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Post by petercheck on Feb 9, 2019 22:43:39 GMT
Well was said 'discovery' included in the doco on Saturday? And what was it? 'My Death'! Great to see part of it, though I did notice that the tape was blemished. Wonder what the whole thing looks like? Thoroughly enjoyed the whole documentary, more than I expected to. |
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Post by adamjordan on Feb 9, 2019 22:45:21 GMT
I don’t think ithe Lift Off clip of Starman made the cut. They showed the TOTP version we all know and love.
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Post by petercheck on Feb 9, 2019 23:02:22 GMT
I don’t think ithe Lift Off clip of Starman made the cut. They showed the TOTP version we all know and love. I didn't really expect it to be honest. Let's hope it's salvaged for future broadcast. |
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Post by iwest on Feb 10, 2019 17:47:13 GMT
I see that at some point the show appears to have been renamed from "The First Five Years" to "Finding Fame"; presumably they realised that the original title - though matching nicely the previous two BBC Bowie docs - was rather misleading given the period actually covered. Still a great doc though, with some fascinating interviews (great to hear Hermione Farthingale finally; wondered what the source of the 60s clips of her were? Seemed like it was from some kind of documentary rather than home movie, but heaven knows what exactly.) And some great archive clips, especially "My Death" from Russell Harty obviously.
On the downside, whoever thought that cropping 4:3 footage down to Cinemascope-style 2.35:1 was a good idea needs to be kept from ever editing a documentary again. Cropping 4:3 to 16:9 is bad enough, but this is just stupidity. Especially given that the interviews themselves were in 16:9, only the archive footage got the Cinemascope treatment. Baffling. Also was very disappointed how poor the "Love You Till Tuesday" movie footage looked, worse than the DVD it seemed to me. Had hoped that maybe the original negative might've been dug out and given a HD transfer specially for this doc, but I suspect from what we saw on screen that it may be long lost sadly. I'm sure if it still existed then they would've used it.
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Post by petercheck on Feb 10, 2019 18:23:01 GMT
On the downside, whoever thought that cropping 4:3 footage down to Cinemascope-style 2.35:1 was a good idea needs to be kept from ever editing a documentary again. Cropping 4:3 to 16:9 is bad enough, but this is just stupidity. Especially given that the interviews themselves were in 16:9, only the archive footage got the Cinemascope treatment. Baffling. Also was very disappointed how poor the "Love You Till Tuesday" movie footage looked, worse than the DVD it seemed to me. Had hoped that maybe the original negative might've been dug out and given a HD transfer specially for this doc, but I suspect from what we saw on screen that it may be long lost sadly. I'm sure if it still existed then they would've used it. I agree totally on both those points. Also, strange that no OGWT clips were used. Commonly seen, I know, but still essential considering the general shortage of pre-Ziggy footage. |
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Post by nicadare on Feb 10, 2019 19:39:51 GMT
Also was very disappointed how poor the "Love You Till Tuesday" movie footage looked, worse than the DVD it seemed to me. Had hoped that maybe the original negative might've been dug out and given a HD transfer specially for this doc, but I suspect from what we saw on screen that it may be long lost sadly. I'm sure if it still existed then they would've used it. I noticed that too shocking quality as was the Hits a Gogo footage of Space Oddity. |
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Post by Tim Brown on Feb 11, 2019 6:53:24 GMT
Yes, the footage of Hits a go go & Love you til Tues film are available in better quality, also the Ivor Novello 1970 performance.
Roundhouse looked good though.
Great to hear more audio of the Glasto 71 tape.
My death, what a great find!
Was it sourced from a private collection?
Any news on the Lift Off restoration?
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Post by iwest on Feb 11, 2019 8:31:07 GMT
Roundhouse footage did look good indeed, although there's no evidence from the doc that the missing audio for it has yet been found.
I know there are people on here who have worked on docs in the past, can someone clarify how it works with including archive footage. If you purchase the rights to include footage from a rights holder but the source material they supply is worse than what's available commercially elsewhere then are you legally allowed to simply raid other people's commercial releases of the same footage and use that instead? After all you've paid for the rights to include it, so in theory it shouldn't matter how the actual footage is then sourced? Just trying to understand how a doc like the Bowie one could clearly be a labour of love in many respects but fairly slapdash in others.
