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Senior Member
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CandymanHappyman
Hello everyone,
I’m a long time reader of this site and these forums, but have never really posted here before.
But after years of bearing witness to the discussions here, it’s obvious that there is a lot of confusion, misunderstanding and downright misinformation regarding many aspects of movies, and the home video industry in particular.
As someone who has worked in the film industry for almost 30 years, I have a lot of firsthand knowledge that I hope can maybe shed some light on these issues, and hopefully answer some of your questions.
(Just to be clear, I do not work for any home video label or studio home video division. And I’m not here to speak for anyone in the industry. I’m just a filmmaker and movie geek who lives for cinema and the hobby of collecting and enjoying films at home.)
I will always do my best to differentiate between what I know to be fact, what I hold as a personal opinion, and when the situation calls for it, pure conjecture.
Since there is always questions regarding licensing, and since so many people seem to feel that many labels hold back releasing their favorite titles as a form of personal vendetta, I think it is best to start with the topic of licensing films from the rights holder.
After all, every release starts with this process.
And what a “process” it can be….
(This was originally intended to be just a long post. But it ended up becoming a seven thousand word article. For that reason, I’m going to hide the rest of the article under a spoiler warning, just so this long document does not autoload for anyone who may not be interested in what I have to say.)
[Show spoiler]I’m going to begin by stating something that should be extremely obvious to any adult, but seems to regularly get lost in these discussions.
A home video label can’t just release any title that they want.
Movies are not low hanging fruit in a public park that anyone can pluck whenever they feel like it.
First and foremost, you have to have a legal agreement that allows you to release a title on home video.
So, let’s go through the process of licensing a fictitious movie that we will call The Last XYZ, and from now on, just XYZ for short.
Step 1: Find out who owns XYZ.
For many titles this is a relatively easy process as they are wholly owned properties of large corporations.
If you want to license Jaws (1975) for example, you know that Universal owns the movie and the worldwide home video rights for this film.
In fact, many rights holders now have websites that anyone can access, that list the movies they own that may be available for licensing.
Fun fact: Warner Bros. has an app for use by employees only, that lists all their properties and even has links to trailers for many movies.
But this is not always the case with every title.
For many titles, you need to play detective and look through everything from copyright to tax records, just to track down people who may or may not know who owns the film today.
XYZ was an independently financed production that was released in theaters in the US and Canada by Columbia Pictures in 1972. Columbia only had limited theatrical distribution rights and they do not own the movie in anyway.
But they have the original camera negative sitting in their vaults.
The film was sold to various distributors across Europe, Japan and Asia for local exhibition between 1972 and 1974.
The film was first released on VHS in the US by Media Home Entertainment in 1982 and it was then released a second time on VHS in 1991 by Burbank Video. (These transfers were made off a used theatrical print.) It was only made available in Belgium and France as a bootleg VHS copy. The video image was harvested off the US VHS and the French dub was poorly recorded and synchronized off a theatrical release print.
XYZ has never been released on Laserdisc, DVD or any home video format other than VHS.
So, how do you go about finding the original rights holder for this film?
If the financier or producer is a well known figure, they may still be alive and active and have an office that can be contacted.
But they may have died and the rights to XYZ may now be with their estate. Or the rights could be split due to a divorce or a partnership that went sour. There could be a lien on the film because the owner owes back taxes or other monies.
And you may find the rights holder, but they may have lost the crucial documentation that shows them as the legal owner of the film.
(This is not as uncommon as you may think. There are many movies that are “owned” by major studios, where the studio does not have the complete legal documentation for the original production. They may have inherited the movie from previous studio sales, and documents can easily get lost in these transfers and moves across the decades.)
You may find the estate that owns the movie, but they may ask for an astronomical fee to license the film because they either owe money/taxes, are greedy, or are just unrealistic in their financial appraisal of this almost forgotten film.
And in some cases you can’t even find out who owns the movie anymore. The film becomes an orphan that no one can adopt.
“But Columbia has the original negative sitting in their vaults. Why can’t they release it on Blu-ray?” you may ask.
Again, the simple reason is that they don’t own the movie. They have possession of the negative because they originally distributed the film and the rights holder never made arrangements to move the negative to another lab or location, but they don’t legally own the movie or rights to exploit the movie in any way.
