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Post by Jamie F on Apr 1, 2012 22:10:37 GMT
Be very interesting to see what surfaces next...... Fingers crossed! I'd settle for anything - The Feast of Steven, The Space Pirates: Episode 3 or even a better quality copy of The Faceless Ones: Episode 3. I often find the episodes fandom label as the "worst" to be the most interesting. I suspect fandom will be pleasantly surprised when Air Lock and The Underwater Menance: Episode 2 are commercially released. |
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Post by Mark Vanderlinde-Abernathy on Apr 1, 2012 22:24:35 GMT
Fingers crossed! I'd settle for anything - The Feast of Steven, The Space Pirates: Episode 3 or even a better quality copy of The Faceless Ones: Episode 3. I never understood some people's jokes about Feast of Steven. For unrealistic hopeful whovians like me that dream of a day all episodes are found (impossible feat, but fun to imagine) ... Feast of Steven, being statistically the least likely to show up, would be #1 on my list. BTW, I've not seen The Faceless Ones Ep. 3 ... what was the damage on that episode? |
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Post by Jamie F on Apr 1, 2012 22:36:21 GMT
I never understood some people's jokes about Feast of Steven. For unrealistic hopeful whovians like me that dream of a day all episodes are found (impossible feat, but fun to imagine) ... Feast of Steven, being statistically the least likely to show up, would be #1 on my list. The Feast of Steven would be top of my list too, given a choice. Not only to defy the status as the one episode definitely known not to exist, but also because it is so unique and there has never been an episode like it since. It's also a nice standalone episode, could easily be a single-episode story. BTW, I've not seen The Faceless Ones Ep. 3 ... what was the damage on that episode? The Restoration Team have done a brilliant job on what was originally described as an episode unlikely to be broadcast or released. As it now stands, there are about five or six very noticeable scenes towards the end of the episode where footage is used from elsewhere to patch the gaps, usually a close-up shot of a character. From the Restoration Team's web-site concerning the VHS release: The Faceless Ones: 3
The surviving print is considerably damaged. Even ignoring the missing sections, there is marked scratching (tramline and major) with emulsion damage. Extensive deblobbing was required. Four short gaps (less than 4 frames), identified by Jonathan’s pink triangle, were repaired using a combination of interpolation and paintbox techniques.
One of Jonathan’s zoomed-in cutaways showed Patrick Troughton with discordant facial expressions so a few frames were retouched to give the shots either side of the new “cut” a better match.
One slowed down shot, from stock footage, of the plane in flight had been slowed down by Jonathan using frame blending. Unfortunately, the combination of the film being dirty, scratched and out-of-phase meant that artefacts were often spread over up to 4 frames (with added interlace artefacts) and, as a result, the slow motion was painfully obvious. The existing film was 129 frames long and the original insert lasted for 179 frames. Therefore, the 129 frames were cleaned up as much as possible and then time-stretched using interpolation to give a smooth version of the correct duration.
Another problematic shot was where Ann Davidson closes the bulkhead door between the passenger and crew cabins. This is completely absent from the existing print. Jonathan had used a cutaway of a zoomed-in intercom panel but, arising for no good reason in the scene and lasting a little over a second, I felt it was little less distracting than the jump cut. Therefore a combination of interpolation and paintbox techniques was used to create a composite image of Ann actually closing the door, as seen on one of the Chameleons’ monitors. While not perfect (as the shot is still short) it is now more sympathetic to the flow of the scene.
Again, the end credits were remade.I find it impossible to watch the episode without distracting myself with the "spot the missing frames" game unfortunately. |
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Post by John Wall on Apr 1, 2012 23:00:34 GMT
Feast of Steven has previously been discussed - although it was never sold abroad there's a faint possibility that a viewing print was made, this happened with other things.
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Post by Jamie F on Apr 2, 2012 0:27:28 GMT
Feast of Steven has previously been discussed - although it was never sold abroad there's a faint possibility that a viewing print was made, this happened with other things. There's also the possibility of an off-air recording, I suppose. A very, very, very small possibility. It would be funny and wonderful it the episode was recovered. I can just imagine the message board discussions about whether there should be branching on the DVD release with the option of removing The Doctor's breaking of the fourth wall! |
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Post by felixdembinski on Apr 2, 2012 17:48:16 GMT
The breaking of the fourth wall is the only good thing about that episode in my opinion, there should be an option to only watch that bit!
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Post by Steven Sigel on Apr 2, 2012 19:45:31 GMT
Feast of Steven is the least likely episode of all to ever turn up. Is there any evidence that it was ever telerecorded at all? I thought it was pretty certain that it was never done. As for home video recordings - the chances of that are beyond miniscule - given the cost of equipment and tapes in that era, the chances of a) anyone recording it in the first place, b) anyone keeping the tape and not re-using it and c) the tape being playable even if it existed are effectively nil.
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Post by John Wall on Apr 2, 2012 20:14:40 GMT
There was a post from, I think, Paul Vanezis to the effect that viewing copies of things that weren't believed to have been telerecorded have turned up.
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Post by Steven Sigel on Apr 2, 2012 20:15:43 GMT
There was a post from, I think, Paul Vanezis to the effect that viewing copies of things that weren't believed to have been telerecorded have turned up. Maybe, but that still doesn't really change the fact that this would be the least likely episode to turn up. |
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Post by simonashby on Apr 2, 2012 21:07:07 GMT
The point is, regardless of how apparently unlikely a TR of it turning up is, no-one can definitively say if a TR was made or not.
I don't think we can really put odds on anything turning up at this point now anyway. We have no idea how many copies of anything missing are out there, if any at all, so it's just as likely to turn up as anything else missing in practical terms.
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Post by Steven Sigel on Apr 2, 2012 21:14:05 GMT
Sorry Simon, but I disagree 100%... The chance of something that was never officially recorded (note I said "officially" -- we do know that for sure) turning up, and that was only screened once in one country is obviously lower than something where we know that multiple copies were made and shown in multiple countries... It's simple probability theory...
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Post by John Wall on Apr 2, 2012 22:57:16 GMT
The point is, regardless of how apparently unlikely a TR of it turning up is, no-one can definitively say if a TR was made or not. I don't think we can really put odds on anything turning up at this point now anyway. We have no idea how many copies of anything missing are out there, if any at all, so it's just as likely to turn up as anything else missing in practical terms. Jon Preddle has done some work on the number of prints that were probably made - it's somewhat less than the number of countries that bought/showed various missing stories. |
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Post by George D on Apr 2, 2012 23:16:14 GMT
I think we're all in agreement that while the odds are small of the feast of steven surviving, no one is going to say its impossible.
While two 16mm prints have shown up on ebay, I dont think we should get our hopes up.
The first one may be a legitmate find. The second was in the hands of a collector and was probably a dupe (not a new original discovered) who saw the $$$ after the last auction. I seriously doubt that owner of the second print was unaware of what is missing and we really dont know on the first.
While I can dream about finding an archive of 3rd Season Hartnells (oh wait.. that was Sierra Leone) and its fun to dream, unfortunately, its hard to turn our dreams into reality.
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Post by John F Brayshaw on Apr 3, 2012 0:44:05 GMT
Never Say Never........
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Post by Richard Tipple on Apr 3, 2012 12:13:58 GMT
A fair price for a dupe I think. A classic example of 1960's Sci-fi with low budgets and big ideas! I look forward to seeing what eBay serves up next!
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