Retro Thing

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Beaming To Earth In HD

This year will mark the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not only was it the keystone of many, many years of new Trek (and renewed interest in TV sci-fi in general) on television, the series and its success in many ways re-defined our expectations of TV. When the series premiered in 1987, few believed that a costly non-network show could be popular. Each episode cost upwards of a million dollars, and you could see it on the screen with the many dazzling special effects that brought the future to life every week.

One way they cut costs was to shoot on 35mm film, but do their editing entirely on video. Special composited effects (adding phaser blasts, or putting visuals into the big viewscreen on the bridge set) were also realized using video techniques. Those video sourced effects were all locked in at SD quality, and with all of the editing also having been done at SD, I often wondered how they would re-release the series into an HD world.

A few years ago when Paramount "re-mastered" the original 60's series, their job was somewhat easier since all the material had been shot on film, edited on film, and special effects composited on film. The original 60's workflow was at a full 4K quality, so it was just a matter of digitizing those original master film prints. Paramount took the extra step of re-creating the shots of the Enterprise and updating some of the ropey effects they felt could use some polish, but the bulk of what we saw was just a direct copy off the original broadcast master reels.

So for the re-release of TNG, Paramount has to go back to the original camera negatives to digitize the footage, then re-edit every episode to create a new HD broadcast master. It's not an easy job, but it's made easier thanks to extensive records of takes that made it into final edits, and various other paperwork from the original production. The model shots were also shot on film, so those can be retained as-is. The only material that will need to be remanufactured are the composited elements I mentioned above, which today you could probably accomplish on your smartphone. Those scenes are thankfully not going to be upconverted from the original SD masters.

The visuals that once dazzled us in the 80's, will dazzle us again now. The first season's belabored plots and wooden acting that befuddled us then, will baffle us now. I'm teasing, of course. The show quickly found its footing, and became a modern TV classic. You can order a preview disc for $24.99 $14.99 (when you use the link below!) with the pilot film "Encounter At Farpoint", and two other favorite episodes, with the rest of season one to follow in 2012.

One note - if you poke around the message boards buzzing with this news (which I'm really, really not recommending), there is some misinformation going around about the release of this show in 16:9. While it's correct that the show was shot on 35mm film, the 35mm film frame is a more-or-less square aspect ratio (just like a roll of still photo film you've seen before). When movies are shot for a widescreen presentation using 35mm, they're using a special anamorphic lens, or possibly cropping the 35mm film frame - neither of which was in the plan for TNG. Any attempt to present TNG in a widescreen format would mean chopping off existing parts of the picture, and reframing every single shot. When you see the full frame 4:3 image of a TNG episode, you're seeing exactly what the director of photography wanted you to see. A 16:9 matte would mean seeing less of the picture.. not more.

link:
Pre-order "Encounter at Farpoint" +2 more eps in HD for only $15!

Pioneering Video Genius Ernie Kovacs - DVD Box Set

Long time readers of Retro Thing may have noticed that I'm a huge fan of Ernie Kovacs, one of television's earliest geniuses. You hear the word "genius" flung around a lot, but I use the word deliberately as we're still living in a TV world molded by his many innovations. Watching the long overdue 6 DVD Ernie Kovacs Collection box set, you'll be amazed at how many times you see Kovacs echoed in the offbeat TV comedy of a David Letterman (who names Kovacs as a hero, even hiring Kovacs' old announcer Bill Wendell for his NBC show), or a Conan O'Brien. Kovacs was first to lift the veil on the secret world of making TV, inviting viewers to peek on on behind the scenes nonsense, and having lots of fun even when things didn't quite work out the way they were supposed to.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Kovacs' untimely death, and were it not for the untiring efforts of his wife Edie Adams, his work would have disappeared too. She single-handedly rescued many of the master tapes that were destined for the demagnetizer. Kovacs' work has always been hard to find (a scant few VHS releases and a 2 DVD compilation that quickly went out of print), making this DVD box set a boon.