Speaking as someone who has been semi-obsessively trying to restore BBC4 TOTP repeats to how they should be using footage available elsewhere, I'm sorely tempted to do something similar with the Bowie doc, as a lot of the footage could be re-inserted in the correct ratio and from better quality sources for a more watchable result imho. (Although obviously things that are unique to this doc like "My Death" would have to stay as they are.)
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Post by Mark Tinkler on Feb 11, 2019 9:09:09 GMT
Speaking as someone who has worked on many a music doc - there's always 2 sides to tracking down archive. First is clearing it, with copyright and all 3rd parties, and secondly is finding a print good enough to use. No, you don't have to use the master the copyright holder supply but you should really pay a print access for which one you do use.
Sometimes, it's quicker (because of scheduling) to use a commercial DVD - certainly was the case for some of the Channel 5 list shows I did - you didn't have the time to get in all the tape/order up masters and edit them in.
I've also material from Kaleidoscope for broadcast, where I had to pay the copyright holder as well as paying Kaleidoscope for using their (unique) master, although arguably on one case, that also included the Bob Monkhouse estate as it was a section of Bob stand-up. This did double the cost of using the material mind.
But there's been quite a few times when I have paid the BBC for material that was their copyright but not used their masters - because they didn't have one. That includes Cilla Black and Marc Bolan, where I did offer to return the masters I had to the BBC, but sometimes refused as only VHS.
One other thing, if you blow up a 4x3 to 16x9, it will of course look lousy - even more so when it's a VHS Source. I myself did suffer this when a BBC commissioning editor just didn't like 4x3 (for purely persnaly aesthetic reasons as far as i could make out) and insisted all archive been blown up to 16x9... didn't want to see pillars, or de-focused side bars, just it blown up so it looked worse...
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Post by garyfreeman on Feb 11, 2019 11:45:38 GMT
I enjoyed the doc to be honest. But, very obviously disappointing that the lift off footage didn't make the cut. I hope that I'm not being too cynical here, but I am waiting for the "it couldn't be salvaged" announcement. I really hope I'm wrong!
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SydV
Member
Posts: 203
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Post by SydV on Feb 11, 2019 16:49:55 GMT
I enjoyed the doc to be honest. But, very obviously disappointing that the lift off footage didn't make the cut. I hope that I'm not being too cynical here, but I am waiting for the "it couldn't be salvaged" announcement. I really hope I'm wrong! Could be worse if it turns out the tape played back fine but had been taped over by an episode of "On the Buses" a few months later (with all the continuity cut out as well). |
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Post by Paul Hayes on Feb 14, 2019 21:59:14 GMT
That digitisation error, it it genuinely happened as reported, seems fairly extraordinary. Are we aware of anything like that having happened before with TV archive material? I have a vague memory that perhaps an EastEnders episode was junked in error during archiving to D3? Just to be clear, I thought it was agreed that the lift off junking story was just Ayshea being EXTREMELY out of the loop and not understanding that this was common practice. She complains about being cheated out of "repeat fees" which she didn't seem to miss for 40 years but a few years ago got upset about because she didn't understand what she was told. What she alleges *wasn't* common practice, though - tapes being dumped by accident when being sent to be digitised. I do agree, however, that she's probably simply misunderstood, and that this wasn't actually what happened. |
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Post by Geoff.D on Feb 17, 2019 10:50:24 GMT
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Post by rmackenziefehr on Feb 19, 2019 0:35:37 GMT
I do agree, however, that she's probably simply misunderstood, and that this wasn't actually what happened. Quite- there are several other accounts (from several different countries) from artists involving the preservation of their materials that similarly seem either to be misinformed or to be repeating second-hand accounts. |
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Post by ajsmith on Feb 19, 2019 8:01:12 GMT
Yep. I recall Rodney Bewes claiming that the missing Likely Lads episodes were due to a ‘computer error’!
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