Now let’s say that you have sent hundreds of emails, and made dozens of phone calls, and you finally found the owner of XYZ, and they do have the documentation that shows clear ownership of the film. What’s next?
Step 2: Contract Due Diligence.
Just because someone owns a film made in 1972, it doesn’t mean that the film is clear and ready to be released on home video today.
First you have to make sure that there are no outstanding lawsuits that involve this property in any way.
Second, does the movie feature anything that may be an issue in 2023?. For example are there any scenes featuring real violence against animals? Is there any sex/nudity involving someone that may have been underage at the time of production? Is there an actor or other talent involved with this production who is now persona non grata?
Remember, the rules and social norms have changed quite a bit since 1972. Something that may have flown under the radar then may today expose you to everything from bad press to litigation.
Third. Is the movie based on any preexisting material, like a short story or novel or an article or even another older film?
The rights to use such material can have a set expiration date and the owner of XYZ may no longer have story rights to the short story that the film is based on.
Now the owner of XYZ has to track down the owner of the short story, and renew the rights to the story and include a specific clause in the new contract that allows exploitation of the short story in film form on home video, linear TV, streaming TV, VOD, etc.
Next comes the issue of music rights.
This is probably the most common legal issue holding up older films from being released on home video today.
If XYZ features only an original score and no songs, then it will most likely be in the clear. Although there are rare cases where a composer negotiated to own the music outright after a certain time period. This was more common before the advent of television and especially home video, as movies were only deemed to be financially viable during that initial theatrical run. Again, you would need to renew the rights to the score to be able to release the film with the original score.
In 99.9% of cases however, the issue is with the songs that were licensed for use in the film.
There are five different licenses available for licensing a song/music, but only three are needed for film/tv use.
You can ask that these license be active in perpetuity across the known universe (and you should) or you can again negotiate for a fixed number of years or specific markets. This can save you money on the short term, but will cost you dearly on the long term.
A: Master License.
This license allows you to use the song in your film, and the royalties go to the recording artist. You need this license in conjunction with at least the Synchronization license below to use the song in your film.
B: Synchronization License.
This license allows you to use the song in the audio mix of the film. It works in conjunction with the Master License above. This license pays the composer of the song who may or may not be a different entity then the recording artist.
C: Mechanical License.
If you want to release a Soundtrack featuring the licensed song, or use the song in any other audio only project, then you also need a Mechanical license. (I highly recommend that you secure all 3 licenses if you ever decide to license music for your film.)
But having these licenses is not enough to release a film on home video, as the licenses are geared for theatrical exhibition.
You must have specific language in your license that grants you permission to also release the film with these songs on home video and more specifically new technologies like DVD, Blu-ray, UHD 4K Blu-Ray and streaming.
This is where a lot of old licenses and agreements fail.
Of course, for movies made before the introduction of television and home video, no such non-theatrical licenses were negotiated. All films from this era that feature songs that were not specifically written for the movie, had to have new licenses negotiated over the decades to allow the films to be broadcast on TV and later be sold/rented on VHS, Laserdisc, etc.
But there are quite a few older films for which no such licenses were negotiated in the past. This can be for a variety of reasons, but it usually involves smaller films that were not seen as viable for TV or the home video market. Or the cost of securing the song rights was not seen as being a prudent financial decision, as the return on investment was simply non-existent.
But there were many movies that did go back and renegotiate their song licenses, and XYZ is one of these films.
The problem is the wording that was used in the contract.
XYZ has 3 songs in it, and all 3 were licensed from RCA Victor.
The producer renegotiated the music rights with RCA Victor in 1982 so the film could be issued on VHS and shown on television.
Here is the pertinent section of the contract.
“RCA Victor grants Master and Synchronization rights to Head Trip Films LLC, owner of the motion picture The Last XYZ (copyright 1972), for the three songs specified in paragraph four of this agreement. This agreement is in perpetuity and for the express use of the three aforementioned songs as part of the recorded soundtrack of said motion picture, only when it is broadcast on television through public airways and recorded and sold for both private and commercial use on the Betamax and VHS home video formats.”
