With high hopes bought two their DVDs -
Small Faces - All Or Nothing 1965-1968 and
Dusty Springfield - Once Uplon A Time 1964-1969...
Their DVDs are terrible.
They have imposed on all lip-sync clips remastered stereo soundtrack!! On some tracks, remastered sound (looks like) did not match with the video, and they "decided" to change the speed of the video (think about it!!), which led to defects in the video image quality. Also, most videos anyway still not perfectly synchronize with the "other" audio - it is clearly seen.
I watched and refused to understand, how such respected dvd-label could descend to do such a fake?...
Also, I do not like the
fact, that all live and lip-sync clips with the original mono-sound, re-sounded in stereo - but it's just my taste.
However, the fact, that these dvd-guys did not bother to do his work at a
good technical and professional level - creates a lot of doubts, firstly, in their skill and professionalism, and secondly, in all of their future "projects" which they announced.
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Dear Sergey,
This is David Peck the director of the British Invasion films you have slammed as being “fake” Wow! Not even sure of where to begin? Of course there many many words I could use to describe your thoughts but I’ll hold my tongue as best as I can and get to the facts the first being, you have no facts. You know absolutely ZERO, NADA, NOTHING when it comes to putting something like this together. How many music documentaries have you directed? I would love to see the quality of your work. How many master films & tapes have you dealt with? (Sorry VHS and You Tube doesn’t count)
When you sell over a million DVDs as I have across the board on all of the films I’ve Directed/Produced you’re always going to get some that don’t like your style, which is fine. I’ve never responded to any negative criticism when it comes down to taste but your comments on the audio are truly one of the most idiotic comments I have ever seen and I felt that I needed to respond so that no-one actually thinks you know what you’re talking about.
First and foremost in all of my films that involve archival clips I ALWAYS go back to the original film, Kinescope or 2 inch tape when they exist and do brand new transfers to get the best possible quality. There have a been a few rare exceptions when the original doesn’t exist but a master element still exists. My company, Reelin’ In The Years Productions, has the largest library of music footage in the world (over 20,000 hours) and we have the rights to license that footage on behalf of our clients. For the record, I’ve been dealing with music footage since 1984 so I know a little bit about the subject. Addressing your lip-syncing issue, in many cases the audio on the original film sounds horrible (especially when a kinescope is involved) Many times there is some stupid announcer talking over the opening notes of a song or the ending. Many times there are clueless teenagers clapping along on the one (that would be fine if it were James Brown or Funkadellic but it’s usually a typical white audience that couldn’t find a beat if a metronome was implanted in their head) So here’s the choice I have as a filmmaker, I could give the consumer really crappy audio OR I could go back and simply replace the bad audio with the ORIGIINAL (stereo/mono) RECORDING which is the same exact version that the artist is listening to in the studio as they are lip-syncing to the track. This is what I do every single time and I will continue to do so! I’ll say this very clearly and loud, THERE IS NOTHING FAKE IN ANY OF MY FILMS. I don’t EVER replace anything on a live version or when it’s a live vocal. For the record, the versions that I use are the EXACT same song, same take, same version that was released as a single at the time (or in some cases the album track). The only difference is that the sound is stunning as it should be. Do you really like bad audio over clean original audio? For the record, if the image is slightly off of the soundtrack (as you state) that’s because many times the artists are lousy at lip syncing. In some cases I’ve noticed (especially with a big screen TV) the sync is off which is NOT the fault of our product but rather the delay from the DVD machine to the TV. Not sure why this happens but it does and only happens on some TV’s (including mine). Before we release ANYTHING we watch these films down to catch anything that seems odd. We’re not perfect and we’ve made a few mistakes in the past but the bottom line is we care which more than I can say for a majority of the major labels who constantly re-package material and take the cheapest route possible and dump it on the market and take your money (you guys know who you are).
Another point you speak of is“defects in the image quality” how would you know about defects when you don’t have access to the master source? Yes there have been a few times we had to adjust the speed of the film BUT there’s no way you can tell as it’s been by a very small amount. Perfect example, in our Herman’s Hermits film they were lip syncing “I’m Into Something Good” in the film “Pop Gear” but whatever the source was when they were in the studio was VERY sped up and Peter’s voice was a least an octave higher so YEAH we fixed that because we’re trying to honor the music and not have him sound like a freakin’ chipmunk. The same thing happened with the clip in our Hollies Film on the track “I’m Alive” on a Dutch program called “Rooster”. Do you really enjoy hearing the artist at the wrong speed? Would you rather I kept the sped up version? These examples I gave are very rare and only happened because the original was so off.
In closing all I gotta say is Sergey, You don’t like my work that’s fine. You want to criticize the way we put the film together, fine. You prefer Mono to stereo that’s fine too BUT there’s no way in hell that I’ll stand here and let you decimate my work over something that you know nothing about. Do us both a favor, don’t buy my work, enjoy your bootlegs, enjoy the wonderful quality stuff on You Tube and we’ll both be happier for it. I don’t make these films for money I do it for the love of the music. My business is licensing clips for TV documentaries and these films are a way to express the love and respect I feel for the artist. Funny, Graham Nash & Allan Clarke had no problem with my Hollies film, as a matter of fact they loved it so much they came out to the premiere (Allan flew himself to Santa Monica on his own dime!) and sat with me onstage afterwards for a panel discussion. Yeah, but what do they know it’s only THEIR MUSIC. We take GREAT pride in our work and care deeply about the fans because SO ARE WE. This is why I use full songs (who else does that in the context of a documentary)? We film long interviews with the surviving artists to get deep into the music. We do liner notes in all of our films, there aren’t many companies that do that either.
I must apologize to those on this site who have been very supportive of my work and none of this is directed at you but when you pour your sweat, blood and A LOT of your own (F..King money) it REALLY gets under your skin when someone such as Sergey tears your work a new one with no facts whatsoever.
Sorry to rant but I got to set the record straight.
I really do thank all of you that have supported my work and have said such nice things. The DVD market stinks and these are not cheap to make but I hope to do more shortly.
David Peck
Director, The Hollies: Look Through Any Window 1963 – 1975
www.reelinintheyears.com