In the set you'll get extended clips from his morning show; Kovacs pioneered the first morning show ever, when his bosses at NBC saw how well the format worked they cancelled Ernie to put on a little thing called the Today Show. The set includes many of his favorite bits like the Nairobi Trio, Percy Dovetonsils, Miklos Molnar (a growling and surly Eastern European, decades before Borat),or how about the classic song "Sentimental Journey" brilliantly brought to life by an empty office...

The bulk of this material hasn't been seen since original airings of the show. All these rarities feel amazingly fresh even today (I recently spent a year launching a morning TV show, and I cribbed a lot of Kovacs). If you're a fan of TV, especially early TV... or you just like to laugh, this is a terrific set. I'll be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the loss of this under-sung genius by playing some of the discs from this set today. Yes, I'll be marvelling at the genius of Ernie Kovacs, but more importantly I'll be laughing too.

link:

Pick up the 6 DVD Ernie Kovacs Collection on Amazon, and help out Retro Thing!

Star Wars Has Always Had A Lot To Answer For

The 70s were a decade of the gritty anti-hero in movies. Some film historians credit the success of Star Wars to audiences responding to the movie's "good guy" heroes and high adventure. 1977's blockbuster success influenced more than just movies - sci fi trappings beamed up in a big way everywhere you looked.

Sadly, it wasn't all good. Here's a clip from ITV's Kenny Everett Video Show - British comedy skits and pop music, if you don't remember. This wasn't shown an awful lot in the states, but as a pre-teen I was fascinated by the show's early video effects, music I'd never heard before, and the (quite controversial and underdressed) Hot Gossip dancers. Here they are with their own simply awful sci-fi musical tribute. See how many SF theme songs snippets you can spot in this 1978 video clip.

Two Lost Episodes of Doctor Who Rematerialize!

This weekend, fans of the classic Doctor Who thrilled to hear that two more lost episodes have been recovered on 16mm film.The British Film Institute holds an annual event "Missing Believed Wiped" where they spread the word about Britain's lost TV history, and at this year's screening surprised fans with these two missing episodes (as well as a lost Peter Cook & Dudley Moore show from the 60's), not seen since their original broadcast nearly 50 years ago.

The BBC was never good about keeping an archive of their broadcast material before the 70's. It was regular practice to erase the video masters of shows in order to erase and reuse the expensive video tape. In fact, the incredible Monty Python series was nearly destroyed, but troupe member Terry Gilliam stepped in an bought the original edited video reels at 90 pounds a piece.

There was another reason for this besides clearing up shelf space, the actor's union Equity placed a limit on how many times a show could be re-run. This together with the move to color (sorry... "colour") broadcast in the 1970's made the BBC's black and white TV history fodder for the rubbish tip.

These recovered Who episodes are kinescope copies; 16mm film prints made of the original videotapes. With so many video standards worldwide, it was easier to make 16mm film copies of shows for international sale and distribution. These episodes were aired in Australia, and instead of being destroyed or returned to the BBC, they ended up at a rummage sale where they were bought by a film collector in the 80s.

One recovered episode features the first ever Doctor in the adventure of "Galaxy Four" from 1965, a story that has only existed thus far in the BBC archives as a 15 minute clip. The story features squat robots called Chumblies, clearly an attempt at another Dalek-mania craze (the Chumblies canister vac looks to the Dalek's pepper shaker silhouette), but this time without having to split profits with the creator of the Daleks, Terry Nation.

While grateful for any return of a missing episode, fans were a little less interested in seeing another installment from the second doctor's notorious "Underwater Menace" broadcast in 1967. The bland title gives little indication of the"arch" overacting of the lead bad guy. Seriously, this sort of over the top acting didn't tend to happen in Who. Another existing installment of this story features a bizarre underwater ballet by the fish people. Uh, yeah, it's a weird one...