As you can see, the legal wording restricts the contract to the Betamax and VHS formats. It does not even mention Laserdisc, which had just been introduced in Japan. And as the contract does not cover the Mechanical License, the soundtrack of the film could not even have been issued in 1982, much less today.
This type of wording is very common for film music licenses stretching well into the late eighties.
Once cable television, and later satellite TV, became common services in American households, not to mention the growth of the home video market, including the small but robust Laserdisc market, the film industry finally learned to request music rights in such a way as to cover all home video formats, including future technologies.
Today you would specify in the contract that the music licensing rights cover “all current home video, broadcast and streaming formats, including all possible future video, streaming and broadcast formats, throughout the Universe in perpetuity.”
That last part is not a joke. The industry has learned a hard and very expensive lesson over the decades and now goes to almost comical lengths to make sure all possible future avenues are covered in these contracts.
And “expensive” is the key word here.
Going through the discovery process, renegotiating rights, negotiating song costs, not to mention the legal fees for all this… it all adds up.
It is not unusual for the final bill to be anywhere from the low six figures all they way to a million dollars or more.
And as the music industry has consolidated in recent years, their power to negotiate has only increased. (We have gone from 6 major labels in 1972 to 3 giants today.)
Then there are the bands themselves. Some acts like Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones are not only very particular in where and how their songs can be used, but they command seven figure prices for each of their most popular songs.
So, not only do you need to negotiate a new contract and pay hefty fees to clear songs on many of these older films, you also need to do so with music labels and bands that may have little to no interest in relicensing these songs to you.
I know this sounds ridiculous in a capitalist society. “Why wouldn’t a label/band want to make money off of their music?’’ you may ask. But I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to license music, even from some small bands that are hardly household names.
So now for the big questions. Is the current owner of XYZ willing to spend the money and go through this process to clear these 3 songs from Sony Music Entertainment (the current owner of the RCA Victor library)? Is Sony Music willing to license these songs for this film? Are the original band members of the group that recorded the three songs still alive, and do they have any provisions in their own contract with Sony that allows them veto power over such a new license?
There are a lot of hurdles that need to be cleared and they all involve time and money.
Sometimes you literally have to wait for the entity, who is actively stopping the new licensing, to either sell the music rights or to die, in the hopes that the new owner will be more receptive to granting the rights and/or licensing the songs at a reasonable price.
But let’s put such morbid thoughts out of our minds and assume that Sony Music is more than willing to relicense these 3 minor songs, and that the owner of XYZ is willing (and financially able) to foot the bill.
So now we have a clean new contract that clears the way for this almost lost film to finally be seen by a whole new generation of cineasts.
What’s next?
Step 3: Finding the original film elements.
In the case of XYZ, we know for a fact that the original negative is being held at Sony Pictures (parent company of Columbia Pictures).
But this is not always the case, especially with smaller productions and privately funded and owned films.
It is estimated that some half a million films have been produced across the world since the birth of movies in 1894.
Of these 500,000 films, roughly 50% are thought to be lost forever. That includes up to 90% off all silent films.
Worldwide, we currently have film elements for less than 1,600 silent films and shorts. And the majority of these are poor quality dupes. Sadly we only have the complete original negatives for just a handful of silent films.
The story is not any better when you look around the world and the post-silent era.
Much of the history of Indian cinema is on the brink of being lost. Because so few of the thousands of films made before the 1990s are being preserved, or have elements left that can even be saved anymore.
Almost 60 years of Mexican cinema was lost in a single tragic fire in 1982, that also claimed five lives
And here in the United States we have had our own share of multiple studio/vault fires.
Not to mention the systematic destruction of original film negatives, to either save on storage fees or to recover a pittance of silver from the silver nitrate stock. (The silver recovered from destroying nitrate negatives could be as little as 0.04% of the weight of the film.)
Then there are the thousands of relatively newer films made since the 1960s that have been lost due to negligence, poor storage, unpaid lab fees, floods and other natural disasters, and a thousand other reasons.
And once you do find the elements, there is no guarantee that they will be complete or in good shape.
You can have scratches, major tears, missing frames, missing reels, faded color, warping, vinegar syndrome decomposition, fungus growth, and many other forms of damage.
Then the film could have been cut for rating or censorship reasons, or to create a shorter running time for a double feature package. And very rarely will the excised trims have been saved.
