Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

Oh crap - this was supposed to go in off-topic.
Can someone move it for me?

My jazz group “Riverrun” just released a CD. If you’re curious, it’s available here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/riverrun1

It was recorded live at a local winery during their summer jazz concert series.

Very nice update!

Joshua724 said:

3. As much as I applaud fan efforts to preserve the pre-SE audio tracks via the laserdisc, they pail in comparison to the cassette recording my dad did while at CBS\FOX. I appreciate any and all offers to transfer the cassette we have to a digital format for later use. After talking with my dad, even though he did the recording for me (something that he could hand down) and I could do with it what I want, he made it conditional because it was meant only for me. But, we decided to purchase our own metal tape deck and plan on digitizing the track that way.

Make sure you get a high quality deck with an unworn playback head, and then have it serviced and its heads aligned by a respected tech knowledgeable in vintage tape equipment. Just having a “metal” setting doesn’t mean much - a lot of cheap decks had that and sounded like crap. Also, test the deck on some less valuable tapes before running your tape through it. You wouldn’t want it to eat the tape, or have the pinch roller deposit a bunch of junk on it.

I must be missing something… why would a pre-SE soundtrack be so valuable? The laserdisks were pre-SE.

Joshua724 said:

Williarob said:

@Joshua724: At around 58 minutes, your dad talks about a cassette recording he made of the soundtrack for testing at home, and he says he “thinks we still have that”. Were you able to dig that up? I’m sure I’m not the only one here who would like to listen to it…

Not only do I have it, I was planning on loaning it to someone who knew how best to handle it to coincide with the release of this interview. I just forgot to mention that. As such, does anyone know someone who has the proper tape playing equipment to be able to play back this tape at the highest audio quality that it was recorded at? Here’s some stats:

TDK MetalBias 70us EQ MA90
Noise Reduction: DBX
High(CrO2)): 70us

The main emphasis on this tape cassette is that it was recorded with a tape machine that took full advantage of the metal composition on the tape cassette to record the audio track in the best way possible.

Is this a cassette tape or a reel? If it is a cassette, I have a NAK MR1 that has been tuned recently.

yhwx said:

Sorry, Snopes says it’s mostly false.

darthrush said:
It seems they’ll be screening A New Hope today. Still hoping its the theatrical

Already by definition it isn’t.

FanFiltration said:

OMG that is hilarious.

My using the Trump example wasn’t intended to be anti-Trump, but simply to point out that nobody is immune to very strong, but (provably) false, memories.

NPR did a story (maybe it was Science Friday?) about false memories. Some scientists think it could be caused by the fact that brain cells are constantly being rewritten. That is, the neurons today are not the same ones we had a year or two ago. And (ironically) like modern solid state hard drives, the memories in our brain are constantly being regenerated and stored in newly-created neurons. When that happens, it is possible for them to be incorrectly mixed with other memories.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4486533

My very strong, probably false, star wars memory is the 1977 presence of the deleted hangar scene (the one that was added back - slightly shortened - into the SE). I saw SW four times in 1977, one in 70mm and three in 35mm (not in that order), and I remember it so strongly I could recite the dialogue. I have come to accept that I probably saw it somewhere else, around the same time.

I think that the most compelling argument against these memories being real, is the diversity of them. There’s no way so many versions of Star Wars could have hit the theaters.

Since joining this forum and resigning myself to the fact that my memory is probably false, I have been careful to observe other instances in my life where I have provably false memories. Since then I’ve probably had at least 5 or 6 such examples - versions of my experiences that I had believed for years, and were utterly proven false. Things like, my mom did this, and it turned out my aunt did it. Or, I saw a certain thing in my backyard, and it was actually at school. The brain is a complex beast.

Heck, Trump remembers people partying in the streets of New Jersey after 911. I don’t think it’s a lie, I think it is a false memory, with his regenerating brain cells mixing in memories of Palestinian celebrations.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/22/donald-trump/fact-checking-trumps-claim-thousands-new-jersey-ch/

Sorry again for the delays. School let out, I finished my book (well, the first draft for the publisher), so I was expecting to resume work last week. Then my dad died, and I’m the executor. I had no idea how much that would entail. It’s been a full time job for this past week, and I’ve just started.

I will say that I will make two versions, one raw without color correction, and one with Harmy’s color correction. Should be able to start assembling in July.

I saw 2001 in 1968 when I was 8 years old, in 70mm. I remember that experience very clearly and LOVED the film, although obviously I don’t remember any details that would be useful here.

I also saw the film in 70mm at the Castro Theater early in its tour around the country in 2001 (before it got all beat up). That may have been the most astounding image I ever saw on the big screen. Corner to corner flawless, not even a piece of dust, with colors that leapt off the screen. The audience was sold out for each show, and loudly cheered at several points during the movie.

CourtlyHades296 said:
The meadow picnic scene
Anakin riding on a shaak

Just imagining what those would look like in IMAX makes me want to gnaw my kneecaps off.

poita said:
Thanks Puggo, the VO-9850 isn’t high band is it?
If the tapes need baking, are you able to offer that service?

