Universal Fire (1 Viewer)

[ted:r]

According to MSNBC:


One shudders to think what could have been (was?) lost.

 

[JoshB]

From what is being report:

" massive fire at Universal Studios in California destroyed the building housing the King Kong exhibit and damaged a video library vault, officials said today. The blaze also destroyed the courthouse square from "Back to the Future,"

 

[Jack Theakston]

It was JUST the video vault that has been reported damaged. Much of that, I imagine are dubs or stuff in production, and not masters, which Universal stores off-site.

 

[Dan1]

Fox is reporting pretty much the same thing:

Thick columns of smoke have been seen rising thousands of feet into the air, and one person described the scene as "looking like a bomb had exploded in the San Fernando Valley."

Freeman said the black smoke is a result of plastic video containers burning in the vault, which firefighters worked to save. “They moved 100 and 100 of containers out of that structure,” he said.

Ron Meyer, President and Chief Operating Officer at Universal Studios, said that the main vault containing film masters was not damaged.

“We were really lucky today.” Meyer said. “Nothing irreplaceable was lost.”

FOXNews.com - Large Fire Breaks Out on Universal Studios Lot

 

[Marcel H.]

Universal Studios blaze burns sets, video vault - CNN.com

 

[Jon Martin]

This was very scary to watch, especially when one report said we were looking at the Universal Film Vault on fire (which turned out not to be the case).

 

[Dan1]

Still a scary thought because a fire like the one at Universal might not reach films in a concrete and lead vault but could raise the temperature inside the vault to a point that would damage or destroy film negatives.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

 

[MatthewA]

Vivendi Universal Music also owns the Motown back catalogue.

This is horrifying news. When I heard of this I feared something would be lost.

 

[Jay Pennington]

FWIW, 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).

 

[Jon Martin]

Has anyone else reported that story about the Music library?

Nikki Finke, has been known to like breaking news more than being correct.

 

[Charles Ellis]

You'd think that this sort of thing would've stopped by now with today's technology. When I think of all the great stuff lost in various vault fires over the years:

The 1937 Fox vault fire (many Fox silents lost, including Theda Bara's Cleopatra)

The 1967 MGM vault fire (in which the last known copy of Lon Chaney's London After Midnight was destroyed, with at least one fatality)

The 1978 Atlantic Records vault fire (many raw session tapes and unreleased masters from 1947 to the early 70s were lost, including works by the likes of Ray Charles, The Drifters, and Aretha Franklin- the finished LP and single masters were kept in a separate facility)

It really makes a grown man cry.

Here's an article that will shock a lot of you:

Bill's award winning "vault" piece

 

[Ruz-El]

scary to hear about the music stuff. Hope it's not true :frowning:

 

[Tim Tucker]

From over in the TV thread.

 

[Charles Ellis]

Well at least the studios are learning from the past and making backup copies. Still, there's nothing like the original source material. While the Atlantic Records catalog from the 40s-70s is practically complete, it would've been great to hear the unreleased music and stereo multi-tracks that were lost in the 1970s fire.

 

[ted:r]

The Atlantic fire, I think, is one of the great cultural and historical losses of our times. The unreleased music plus the studio byplay and alternate takes and sessions that are forever gone...the sense of loss is almost unimaginable and unbearable.

It also makes one think, when future generations look back at us, what will they shake their heads over, about what will they say "What were they thinking? Didn't they realize?..."

 

[Charles Ellis]

Well, some stuff has been saved: individual artists and producers kept copies of items that were destroyed in the fire. Some alternate takes and chatter from sessions made by Ray Charles and The Coasters have been put out on CD. Futhermore, legendary songwriter/producer Jeff Barry produced an album ("Faithful") for Dusty Springfield in 1970/71: some singles were put out, but the project was scrapped when the singles failed to chart and Dusty moved on to ABC Records. The complete album was assumed lost until shortly before Ms. Springfield's death in 1999 when Jeff Barry provided Rhino Records with his personal copy of the finished songs. Most of the recovered Springfield/Barry tracks are on CD in the Deluxe Edition of Dusty In Memphis, and some other tracks are part of the CD release of A Brand New Me.

 

[Will_B]

What is strange though, is whenever you hear about music box sets being created, the producers always talk about how they track down the original analogue tapes, then bake them in ovens to make them capable of being played, and then they copy them using the finest azimuth adjustment possible onto whatever is the latest digital technology. It takes a lot of money, time, and care. Sometimes they take weeks to find the same model recorder/playback device that the reels were originally laid down with. Yet now Universal says "we did all that". Color me skeptical, because I've never read a story where the producer of a box set says "Yeah, it was easy to make this box set because Universal had already made digital backups. I just sat at my computer at home, and was done in a week."

 

[Jack Theakston]

Unfortunately, VP of Dist. at Uni., Paul Ginsberg sent out a memo to exhibitors the other day that the studio archive vault was one of the casualties, burning hundreds of 35mm rental and studio prints. My guess is that many of the titles will never be printed up again.

 

[Dan1]

Why do you think they will never be printed again?