Save Star Wars Dot Com — Page 26

red5-626 said:

 

STAR WARS Super 8mm Film CINEMASCOPE Rare 

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/STAR-WARS-Super-8mm-Film-CINEMASCOPE-Rare_W0QQitemZ270705363242QQcategoryZ35064QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp5197.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D1%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7162500347031303415

 

But only "selected scenes" and only 17 minutes... Nice collectible though.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but its probably the limited scope release of the second 400' Ken Films digest. Cool nonetheless though.

So what does everyone know about these Kansas subterranean vaults where films were/are stored?  http://savestarwars.com/filmpreservation.html & http://www.shavenwookie.com/orhp/se/#RESTORE mention them, but the descriptions are vague and brief.

Guessing but this Stanley H. Durwood Film Vault in the Central Library must be close to the storage facilities.  Why convert a bank vault into a movie theater!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kclibrary/2649496689/in/set-72157606830379141/

Seems there is an episode of the History Channel's Modern Marvels which goes into the film vaults.

http://www.undergroundvaults.com/index.php/news/history-channel-to-film-underground/

Here seems to be the transcript of the 'Modern Marvels' 'Library of Congress' episode:

Modern Marvels - The Real National Treasure

HISTP

Aired on Saturday, Jun 19, 2010 (6/19/2010) at 10:00 AM

http://www.livedash.com/transcript/modern_marvels-%28the_real_national_treasure%29/5916/HISTP/Saturday_June_19_2010/236940/

00:35:31    75 miles from Capitol Hill in Culpeper, Virginia, the Library of Congress' newly completed Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation sits half above ground and half below.
00:35:46    Built partially within a former bomb shelter, the building was designed to protect its contents from any catastrophic event.
00:35:55    And those contents happen to include the most valuable motion picture artifacts in the world, including 140,000 reels of original nitrate camera negatives and prints from America's first 60 years of moviemaking.,, >> LUKOW: We're standing in the Library of Congress' nitrate film vaults.
00:36:18    50 of those vaults right behind me here, another 74 on the other side of those doors at the end of the hallway.
00:36:25    124 vaults altogether.
00:36:28    Up until about 1951, all theatrical motion pictures that were shown in this country, week in and week out that your parents or your grandparents went to, were actually shot on nitrate film stock.
00:36:40    We have the original camera negative of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and all the Frank Capra films.
00:36:46    And when I say "original camera negative," that means the film that was in the carara when Frank Capra had Jimmy Stewart standing right in front of it.
00:36:56    So that's, that's typical of what we have here.

00:36:59    >> NARRATOR: Nitrate film stock is highly flammable.
00:37:02    If a reel starts burning, not even immersing it in water will extinguish the flames because when nitrate burns, it creates its own oxygen.
00:37:12    No expense was spared in making the nitrate vaults fireproof.,, Should a nitrate fire ever start in a film canister, it would be contained to one fireproof shelf.
00:37:27    Sprinklers angled from above would cascade water in front of the shelves to prevent the fire,, from spreading outward.
00:37:36    The Packard Campus is the new home of the most precious film negatives and elements donated to the library by most of Hollywood's major studios.
00:37:48    Because the vault areas are kept at a constant temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity of 30%, even in the warmest months film specialists are dressed for winter.
00:38:00    There are no complaints, considering their everyday access to moviemaking's,, greatest treasures-- some famous and some relatively unknown.

And here's a passage about the preservation and return to the public domain of some works:

00:43:34    4 41hs) - The Real ,,,, >> NARRATOR: We now return to,, "The Library of Congress" onModern Marvels.
00:44:55    In every department of the,, Library of Congress, specialists are scanning the library's greatest treasures to make them available online.
00:45:04    Many of the newer items are older analog videotapes which need to be duplicated into digital formats.
00:45:13    >> JAMES SNYDER: We're doing one particular period in the history of CBS News, their archive, which is 1974 to 1985.
00:45:20    And just in that 11 years, we're talking 800,000 cassettes of one type: the three-quarter- inch cassette type.,, >> NARRATOR: The biggest challenge of being able to make digital copies of videotapes is to have working machines to play them all back.
00:45:38    For that reason, Culpeper has become one of the largest collectors of working video and audio machines in the world.,,,, When the appreciation of art forms is machine-dependent, it's critical to make sure at least one appropriate machine is able to make a transfer to new digital formats.
00:45:59    Packard engineers scour used equipment houses and even garage sales for spare parts to keep outdated machines working.

