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Post by teleadm on May 13, 2017 17:41:45 GMT
Many classic films were cut in length and edited for reasons the studio executives considered, to improve the film's commercial viability, and to fit in with double bill marketing strategies. The Wicker Man (1973) was originally a 99 min film but was cut back for marketing reasons to 87 min for it's theatrical release, despite reservations about the affect on the film's continuity, it was released on a double bill with Don't Look Now. Director Robin Hardy sought to restore the narrative structure, some of the erotic elements which had been removed, and a very brief pre-title segment, tracking down the original elements a 96-minute restored version was released in January 1979. There are now three versions which recently became available as a set, UK theatrical cut 84 min, The Final Cut 91min and the Director's Cut 99 min On the extras on my DVD version of The Wicker Man 1973, Roger Corman says that he is the only one who have the original version on copy but he's not allowed to show it, because someone else beated him for the USA distribution rights and copyrights, and I think it was Ingrid Pitt who said that the lost scenes was a bunch of apple songs.
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Post by teleadm on May 13, 2017 17:57:28 GMT
I'm in the middle of watching a film, but checked this forum during a break. Video tape CAN look better, but you overlook that video-tapes of the 1950s are extremely difficult to digitise, and deteriorate a lot faster than kinescopes, to the point that many tapes now look worse than kinescopes. "What's My Line?" started being recorded on B&W video-tape in the late-1950s, but these episodes survive as kinescopes because it was cheaper to re-use the tape for other programming (video-tape was very expensive in those days). Many video-taped shows of the 1950s/1960s survive as kinescopes for this reason. The final season was recorded on colour video-tape , but again, it was cheaper to keep B&W kinescopes (colour video tape was very expensive). There are actually several dozen lost episodes of the series. Many 1950-1952 episodes were simply discarded by CBS, and other episodes (as recent as 1967) are also lost. If you'll forgive me, Mr. Dacron, based on what I recall from my work in television post-production and distribution 30-plus years ago, I'd challenge some of those assertions. With video or film, storage and handling together represent the single most significant factor impacting the durability of either medium. We often dealt with decades-old and functionally obsolete original 2" masters that were technically every bit as viable as the 1" ones being produced at the time, and it holds just as true for video as for film that recent material can suffer degradation more advanced than that from decades earlier, depending on those two factors. I'm afraid I know little about digitizing, as that postdates my time in the industry, so unless you can explain it to me, I know of no reason in theory that there should be any more difficulty in doing so with videotape from 1958 than with that from 1998. Although constant advancements and refinements were made to videotape substrates and oxide coating, recording equipment, cameras and displays, the NTSC specs adopted for color origination and broadcast remained constant for over 40 years from their adoption in 1953. If both the source elements and the hardware they require are available and viable, I'm unclear on any age-dependent technical barriers to digital encoding. I do realize it was common practice to recycle videotape, but it was a penny-wise/pound-foolish approach that, as I understand it, had more to do with short-sightedness about future revenue potential for ancillary distribution. Once initial investments in new hardware had been made, duplication and distribution utilizing even the earliest Quadruplex video system immediately became less expensive than the lab costs associated with doing so on film, and very few series were kinescoped for either archival or long-term distribution purposes. Inasmuch as a show like What's My Line? was broadcast by CBS, I might take a wild guess that producers/owners Goodson-Todman chose to continue kinescoping as they had in the pre-videotape days to avoid allowing the network to amortize the costs of their own equipment upgrades into the budget of their show for preserving it on videotape. While it's probably a near certainty that neither they nor anyone else at the time imagined the market for those shows a half-century hence, I consider their decision, whatever the reason, to have been ill-considered. If I understand correct kinescope was used because of the USA time zones, so if a TV programe was at 8 pm it was showed at 8 pm no matter what time zone you were in, and the "Live from New York" (example) is actually not live at all. So the reason Kinescope today looks so grainy the reason might be that they were made for tape recorders that don't exist today, but also that when copying from video tape to video tape to video tape, back in the eighties, copies became grainier and grainier and grainier.