So we're down to 106 missing half-hours of Doctor Who. While there's little chance of all of the shows ever reappearing, it's hopeful that even at this late date more cans of film marked "Doctor Who" can find their way back to our TVs - even if it has taken a half-century.

related:

Found tapes prove 60's Doctor Who musician may have invented techno
Doctor Who the computer salesman?
Classic Doctor Who figures in black and white

Celebrate 48 Years Of Being Exterminated By The Daleks

This last weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Doctor Who. Eventhe show was rested for a number of years after it's 26 year long run, the blockbuster six year success of the rebooted series shows us there's still life in the old beast yet.

Speaking of beasts, the good Doctor's main beast is just a few weeks from celebrating a birthday. The Daleks premiered in the show's second multi-part story on December 21st, 1963. To be fair, all we got that night was a POV glimpse of it's infamous sink plunger arm. It may sound like a cheap move, but it made for one of the most terrifying cliffhangers in the series' history. Our first proper look at a Dalek would have been December 28th in '63.

When fans first heard of the show's return in 2005, one of he first questions was whether the Daleks were coming back. Behind the scenes the production team was having diffuculty getting the rights to use the classic bad guy. Eventually resolved, the Dalek's comeback was shrouded in secrecy. Despite a leaked cellphone picture of the new prop, seeing the updated Dalek design on TV was no less exciting. At last it looked as badass as we had always imagined it to be.

In recent years, the prop has undergone a more radical design change. The "new paradigm" Daleks are much larger, and come in a whole range of candy colors (inspired perhaps by the gaudy 60's movies?) denoting rank. We still haven't really seen these new guys in action, so I'll reserve judgement for the new Lego look-alikes until we do.

Instead let's consider the little Dalek sculpture made of scrap metal at the start of this post. I always imagined Daleks to be heavy and metallic, and this guy is - even though he's only about 8" tall. I got him off of Ebay years ago from an artist who did a lot of similar sculptures of sci-fi gear and motorcycles. The price was right, but shipping was murder coming from halfway around the world. Still, I've had him guarding my front door for years now. He does make for a dangerous nemesis even at this reduced size. First, you're looking at pretty severe lacerations if it so much as falls on your foot. Second, the sculpture included a stern warning about washing your hands after every handling of it. The "real" Daleks would be proud.

related:
classic chrome remote control dalek
genuine dalek prop found in swamp
scrap metal robot for $20

It Goes To 11... And Beyond...

It’s 11/11/11, and like so many other quasi-journalists, I’ve found it irresistible to think about the classic film Spinal Tap today. I was never part of that rock scene, but the earnest wrongheadedness of what constantly happens to the band is something we can all identify with. It’s still a comedy staple decades later with innumerable quotable moments, but is any part of the film more "celebrated" than Nigel Tuffnel’s amp that goes to 11?

Shortly after the movie came out, I saw other rockers chasing the dream by scrawling “11” onto their amp’s volume controls too, but it didn’t stop there. This “goes to 11” thing has been a meme for such a long time, it’s easy to gloss over mainstream appearances of the gag. Here are a few examples off the top of my head: the amazing MeeBlip synthesizer’s volume goes up to 11, the BBC’s online video player goes to 11, Guitar Hero’s sound effects settings top off at 11, in Doctor Who we see the sonic screwdriver used to crank a church organ “up to 11”… Though the best might be from the early 90’s. Marshall released an amp featuring a photo of Nigel pointing to the volume knob saying “now it goes to 20!” 

You don’t have to be a musician to join in the fun. There’s a special release of the movie on Blu-Ray in the UK that includes a mini replica Marshall amplifier stack. You can use it with your iPod, and yes… the volume does go there. If you haven’t seen the film in a while, it’s still awesome. I’ve got a DVD release of the film that includes more than an hour of improvised material that didn’t make it into the movie. It’s fun if you’re a fan, but it’s also easy to see why the material was left on the cutting room floor.

The many artists in the film have gone on to make more mockumentary style films, but I haven’t liked any of them a fraction as much as Spinal Tap. I think that Tap really was a singular comedy moment whith everyone's talent was cranked up to just the right level. It remains one of the few comedy movies that I love watching again and again – turned up to 11 of course.