Then the next issue with film elements is, what generation are they?
Do you have a complete, pristine original film negative (1st generation), or do you have a well preserved interpositive (2nd gen)?
Do you have an unfaded color timed internegative (3rd gen) that was approved by either the director or the director of photography?
Or do you just have a ragged release print (4th gen) that is barely being held together with tape and has gone all pink?
The next question is where is the film currently?
Is it near a reputable lab that can handle the film and scan it for you?
Or does the film need to be moved a long distance, or even flown out of the country?
Any film made before 1951 is going to be on volatile silver nitrate stock, unless the film was later transferred to safety film. (Many silver nitrate negatives and prints were destroyed after they were transferred to safety film. Not only is there a generational loss in image quality when you do this, most of these new “copies” were not even examined at that time to see if the lab did a competent job in printing the new copy.)
If the best available elements are on silver nitrate stock, then you have to secure special permission to move the film to one of the few labs in the world that can handle such stock. And even then, there are very strict laws governing the handling of these elements. For example, the lab can only have a handful of reels of nitrate film on their premisses at any given time.
This makes preserving and scanning nitrate film a very expensive proposition.
And what if you have to find and cobble together the film from various sources and copies held at various archives around the world, or by private collectors?
This can be an exhaustive, expensive process that takes years to complete.
(If you’re interested in this process and want to see what a Herculean task film preservation can be, I highly recommend two Criterion releases that feature excellent programs on the film preservation process. The first is on The Apu Trilogy (1955 - 1959) box set and the second is on the release of Detour (1945). I can’t recommend these films, and the segments on their preservation, highly enough.)
All of this is to say that, just because you own a movie and have cleared all the rights, that doesn’t mean that other problems can’t stop you from licensing your film to a home video label.
And here is the other kicker; most rights holders will not even let you examine the film elements they own until you actually sign a licensing agreement!
Weather the film is in relatively good shape, or needs years of research and painstaking preservation, there is a cost for handling and scanning the film. This cost can range from the thousands of dollars to millions.
Again, the question is who pays for this, and how many copies of this movie do you need to sell on Blu-ray before you recoup your costs?
Of course the work and costs involved don’t stop with music rights and film scanning. You then have to digitally restore and repair the film and the accompanying audio. Then you have to color grade the film by either relying on any existing preservation materials, or by having the filmmakers (if still alive) come in and regrade the movie.
If you intend to offer special features, interviews and/or commentary tracks, all of these also require money and time. You may need to travel to another city or country to record an interview. You may need to hire a local video crew.
Once you have all of this, you need to encode the video and audio options and the special features, and author and quality check the final disc before it can go to replication.
You need to either access high quality original art and photos for the disc art, or you may need to engage an artist to create fresh artwork for this release.
Again, all of this costs money and is on top of the licensing fee that you have paid in advance before you even had access to the film elements. Because no one allows you to touch their film assets before you have negotiated a deal and money has exchanged hands.
Now let’s do some basic math to see how this business can even be viable.
Today, if a label can sell 3,000 copies of an obscure movie, then they are on the right path.
Anything above 3,000 copies is icing on the cake.
Now imagine that we are going to be selling XYZ on our website exclusively for $29.99. This way we don’t have to sell the discs to other retailers at a fraction of $29.99.
3,000 x $29.99 = $89,970
This means that for a total cumulative cost of $90,000, you have to license the movie, possibly pay for scanning it and for restoring it, and definitely pay for the creation of the special features, pay for art and packaging and finally pay for replication and shipping to your warehouse. And of course you have to include the labor cost of your employees and the cost of your office, including insurance, water & power, phone, internet, etc., not to mention the services of at least one good lawyer.
$90,000 can go pretty fast if you’re not careful. And as stated above, just the cost of clearing the music rights can equal or exceed $90,000 in many cases.
To recap; what do you need to license and release a film on home video?
- Find the rights holder.
- Make sure that they have complete ownership of the film, in at least the markets that you wish to release your disc.
- Make sure there are no legal issues, including music rights, that can stop your release.
- Negotiate a deal, if the owner even wants to license the title to you. (You would be surprised at how many rights holders there are out there that don’t want certain movies released. The reasons are many and range from the petty to the illicit.)
- Find the film elements.
