--Bob Gale, Producer/Writer, Back To The Future Trilogy
Night Fever, I received a wonderful letter of
thanks from director John Badham. It was one of
the finest moments of my HTF career.
Imagine my surprise when shortly after posting a
review for Back To The Future, I should
receive a letter from none other than that film's
writer/producer Bob Gale.
You can imagine I am on cloud nine.
I asked Bob Gale if I could reprint his email,
as I felt it would be of interest to all the members
here. He gave me permission to do.
======================
Hi, Ron.
I've enjoyed your site over the years, and I was
delighted to read your enthusiastic review of the
BTTF set.
I wanted to explain the decision to leave out the
DTS track in the Region 1 release, since this is
obviously of interest to you and the readers of
the site.
Like you and many of your readers, I like DTS as
much as anyone. However, putting DTS on the disks
would have meant eliminating 25 minutes of extra
features per disk. I had to decide if this was
worth it (and yes, it was my decision, so anyone
who wants to complain should curse MY name to
God as opposed to anyone at Universal). I arranged
a blind test of the Dolby Digital and DTS mixes,
played on the same equipment in the same room, a
professional mixing room at Universal. I listened
to about 10 minutes of the same material twice,
without knowing which track I was listening to.
Three people from Universal were also there. The
only noticeable difference was that one track was
hotter (louder) than the other. Other than that,
neither I nor anyone else could hear any difference
in the two tracks; then it was revealed that the
hotter track was the DTS. Two of the people were
there to advocate DTS, but they couldn't after
that test.
Now, I want to remind everyone that the original
films were all mixed with analog sound. Part 1 went
out theatrically in Dolby A, and the sequels were
in Dolby SR. There was a 6-track mag version for
a few 70mm prints of Part 1; the sequels went out
in more 70mm venues, and this was 6 track optical
sound (at least that's how I remember it).
I will tell you that on a quality home theater
system, what you will hear on these disks is BETTER
than what you heard in the theater. I sat on the
mixing stage for all 3 movies, and the Dolby Digital
tracks sound better.
So I had no problem deciding that the fans of these
films would be better served with more extra features
than by having a 2nd soundtrack that was basically
indistinguishable from the 1st.
Universal had decided to keep the set to 3 disks to
keep the price down, so I wanted to jam as many
goodies into 'em as possible (and there wasn't any
room left for anything when we got finished!).
Thus, I want to assure you that no one is getting
shafted by not having DTS. If the movies had been
recorded in that format, it'd be a different story,
but this is 80's sound, and I think you'll agree
it's pretty damned good considering!
--Bob Gale, Producer/Writer, Back To The Future Trilogy
. Also glad to see they read this forum.
