I would never work for a major motion picture studio. Three, I would never work in America. I’ve done all
three, and it’s called The Fisher King.” --Terry Gilliam, on the commentary track.
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Disc Details
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Disc 1 (DVD-5)
-A new capture of the 1992 Criterion Collection laserdisc (OAR)
-Audio commentary by director Terry Gilliam
Disc 2 (DVD-5)
-Three trailers, demonstrating the subtleties of marketing this movie to the masses
-Six deleted scenes with commentary by Gilliam, complete with screenplay excerpts
-Scene analysis by Gilliam of four key scenes, including screenplay excerpts and storyboards
-Costume tests with comments from Gilliam
-more!
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Source Materials
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The 1992 Criterion Collection laserdisc of The Fisher King (Spine No. 149), and some random tidbits from
elsewhere to augment the menus.
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Technical Details
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I know I threatened to upgrade equipment, but I recently spent a bunch of money on new golf clubs, so
it’s the exact same CLD-D704--s-video-->Dazzle DVC90-->computer chain I used for The Princess Bride.
I used my same software methodology as before as well, but I think the brightness on this one is probably
better than Bride.
The first disc is pretty straightforward; the menus don’t even move, although the entire cut of “Lydia, the
Tattooed Lady” is on there for your, um, enjoyment. The second disc was, to put it bluntly, a bitch to construct.
So much of these Criterion laserdiscs is just text that it gets tedious making each frame of text into a
photoshop file and then a subsequent menu in Encore. However, I re-typed each frame on the disc, including
the screenplays, and didn’t get lazy and just copy the captured frames over to a slideshow. I think there are
about 200 or so individual menus on disc two.
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Non-Technical Details
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I have to admit that I never saw this movie before I started working on this project. I’ve done about 10
transfers now, and usually I’m sick of the movie by the end, but I still find myself liking this one. I can only
think of a few other movies that don’t start to grate on me after a while (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent
Ambersons, Jaws, etc.) and then there are those that are okay the first or second viewing, but then look
clunky after that (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Princess Bride, etc.) I don’t really know what the
difference is. I think it might have to do with the editing, but whatever it is, this movie seems to have it.
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Errors
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I will be updating this section as they become apparent, but the first one I want to let everyone know
about is an inverse telecine error that occurred on the tilt down shot onto Parry and Jack in Central Park.
The only thing on the screen for about 100 frames is the moon, and the software I used wasn’t able to
lock onto the 3:2 pattern for this shot, so it’s jumpy all the way down. I think there’s a manual
override function in the software to tell it exactly which frames are interlaced and which ones aren’t,
but I didn’t catch it until late.
There are very likely several typographical errors in the screenplay sections, but since I had so many
problems with the compiling of these discs, I didn’t want to go back and give it another try.
Also, each of the frames of text is actually a menu frame with hidden buttons that autoactivate when
you use the arrow buttons. Or at least I thought they’d be hidden. On my monitor I couldn’t see the
black buttons on the black background, but depending on what else is on the screen at the same time,
apparently button black isn’t the same as background black on a tube TV. You can see the outline of my
hidden buttons. Munchausen will be better in this respect.
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Artwork
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I received some feedback on the jacket when I originally posted it, and I appreciate it, but I ended up
not changing anything. Partially laziness and partially stubbornness, I like the jacket how it is. I included
my original photoshop file on the second disc, so you can adjust it as you see fit, change the text
(Myriad Pro, by the way), or completely change the front picture. You could also delete everything
off of there except the criterion things to make yourself a template if you’re doing your own project.
There is also a little laserdisc brochure thing that I made in there, which took forever to complete, so
give it a look at well. It’s an acrobat file.
My avs files are in the dvd-rom folder, too.
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Distribution
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As I stated above, I won’t be just randomly sending out copies like the last time. I guess it eventually
got out like I wanted it to, but I can probably be more efficient with it this time. If you have the ability
to post a torrent file, let me know via PM and we can work something out.
If you decide to seed these discs, please include the announcement above, but not my name or any information that can be linked back to this site. I realize it’s a public forum, but I don’t want to raise the ire of the powers that be. You can leave out the part about new golf clubs.