- Restore the film elements as needed.
If you were to create a Venn diagram that included all the above, the number of films that would fail on at least one or more of the above points would be in the tens of thousands.
This is even before you factor in the profit and loss calculation for that particular title.
Let’s say the cost to clear the music rights for XYZ is $50,000 and you need to spend another $100,000 to restore and repair a badly damaged original camera negative. This is before you factor in all the other costs. How many discs would you need to sell just to recoup this $150,000? At the full retail price of $29.99, you would need to sell at least 5,000 copies of this long forgotten movie just to cover this portion of the release. Is selling 5,000+ copies of such a title realistic in today’s home video marketplace? Unfortunately it’s not.
When you add the legal hurdles, on top of the potential steep and upfront financial investment needed, you end up with thousands and thousands of titles that will most likely not be released on our favorite home video formats anytime in the near future.
In fact, of the roughly 250,000 extant movies released across the world, only some 60,000 have ever been released in any home video format. Of these movies, some 30,000 have been released on either DVD or newer disc formats. (These are all approximate numbers used for the sake of this discussion.)
Please keep all of this in mind before lashing out any particular home video label for not releasing the movies that you want.
The people that own and run these labels are not in it to become rich. Believe me, the current home video market is not what it was 20 years ago, when you could easily sell tens of thousands of DVDs (using old VHS era masters) of a fairly obscure movie.
The people that release these movies today are truly fans like us, and like us, they are frustrated at their inability to rescue so many films that have not had a home video release since the days of VHS, if ever.
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Since I’m choosing to post this in the Criterion section of the forum, I think it would be a good idea to address the issue that always surfaces here. The belief by some that Criterion is sitting on thousands of licenses with little or no interest in releasing these titles on the Blu-ray format.
Just to be clear, I do not work for Criterion and I do not have any insider knowledge.
What I state below is conjecture based on my experiences and understanding of the film business.
“Is it possible that Criterion is sitting on thousands of licenses of films that they refuse to release on disc?” Yes it is, but that is highly unlikely.
First and foremost, the cost of licensing so many titles for decades, and not doing anything to recoup these costs by way of releasing them on disc, would be astronomical and foolish.
Criterion is a very small boutique company and does not have the deep pockets needed to do something like this.
Secondly, even if they were to do something like this, it would actually make it harder for them to license additional titles. Let me explain.
If you are the rights holder of most films, not only do you want to make money off of that title, you also want that title to be in the public eye as much as possible. This is how movies live and find new fans, generation after generation. If Star Wars was not available to be seen by most people after 1977, it would not be a multi-billion dollar property today, no matter how popular it was back in 1977.
And as much as rights holders like money, they don’t want another company to keep their film locked away from the public.
“I know that Criterion has home video rights for hundreds of Japanese titles that they have refused to release on Blu-ray.”
Just because you have “home video” rights for a title, it does not mean that you can release that title on Blu-ray. Let me explain.
First of all, there is the issue of how that original contract was worded. If you look at my example above for music rights, the same applies for home video rights.
Many old home video contracts from the 1980’s and early 1990’s reference “VHS & Laserdisc” or just have a blanket use of the term “Home Video.” Rights holders have successfully argued that these old licenses were for old “analog” products and do not transfer to new “digital” products like DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD Blu-ray and streaming.
This means that licensees like Criterion have to go back and renegotiate new contracts that either cover some, or all of these new formars/technologies.
And there is no guarantee that the Japanese licensor (or any licensor, for that matter) will agree to give Criterion any or all of these new licenses. They may agree to just grant streaming licenses, because streaming is not part of their current business model, but they may hold out on Blu-ray or 4K UHD Blu-ray licenses.
And here is another kicker for you.
Criterion may have Blu-ray rights for all these films, but still not be able to release these films on Blu-ray!
Again, let me explain.
Just because you have home video rights and Blu-ray rights, it does not mean that you own the movie and the film elements. You can only release the movie using the elements that are provided by and/or approved by the licensor.
For example, imagine that Criterion has full home video rights to Seven Samurai, including 4K UHD Blu-ray rights. Can they go and grab the original camera negatives and scan them and restore them and release the movie on Blu-Ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray?
No, they can not.
