Hey, folks. I am back with some news about my progress.
1. 8t88’s discs received some time ago. I did not send any message to you, I am sorry. I waited until I was ready to compare these with my own, you know. I made my first attempt to transfer a VHS to DVD in my friend’s flat last weekend. Here is what we got: I took two samples only with me – Making of A3 and Making of A4. Also we tried to copy few minutes from a NTSC tape he has. The results are really poor. We learned that we are not able to copy any NTSC tape at all – his Sony DVD recorder simply cannot write the signal even if it plays NTSC DVDs normally. Second, we cannot copy the A4 Making of because the tape is copy-protected and the recorder refuses to write the signal even if it understands it. However I still have the VCD I mentioned several times before and I think that the VCD picture is better anyway since it was probably made from LD. Also I am considering buying the 3 LD set that contains this documentary and thus the final decision is still open. The copy of A3 we made seems to be slightly better than 88t8’s – see the two samples (his – mine – his –mine), but the difference is really minor. My tape is probably better preserved, but, unfortunately, it shows some ugly drops like the one on Giger’s shirt (pic 4). What do you think? I have two or three pieces of this tape in my archive, so I can try to make another transfer from one of the others during our next session.
2. Meedermow – sorry, we had no time to copy the Italian movie, but I remember I promised it to you.
3. I received an answer from the company that made „J.Cameron and His Work“ doc. No chance to get it from them. Their representative wrote: „Hi Jiri, yes we did produce the ALIENS piece many years ago. We used to have a copy on VHS but I think even that has now disappeared. Fox certainly seem to have lost the master some time ago.“ But I still hope I can get it from the girl in London… we will see.
4. Suntech: Thank you for the description, it matches the Alien Saga version perfectly. Actually this „For over fifty years“ sentence is not the beginning of the PRESS PAK. There are approx 40 secs before it. Again, this is one of the basic problems of our compilation. Regardless of the copyright issue, I do not think we should use anything already available on Alien Saga. There is no point to do this. If we choose only some from the bonuses there, a real fan must still buy the original. And even if we grab all 10 bonuses from Saga, there is still the main hour-long documentary that cannot be added to the compilation. So why to do this? By the way, I have one surplus copy of Saga if somebody wants it.
5. I bought a DVD-R with a collection of A4 TV shots. Well, the quality is mostly poor, but it contains some interesting short interviews and TV ads. Basically I recommend some 8 shots out of the total of 25, the TRT of these eight can be just around 10 mins, no more. There is also the Sci-fi Channel Making of again, the picture is pretty clear, but it does something I never saw before – it vibrates somehow like when you hit a pinball table. It is a pity since my NTSC version is not so good.
6. Once again the Evolution issue: Thanks for your comments, Meedermow and Jonno. As I wrote already, I cannot understand how the words Appendix and Preservation „taste“ in your language. So if you guys feel they are OK, I have nothing against them. However I still disagree with the words Uncut and Full since they indirectly say that the Q version is cut and shortened. Can you simply write „original version“ or „TV version“? Meedermow wrote: „…version that I watched on UK television before I even heard the word "Quadrilogy". Of course you did not hear about AQ at that time. The misunderstanding here is my fault. When I wrote „Maybe they prepared the Quadrilogy version first and then they changed the conception to Kermode's version“ I only refer to the two different entities – I should call them versions A and B instead. It has nothing to do with the actual release of Quadrilogy. I know it was aired in 2001 several times (actually you can tell this from what the woman’s voice says during the ending credits, she announces the next Alien movie in a row and there are at least two versions of what she says). But there is still a chance that NG made two versions of Evolution (A and B) in 2001 and then choose one for the TV, leaving the second one in the archive, unused. The copyright in AQ version still says MMI. And even if they made the second edit from their original archive footage only AFTER Lauzirika’s team asked them to do this for AQ, it is still their child, a younger brother of the TV version and it is not abridged because you cannot get it by cutting down the TV version.
7. If you never heard of DVD Discoveries, it is a special low quantity DVD made in 2002 for people who wants to learn more about DVD creation process. It consists from several short docs, mainly interviews and commercials. Many people involved in this industry speak here, Lauzirika and Van Ling among others. I just got my copy. Cool stuff. Unlike Alien Saga, it is no must-have item for Alien fans, actually it is no must-have disc for any fan since all the videos are purely educational and the references to movies like SW, T2 and others are random and very short. But among others there is an interview with Sharpline Arts guys, the only one I ever saw. Well, there is none in AQ I think, am I right? TRT 20 mins. These two and Bob Burns talk about making of the A1 special edition LD for approx 3 mins and they basically repeat what they said here http://hometown.aol.com/scifitalk/page3.htm few years before. I do not think that it will be a copyright problem when we borrow this small part of it (i.e. edit our own ABRIDGED version) or maybe even the whole interview. Especially when the production company seems to be dead now (at least their web site is down for months). If you want to see it there, let me know.
8. Still no answer from the guy who offered the GA LD for copying in that forum. I do not expect to receive any.
9. Meedermow: Did you try to contact the author of the Archives? What did he say?
10. And back to 88t8. The second disc contains the GA documentary from his tape. It has no subtitles which is great. It is much more grainy than the version from the Archives, but it has significantly better colors. None of these is good either. It is a pity we cannot trace the LD somewhere…
11. After reading of the last posts once again, here is another comment for Meedermow: I love your menus on both Archives and the demo menu you sent to me. If I wrote „I am definitely against any touches into this our first disc, i.e. adding any other footage or menus. It is great exactly as it is now.“ I did not mean that I do not like menus! I consider menus to be an important part of any original DVD and sometimes I even make a decision whether to buy a new DVD or not (a new DVD edition of a movie I already have) on the fact whether I love the graphic of the new edition or not. That old sentence is ripped out of its context. I just wanted to say that Jonno’s AE needed no menu since it contained no other video than the main feature. Thus making a menu with only one PLAY button seemed to be a bit stupid to me. A disc with only one video should be self-running.
Well, that is all for today. Have a good time!