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OOTCon

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Just a thought I've been toying with.

If Luca$hFilm will allow private screenings of the OOT, do you think it would be a good idea to set up an invite-only OOTCon , where the OOT could be shown on the big screen and you could have guests, seminars, etc.?
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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"If Luca$hFilm will allow private screenings of the OOT......where the OOT could be shown on the big screen and you could have guests, seminars, etc.?"

You've just stated the opposite of what you would want, and no, LFL won't allow it. They've denied such showings of privately held prints many, many times.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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But if it's a private screening, how could they possibly have any control or legal say-so over it?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Yeah, you just have to get your hands on the print(s). It's not impossible.

But, as I went thru in another thread, rental of the illicit print(s) and the venue with equipment to show them, is a fairly expensive proposition. Since the event must be kept private, and even fairly on the down-low so as not to alert LFL, even having your "guests" pay admission is not going to be a break-even deal.


Any rich benefactors around here?
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I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks it's pretty damned retarded that Lucas actually says, "If we give you permission to show this movie, you can only show this version of the movie." Do you think that stance will change once the OOT gets its official (albeit apparently crappy) release next month?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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There's nothing illegal about a super 8 print, but I doubt many multiplexes have that kind of gear. A SF con in San Diego(?) ran 16mm prints of the OT a few years ago.
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Where were you in '77?

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Here is an interesting story:

In LA a man once owned a 35mm copy of Star Wars. He was a private collector of 35mm prints and had converted his garage into a screening room. The neighbourhood kids would sometimes gather in his garage and they would be delighted to a private screening of Star Wars, back in the days before home video was common. Somehow, wind of this caught up with Lucasfilm/the authorities. The print was confiscated and the man either jailed or fined, i can't remember.

The laws have sort of changed since then in light of the explosive growth of home video but its an interesting story nonetheless. I would say if it is a privately held screening then there is absolutely no problem with it--if it is a 35mm print then some complications may arise, especially if it is popular and the print is not a legally-obtained one (which it likely will not be).
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Difference being the Medium it's presented in. You have to rent the films from the film distribution company. We went through this in San Francisco when we did a charity fundraiser and showed the LOTR Trilogy. The company's name was Criterion interesting enough. New Line was supportive in this. We even got a nod and wink saying that even though we paid for the film print rentals, somehow "accidentally" showing the extended editions was not something they had control over.

We tried to do the same deal with the original trilogy. We were turned down flat by Lucasfilm. Even contacting LFL people I knew directly yielded the fact that any charity screenings of the films would have to be done by LFL themselves -- such as the charity screenings before ROTS came out with big hoopla and advertiserment.

So we could not just pop in a DVD and project it, technically we would not have the rights to it.

However, and this may be strange yet bizarre idea, nothing is to stop people from taking their projectors and showing it to say private party I think, not a con. In fact I think we should go for a national screening day, a con of any sort would raise the hackles of LFL. Unless we do something that is completely unannouned and spontaneous and unadvertisd during the middle of an existing con like Dragon Con.
There's good in the Original Trilogy, and it's worth fighting for.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
http://www.myspace.com/harlock415
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Here is an interesting story:

In LA a man once owned a 35mm copy of Star Wars. He was a private collector of 35mm prints and had converted his garage into a screening room. The neighbourhood kids would sometimes gather in his garage and they would be delighted to a private screening of Star Wars, back in the days before home video was common. Somehow, wind of this caught up with Lucasfilm/the authorities. The print was confiscated and the man either jailed or fined, i can't remember.

The laws have sort of changed since then in light of the explosive growth of home video but its an interesting story nonetheless. I would say if it is a privately held screening then there is absolutely no problem with it--if it is a 35mm print then some complications may arise, especially if it is popular and the print is not a legally-obtained one (which it likely will not be).


That's really sad and horrible. Is this someone you knew personally, a story you heard from someone, or a clever anecdote?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I thought that it was only illegal if you charged people to enter. Otherwise, how would it differ from inviting over a bunch of friends and watching a movie?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Originally posted by: zombie84
Here is an interesting story:

In LA a man once owned a 35mm copy of Star Wars. He was a private collector of 35mm prints and had converted his garage into a screening room. The neighbourhood kids would sometimes gather in his garage and they would be delighted to a private screening of Star Wars, back in the days before home video was common. Somehow, wind of this caught up with Lucasfilm/the authorities. The print was confiscated and the man either jailed or fined, i can't remember.

The laws have sort of changed since then in light of the explosive growth of home video but its an interesting story nonetheless. I would say if it is a privately held screening then there is absolutely no problem with it--if it is a 35mm print then some complications may arise, especially if it is popular and the print is not a legally-obtained one (which it likely will not be).


That's really sad and horrible. Is this someone you knew personally, a story you heard from someone, or a clever anecdote?


I read it in a book written by a film collector about the film collecting subculture. I'm not sure how he heard about it, maybe a newspaper or another collector or by the man himself, buts its true AFAIK. Roddy McDowel I believe had a similar incident happen, as the FBI raided his mansion in the late 70's and seized his 35mm collection. He got off by ratting out the other sellers and collectors (but in his defense he thought the whole thing was 100% legal).