Because they do not OWN Seven Samurai. Toho owns the film and the original film elements.
“What if MoMA in NY has an original fine grain positive of Seven Samurai in absolute pristine condition. Why can’t Criterion scan that and circumvent Toho and release the movie on 4K UHD Blu-ray?” Again, Criterion does not own the movie, neither does MoMA. Toho is the legal owner of this film and Criterion can only release what Toho either provides or approves.
Now Toho may allow Criterion to use a “HD” master that is now 10 years old, but does such a release make any sense for Criterion, or any other label?
In an era where we have become spoiled by so many near perfect releases of classic films, would any of us realistically accept or be happy with a 4K UHD Blu-ray release utilizing a decade old master?
The honest answer to this is no.
It is well documented that Toho is very difficult to deal with, and are most likely the primary reason for the lack of Toho licensed releases in the last decade.
But let me add another example to that growing pile of evidence. A friend of mine works for a very large collectibles company, and several years ago they were trying to license a few properties from Toho, so they could make and sell high end toys and statues featuring the likenesses of characters in Toho films.
They spent well over a year just negotiating the initial contract before they just gave up and said “thank you, but no thank you.”
I will not go into all the details, but the basic pattern was this; they would spend a few months negotiating the contract and would reach a hand-shake agreement. They would draw-up paperwork to be signed, and the person at Toho they had been negotiating with would say, “now we just need my boss to approve this.” They would now have to go through the entire process all over again with this “boss” and again they would reach a hand-shake agreement only to be told that another boss, higher up, needed to approve the contract. Everything would start again with this new “boss.” I wish I could tell you that it stopped at this third cycle, but this passing of the contract to the next boss in line continued into Kafkaesque levels. My friend’s company finally decided that this was not worth any license in the world. Not to mention that they would need to go through this same process again later to approve initial designs and models, then later again for paint masters and final packaging.
How and why Toho operates this way is beyond me. But I do know that dealing with Japanese companies as a whole can be very difficult, as the American and Japanese business mindsets are very different, to put it charitably.
Now you may say, “such and such a person at this company has said that a very distinguished boutique label has been promised this title, and therefore this title is not available to license to anyone else.” And you see this as Criterion hoarding titles that others could release today.
Again I want to be clear that what I’m about to say is conjecture, but it is conjecture based on actual experience.
Home Video devisions, like the Warner Archive, regularly do “promise” and set aside some titles for companies like Criterion. But there is a very good reason for this that is generally not disclosed.
Film elements and restoration costs.
Let’s make an educated guess on an oft requested title; Freaks (1932).
Imagine that Criterion reached out to WB and asked to license Freaks for release on Blu-ray back in 2018. WB agreed, but with one major caveat.
Criterion could either release their new Blu-ray using the old DVD master of Freaks that WB has, or they can wait until WB has the time and the budget to restore Freaks on their own. They remind Criterion that the original elements for Freaks are either long lost or in very poor condition, and will require very painstaking and expensive chemical and digital restoration.
This is all after an exhaustive multi-year search is conducted at film archives around the world, in the hopes that better elements can be found.
Criterion agrees to the latter. They now have a “gentleman’s agreement” with WB that when Freaks has been restored, Criterion will have the first right of refusal to finally license and release Freaks on Blu-ray.
No actual contract is signed and no money is exchanged.
And most important of all, Criterion is now at the mercy of WB. WB decides what their yearly film restoration budget is and what titles will be undertaken for that year. All Criterion can do is wait.
We as fans also need to be patient and wait for these releases, but there is one very important thing that we can do to hasten them, or make them happen in the first place.
And here, I know that I’m preaching to the choir. But this bears repeating.
We have to keep supporting these movies by buying these releases.
If the rights holders see that there is still financial value in these old films, they will then put the money and effort into clearing rights, finding elements, restoring them, and releasing them to the public on physical media.
But if we stop buying these releases, especially these new versions on 4K UHD Blu-ray, they will see physical media as nothing but a dying format that they should not invest in.
Remember, it was the hardcore vinyl collectors that kept that format alive long enough for it be again embraced by a new younger generation. No other “dead” format has ever made a comeback the way vinyl has.
Will vinyl ever replace music streaming services? Of course not. But it also doesn’t have to replace streaming. All it needs is to be profitable, and that alone will keep it alive.