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Post by claudius on May 13, 2017 18:16:58 GMT
Adding new footage to films broadcast on television: Hammer's KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963) was shown on TV as KISS OF EVIL. All displays of blood or fangs were removed, and inserted was this subplot dealing with a family from the village whose daughter is being seduced by one of the main vampire characters via a music box (said character makes no appearance in this new plotline). Whereas the original film ended with the vampire cult being massacred by bats, this new footage became the epilogue, with the family celebrating the change of things, and the daughter's reunited boyfriend chucking the music box into the fireplace.
The Fredric March DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931) suffered many cuts. Miriam Hopkins' striptease was removed by the Production Code, and a series of scenes between the first and second transformation (Hyde changes back to Jekyll to hide his identity from Poole, Jekyll's failed attempt to elope with his fiancee, and Jekyll's growing frustration about his fiancee's absence out of town, compelling him to try the potion again) was edited out to make it into one transformation (A children's 'novelization' of this version- with stills- obeyed this edited storyline). A good amount has been restored in the late 1980s and so on.
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Post by neurosturgeon on May 13, 2017 18:22:59 GMT
There is the well-known missing footage from the 1937 version of Lost Horizon that was cut out durin the WWII reissue as the dialog was considered anti war. Though great efforts have been made to restore the film, it is still not complete.
One mystery I have been trying to solve for years is the ending of the 1960 version of Pollyanna. I swear that at the end of the film, Pollyanna returned home after her surgery. The running time listed on IMDb is 134 minutes, but the version being shown in recent years is at least 14 minutes shorter, which supports my theory that the film was edited. Many have suggested that I have been influenced by many other versions, but I stand by my 6 year old memory.
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 13, 2017 18:38:59 GMT
If I understand correct kinescope was used because of the USA time zones, so if a TV programe was at 8 pm it was showed at 8 pm no matter what time zone you were in, and the "Live from New York" (example) is actually not live at all. So the reason Kinescope today looks so grainy the reason might be that they were made for tape recorders that don't exist today, but also that when copying from video tape to video tape to video tape, back in the eighties, copies became grainier and grainier and grainier. Your understanding is correct. Once a system of coaxial cable and microwave relays was established in 1951, live broadcasts originating in the Eastern time zone could be received in others, where they could be kinescoped for rapid processing and later broadcast at the appropriate time. In this way, the "live" 10:00PM Eastern broadcast of What's My Line? could be rebroadcast locally via kinescope at 10:00PM Pacific three hours later. The problem with the process involved a degradation in image quality even in first-generation copies that was inherent in the system itself, which consisted of nothing more complicated than aiming a motion picture camera at a studio monitor and photographing the moving images displayed there. With the NTSC system's already-limited resolution of only 480 visible lines of picture information, the practice of photographing a video image on film put the result at a disadvantage. Once videotape recording became available to broadcasters in 1956, the same process could be accomplished with considerably less generational loss in image quality. Although any analogue system using either film or videotape produces loss in quality from one generation to the next, that exhibited in a first-generation videotape made on the west coast from a live east coast broadcast was imperceptible to home viewers.
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Post by teleadm on May 13, 2017 18:50:44 GMT
There is the well-known missing footage from the 1937 version of Lost Horizon that was cut out durin the WWII reissue as the dialog was considered anti war. Though great efforts have been made to restore the film, it is still not complete. One mystery I have been trying to solve for years is the ending of the 1960 version of Pollyanna. I swear that at the end of the film, Pollyanna returned home after her surgery. The running time listed on IMDb is 134 minutes, but the version being shown in recent years is at least 14 minutes shorter, which supports my theory that the film was edited. Many have suggested that I have been influenced by many other versions, but I stand by my 6 year old memory. My guess about Pollyanna is that when Disney had their own televsion shows cut scenes so it could fit a two parter times slot and to leave space for commercials. But if they haven't restored it sounds sad.
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