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Originally posted by: zombie84
Here is an interesting story:

In LA a man once owned a 35mm copy of Star Wars. He was a private collector of 35mm prints and had converted his garage into a screening room. The neighbourhood kids would sometimes gather in his garage and they would be delighted to a private screening of Star Wars, back in the days before home video was common. Somehow, wind of this caught up with Lucasfilm/the authorities. The print was confiscated and the man either jailed or fined, i can't remember.

The laws have sort of changed since then in light of the explosive growth of home video but its an interesting story nonetheless. I would say if it is a privately held screening then there is absolutely no problem with it--if it is a 35mm print then some complications may arise, especially if it is popular and the print is not a legally-obtained one (which it likely will not be).

That's because, in general, 35mm prints are illegal to own. If you've ever looked on eBay for films, you'll see that they don't allow 35mm or 70mm prints to be sold. We were discussing this a while back in another forum- but actor Roddy McDowell's home was raided in 1974 and had his collection of 35mm prints seized by the FBI.

here

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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
They've denied such showings of privately held prints many, many times.
And if it's a privately owned print, who the hell are they to say what you can and can't do with your property.

Before anyone says anything, I know all videos and DVds have a 'not to be broadcast, hired' etc disclaimer on them, but I mean, let's say I wanted to invite 100 people to my private cinema to watch the OT, what can LF do about it?

War does not make one great.

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I don't think there's anything LFL can do about showing 100 of your closest friends the DVDs in the privacy of your own home (as long as you don't charge admission), but I know that you couldn't show them in any public place, like a restaurant.

A 35mm print is a different deal- since 35mm prints have never been sold by LFL, they are all still the property of LFL and if you own one- it's stolen, so you're breaking the law simply by possessing it.

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Ebay is actually pretty lax about old 35mm movie reels.
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Where were you in '77?

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Someone who wasn't much of a web user once asked me what was for sale on eBay. I told her "anything in your wildest dreams."

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: SilverWook
Ebay is actually pretty lax about old 35mm movie reels.
I know they kind of look the other way when it comes to 35mm trailers etc., but I thought they were pretty strict about 35mm full-length features. There are a lot of things that they've gotten pretty lax about- bootleg DVDs included.

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Not to say that I'd buy one, but hypothetically speaking, on average how much do old 35mm movie reels cost? Not Star Wars, but just regular run of the mill movies.

All hypothetically speaking, of course.
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings."
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I'm intrigued by the idea of putting pressure on Luca$hFilm indirectly, by demonstrating the draw of the OOT. If you could get people together to watch the OOT and make sure that Luca$hFilm get to know how many people want to see it, then that would be a great way of demonstrating against their policies.

I don't have all the answers, people, I wish I did. But if we could organise private screenings in all the countries represented here I reckon we'd get our point across!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I actually did organize a private screening of the OOT quite a few years back, around 1995 after the "Faces" set had come out. A friend of mine was in charge of a small, two-screen theater in downtown Portland, OR that was part of our college campus. We gathered a few friends by word-of-mouth, and used the video projector in the theater to show the entire trilogy in widescreen, using my newly-purchased letterboxed "Faces" videotapes. We even showed the Holiday Special inbetween Star Wars and Empire, which at that point almost nobody had seen oustside of the few who'd caught it in 1978.

This was a very memorable event for me, especially since I'd never before had the chance to:
A. see the trilogy in a theater before (my family didn't go to theaters most of the time I was growing up), and:
B. see the trilogy in widescreen, prior to picking up the "Faces" set.

Good times.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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Originally posted by: TheSessler
Not to say that I'd buy one, but hypothetically speaking, on average how much do old 35mm movie reels cost? Not Star Wars, but just regular run of the mill movies.

It depends on the title. Anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand dollars- and probably a lot more for very famous titles. You can check eBay to get an idea. I just looked and someone has 2 dye-transfer Technicolor Bruce Lee movies up- one is starting at $250, the other starts at about $1,000.

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I had no idea that 35 mm prints were illegal to own. Why is that? And, if so, where do all these private collectors with copies of Star Wars come from, and how is it they're not raided?

EDIT: Or do they simply have negatives, which may or may not be okay? I don't know.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Mielr
I don't think there's anything LFL can do about showing 100 of your closest friends the DVDs in the privacy of your own home (as long as you don't charge admission), but I know that you couldn't show them in any public place, like a restaurant.

A 35mm print is a different deal- since 35mm prints have never been sold by LFL, they are all still the property of LFL and if you own one- it's stolen, so you're breaking the law simply by possessing it.


...
So, what about all those theaters that ran Star Wars back in 1977? Do they just rent/lend out the prints and, they have to return them at the end of the run or something?

http://twister111.tumblr.com
Previous Signature preservation link

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Originally posted by: twister111
Originally posted by: Mielr
I don't think there's anything LFL can do about showing 100 of your closest friends the DVDs in the privacy of your own home (as long as you don't charge admission), but I know that you couldn't show them in any public place, like a restaurant.

A 35mm print is a different deal- since 35mm prints have never been sold by LFL, they are all still the property of LFL and if you own one- it's stolen, so you're breaking the law simply by possessing it.


...
So, what about all those theaters that ran Star Wars back in 1977? Do they just rent/lend out the prints and, they have to return them at the end of the run or something?



Generally yes, they have to rent the films from a distributor.
There's good in the Original Trilogy, and it's worth fighting for.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
http://www.myspace.com/harlock415