The same is true for Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray. Physical media does not need to clawback audiences from video streaming. It just needs to be embraced by a small percentage of the public and be profitable.
I’m old enough to have both a very large VHS and Laserdisc collection. I always remind people that at the hight of the popularity of the Laserdisc format (1997 to be exact, the year DVD was introduced) there were only a million homes in the US with Laserdisc players. But we were able to buy, and in some places even rent, some amazing releases like the Special Editions of The Abyss and Terminator 2 (I know, I know… I may cover these and James Cameron in another article) and the restored Special Editions of the original Star Wars Trilogy (I promise I’m not trolling. As Star Wars is my all-time favorite film, and the reason that I became a filmmaker, I may cover that too in another article.)
Today the majority of the 130 million households in the US have a device capable of playing Blu-rays and millions of homes either have dedicated 4K UHD players or gaming devices that can play 4K UHD discs. If we can just have one million of these 130 million households keep buying discs, then our favorite home video format will continue to exist for another decade, if not longer.
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One last thought…
I see many forum members who either have not made the jump to 4K UHD, or seem to have no interest in the format and think that standard Blu-ray is “good enough” for them.
As someone who owns well over 5,000 movies on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD, not to mention hundreds of Laserdiscs and VHS cassettes, I can see your point and do share both your financial and spatial pain. (I, like many of you, am running out of space.)
But I also would like to implore you to jump on the 4K UHD bandwagon.
And here are my reasons.
Number one, the image quality and the jump in the “filmic” character of the movie can be anywhere from subtle to substantial to sublime. But it is there. As someone who truly loves cinema, I believe in watching every movie in the best condition and available format possible. Yesterday that was on Blu-ray. Today, it’s on 4K UHD Blu-ray.
I also know for a fact that watching a movie in the best quality possible can make a huge difference in one’s appreciation of that film.
I remember “renting” Lawrence of Arabia (1962) from my local library when I was just 13 years old. This was a two cassette release of the “cut” version of the film and the transfer was definitely made off a used theatrical print, because the image on the VHS was just washes of pink. Not to mention that this faded image was in “pan and scan.”
I liked the movie, but it didn’t really make a great impression on me.
Several years later I was able to buy the newly released Laserdisc of the restored version of the film in glorious widescreen.
Watching the film on our 27” Sony TV made me understand why the film was so beloved and revered.
Years later, I was eventually able to see the film projected in 70MM at The Egyptian Theater here in Los Angeles.
The movie blew my socks off.
I finally was able to “see” what this film really was. Because films like Lawrence of Arabia are more than just movies, they’re experiences.
And I have had the pleasure of reassessing hundreds of other films over the years, as I finally got to see them in better and better conditions and formats.
Unfortunately we don’t all live near institutions like The Egyptian Theater and even if we did, there are very few film prints left in circulation in near pristine quality.
But with a good 65” or larger 4K TV and great 4K discs, like that for Lawrence of Arabia, we can have the closest “experience” of watching these films on a big screen off of pristine prints.
This alone makes the switch not only worthwhile, but necessary.
But there is another reason why we need to financially support movies, that we hardly think about.
Restoring films is not a “once and you’re done” endeavor.
It is a continuous and never ending cycle.
Films are living things that deteriorate with time. (This is also true for movies shot and/or finished digitally). They need constant attention and periodic restoration. All these movies that have been recently restored in 4K will need to be restored again in the decade to come. Technology will improve, new formats will be introduced (physical or digital, it does not matter) and the original negatives and prints and hard drives for these movies will need to be restored and transferred again and again and again.
But as stated above, the only way the rights holders will spend the money to maintain these movies that we love, is if they can monetize their properties.
As films fans, this is where we come in. This is our proverbial cross to bear. We must continue to buy these films and support these releases so the rights holders will continue to support the actual movies themselves.
Upgrade to 4K UHD.
Do it for the movies that you love.
Most importantly, do it for yourself.
I promise you won’t regret it.
By CandymanHappyman, May 28th 2023
(I honestly would have chosen a much better name for my account if I had ever imagined that I would end up posting here.)
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Has to be one of the best posts in this thread's history: a much needed dose of expertise. Thanks very much.
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