My description is just based off a blurb that is equally vague in ILM: Into the Digital Realm. At some point, the Fox archives outgrew their own compound so they had to start storing some of them off-site. They selected a former salt mine in Kansas and turned it into a film vault.

I have no idea how much of the Star Wars material, if any, Fox kept. Lucasfilm seems to have all the negatives in their own archives now.

Apparently Lucas and Christopher Nolan were on a panel last night about important film milestones at the DGA, followed by a screening of Star Wars. Wonder if the issue came up, or if they just showed the CGI version at an event about historical milestones without a trace of irony.

idea regarding the super 8 Derann print.

Tobin Telecine

I posted a rough version of this in a theatrical colouring thread in the preservation forum, but now I'm making this more public:

http://www.savestarwars.com/goutcorrect.html

zombie84 said:

I posted a rough version of this in a theatrical colouring thread in the preservation forum, but now I'm making this more public:

http://www.savestarwars.com/goutcorrect.html

Woah Zombie84, thanks a lot for your tutorial to watch Star Wars with VLC and the correct colours !! It's incredible !

I installed VLC, launched the DVD and corrected the colours as you said and... MIRACLE !!! The Original Star Wars seems to be in a wonderful Technicolor !!

Thanks again ! :-)

:O

You used my screenies :D

God damn it's such a wallbanger even listening to Lucas talk about his 'vision'.

What is his deal anyhow? Why does he seem to think that the original versions can't co-exist with his 'vision'? I just do not understand this man.

Using KMPlayer, increasing the Saturation to 120% and the Contrast to 104% seems to improve it for me. I will have to try the hue settings next to tone down the red faces.

 

 Lucas: There is no original. (Was gone b4 1st 70s rerelease)

I guess that is a reference to the more minor, pre-97 changes? Somehow he equates that with putting 90s cartoon dinosaurs in it. Kooky.

When the Well finally dries up, and hopefully it will some day, then we will see the originals nicely restored and remastered.

It will be the last thing LFL has left to make any money off of.

The cruel irony is that we got a 5-disc release of Blade Runner because WB actually needed to put some effort into it in order to have all these selling points to get people to go out and buy it.

What does LFL need as a selling point? "It's Star Wars, now give us your money!"

Blade Runner is THE benchmark for how to do a home video collector's edition properly.

Fang Zei said:

What does LFL need as a selling point? "It's Star Wars, now give us your money!"

So true... it seems anything Star Wars will sell. For instance, a version of the Holiday Special even if unremastered would still probably sell.

How many people would have boycotted the Blade Runner set if it didn't include the workprint version? Not many. And yet that is the dipshit logic that keeps getting thrown around for Star Wars: "We won't lose much money by not including the originals, so why should we bother putting out a superior product?"  Maybe, but why even get involved with movies if you're going to be such a middle-management weenie about it? Go be a fucking comptroller or something.

No one would have cared about the workprint version, though.  Nobody expected it to be released until it was announced.

But if they'd left out the theatrical cut, people would have bitched, most definitely.

Sure but the point is they took the time, effort and money with the workprint even though it would not have hurt sales if they hadn't.

Here's something to remember, though:

That set probably wouldn't have had as high an msrp as it did if they hadn't included that third blu-ray disc in the package (the workprint disc).

I think that's the logic LFL hasn't grasped yet. If LFL is that unsure of a restored/remastered OOT being worth their investment, they should charge a little more money to make it worth their while. I mean, isn't that basic business sense? If you need to spend more money to make your product, you tell people what's so great about the product and why you're charging a little higher of a price point.

All of that is beside the point anyway. Star Wars leaves every other film behind when it comes to popular demand of its original version. You remember that scene in Pulp Fiction when Vince and Mia are at the diner? Mia says she knows a funny joke and Vince wants to hear it, but Mia keeps refusing? Finally, after he asks for the third or fourth time she just says "No! It's been built up too much, I can't say it now!"

LFL is Mia and we are Vince.

We just keep building it up and building it up, asking again and again "Will the originals be remastered???" It just seems like the more we ask, the more LFL digs their heels into the ground, the "no comment" incident being the most recent example.