Hi Poita - The VO-9850 is low band, and can play either normal or SP tapes. Are your tapes high band? I think the two formats are totally incompatible with each other. Low band is much more common, but if your tapes are high-band, that would be really cool because the quality could be higher.

As for baking, I’ve baked hundreds of open-reel EIAJ tapes. I use an American Harvest food dehydrator - it’s quite gentle and has a pretty accurate thermostat. It is the same model used by BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition). I haven’t tried baking a U-Matic tape before. I did some reading online… it seems most houses simply bake the whole cassette intact, and a few remove the tape from the housing. There is a tradeoff there… U-Matic housings are a pain in the rear to re-assemble, much more difficult than, say, audio cassettes. Apparently, if you leave the tape in the housing, there is some small risk of “outgassing”, which is if some material in the housing releases gasses during the baking that do something bad (not clear what, exactly - something to the tape, I think?).

Most U-Matic tapes don’t require baking - it depends on the tape stock. Almost all Ampex tapes exhibit sticky-shed (mine were getting it just a few years after I bought them), some 3M, and a few Sonys (but most Sony’s are ok – except Sony EIAJ open-reel tapes; almost all of those require baking in my experience. Not sure why Sony UMatics are ok but Sony EIAJs aren’t). Bottom line, if it doesn’t require baking, I wouldn’t bake it. If you learn that it does, and you want me to bake it in the housing, I can do that. (I am not confident removing it from the housing and reassembling it myself). So do some research, think about your options, and let me know.

Make sure you are well-versed in cleaning the tape path of your U-Matic deck. Because if you observe that your tape requires baking because it squeals and stops playing, the tape path will most definitely need a thorough cleaning !! 😃 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cleaned the tape path of my EIAJ deck.

I have a Sony VO-9850 deck, if you have any trouble or want an alternate transfer.

Wazzles said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Darth Lucas said:
As for names, I suggest - Star Wars 35mm: The Poita No Return

That name is already taken! It was used for the dub of the EIAJ open-reel video set.

He could go with “Team Puggo’s Despecialized Grindhouse: The Ridiculousness Revisted”.

That actually might be a better name for the EIAJ open-reel video set.

Darth Lucas said:
As for names, I suggest - Star Wars 35mm: The Poita No Return

That name is already taken! It was used for the dub of the EIAJ open-reel video set.

Could be! Thanks!

Two that I like that haven’t been mentioned:
“Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.”
“He tricked me into going this way.”

Way back in the early 70s I saw an obscure sci-fi movie on Bob Wilkins show that I can’t remember the name. It was a sort of time-travel theme - or maybe inter-dimensional travel with a group of people time-traveling together. It wasn’t very good, but it had one very clever moment. Early in the film, one of the people in the group looked over her shoulder and quickly said “what was that?”. Nobody answered, and the movie just kept playing. Towards the end, the group had managed to get into some dimension where they were traveling through time at a different speed, and encountered themselves back in that earlier scene – but saw themselves almost standing still. Actually they saw themselves moving, but very slowly. They wandered around themselves, as if looking at statues of themselves. They then ran off. Immediately after, the movie sped up the “slow” versions of the people, and the woman said her line “what was that?”, and of course then you knew that what she had seen, was themselves at a very fast speed.

Another movie I saw on Bob Wilkins and always wondered what it was, was a campy horror flick in which two young kids (boy and girl, about 7 or 8 years old) were raised by their father. The father died, and the kids managed to turn him into a zombie. Various social workers would come by and try to take the kids to foster care, and the kids didn’t want to leave their home, so they’d “wake up” their daddy/zombie who would then kill the intruder and dispose of the body. It was hilarious and VERY low budget. I especially liked when someone would drive up the driveway, and the kids would look at each other and say “I guess we’re going to have to wake up daddy again.”

If there’s just one thing I’ve learned in my 55-year trip so far through the ups and downs, is that time heals. It really does. Unfortunately, it refuses to be rushed.

The best way to do well and to be confident is to be extremely well prepared. Try to anticipate all possible counter-arguments and have your counter-counter-arguments ready. You don’t have to bring them up unless you need them. Talk calmly, no need to rush. And remember that if someone is arguing against you and their arguments are foolish or unprofessional, it is sometimes better to not get drawn into the mud – better to let them hang themself. 😃

Oh, and also realize that most everyone else is probably just as nervous as you, regardless of how they might seem.

One of the comments called the Holiday Special “a glorious train wreck”. I like that!

IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer said:
I always find it a bit disingenuous when people say that they want the original version of the films for the sake of historical novelty.

Why? And what is “historical novelty”? Do you mean “historical accuracy”? I don’t consider historical accuracy to be a novelty. Well, actually it is a bit of a novelty to find historical accuracy, but that is a bit sad, don’t you think?

ADDENDUM - fearing that I might have displayed my ignorance of the term “historical novelty”, I Googled it. Your post came up first.