I think Steve's flurry of activity is fantastic, but now I am a little mixed up on what is coming out when. I have marked on my calendar that the Willy Whopper set comes out tomorrow. Since I have heard nothing recently on this, I am guessing it is delayed to get SNAFU out. Anybody (Steve?) have a clearer picture of what and when? Thanks!
Willie isn't ready yet! His whereabouts and appearance will be sometime soon.. but the set is far from done at this moment, though making really good progress every day. Snafu is looking really great and getting there fast as well. Willie Whopper, Flip the Frog, an Abbott and Costello rarities and the Lou Bunin set all in some sort of progress right now at the studio space.
They're all taking longer than the too-ambitious schedule allowed for so far, but happily getting there....
The big debate on Willie right now is whether or not we should get the one 35mm Nitrate film we didn't. We have that particular title in a survivable 16mm element, but it makes some sense to get the best on 'every' film for the set, and if we didn't get this one we wouldn't have that - though everything else is from the best elements we've found, with the majority coming from the 35mm materials at UCLA and the Academy. These range from original negs to fine grains to prints. Some are from 16mm fine grains directly made from the 35mm neg or master positive. It's expensive to get that one film here since it's nitrate, and a nitrate Hasmat package needs to be sent both ways.. or I can try to get it done out there without supervising, and that may work...
For the record though, Willie isn't delayed *for* Snafu.. in fact, Willie is just a little closer to being done than Snafu. They're happening sort of at the same time. I have the menus all done for Snafu, but not for Willie- but Willie has all but 3 of the films all cleaned up- plus the handful of original title sequences that were not in 35mm are all scanned and cleaned up too. On Snafu, we're waiting to try and get a better print on 'The Goldbrick'. We just transferred a 16mm, and it doesn't have the scratch that the NARA one does, but it's softer focus-wise. It's looking like the 35mm on that title is too fragile to use, though I'm trying some creative arm twisting in this situation and may end up going out to beg them to let me 4k it to preserve it. There are 8 films on the set all told I want to upgrade in some way- mostly things from 'A Few Quick Facts' series. All the rest are finished/cleaned up. Watched Willie in 'The Caveman' from the neg earlier tonight and nearly cried...just beautiful, like it was shot yesterday.
Edited by user
2015-05-07T04:12:26Z
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