Links:

Help out Retro Thing when you pick up Spinal Tap on Blu-Ray
The Criterion DVD has some exclusive features not on the Blu-Ray

Selling Star Trek

Star Trek first hit the airwaves on September 8, 1966 -- exactly 45 years ago today. While the original series lasted only 79 episodes, it went on to spawn five spin-off shows and eleven feature films (with another in the works). Here's a peek at the original NBC pilot sell sheet, used to introduce the show to advertisers and affiliates.

The booklet introduces us to the series and the characters who were soon to become household names, along with a few -- like Chief Medical Officer Piper and Communications Officer Alden -- who didn't get the chance to become series regulars.

And then there's poor Yeoman Smith: "A capable secretary and efficient dispenser of instant coffee, she also provides a welcome change of scenery for eyes that have spent long hours scanning the vast reaches of space."

Click for High-Rez scans of the entire Star Trek NBC Pilot Sell Sheet [The Invisible Agent, via DC @ clairtone.ca]

Related:
Get The Original Star Trek Series On DVD For Only $60
Star Trek: Phase II - 1977's Forgotten Trek
Star Trek Theme On Theremin

Amazing Jonny Quest Stop Motion Fan Film

Roger Evans has been an enthusiastic low-budget filmmaker for decades, but I know him as the founder of Moviestuff, a company that produces a range of 8mm and 16mm film scanners.

When he's not busy making film capture equipment, Roger relaxes by making movies. His latest work is a stop-motion recreation of the opening title sequence from the classic Jonny Quest (1964) cartoon series.

Above, one of the original shots. Below, Roger's careful recreation:

Best of all, Roger has painstakingly documented the entire process.

He explains: "In 1964, a cartoon show premiered during prime time that would forever change my view of the future. Jonny Quest represented everything a 6 year old boy could possibly imagine. It had action, adventure and exotic locations, all tied together with some of the MOST awesome Hoyt Curtin jazz music ever broadcast on television. As a wide-eyed youth, I looked forward to the day when flying on jet belts would be as casual as riding my bike. But an odd thing happened to this wonderful show. It was canceled after only one season. It was simply too expensive to produce.

But there was another loss, obvious only to kids like me that spent the long, LONG seven days between broadcasts reinacting every scene in every episode using the nearest G.I Joe or Caption Action as a pitiful substitute for Race, Jonny or the others. Sometimes, necessity would require Major Matt Mason to stand-in, despite his puny, sub-1/6th scale stature. Why? Because despite its huge popularity, Jonny Quest was not on the air long enough to spawn a line of action figures. And if you were a kid of the 60's, you HAD to have an action figure from your favorite show.

It always seemed to me that a stop motion version of the opening titles would be killer and that, IF there had been a line of action figures, then that would be the obvious thing to use to live out my childhood dream.

So..... Almost 50 years later, that's exactly what I've done."

Roger Evans' Totally Bitchin' Jonny Quest Pages

In 1964, a cartoon show premiered during prime time that would forever change my view of the future. Jonny Quest represented everything a 6 year old boy could possibly imagine. It had action, adventure and exotic locations, all tied together with some of the MOST awesome Hoyt Curtin jazz music ever broadcast on television. As a wide-eyed youth, I looked forward to the day when flying on jet belts would be as casual as riding my bike. But an odd thing happened to this wonderful show. It was canceled after only one season. It was simply too expensive to produce. The Hanna-Barbera artists were accustomed to producing rubbery, squash and stretch animals and goofy humans. The hyper-realistic pen and ink character designs of series creator Doug Wildey proved to be too much of a task to maintain on a weekly basis.

Nixon on Super 8

Penny and Brian have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund their upcoming found footage documentary, Our Nixon. It's composed entirely of shots from 204 reels of Super 8 home movies confiscated during the Watergate investigation. The confiscated films were home movies made by Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, Chief Domestic Advisor John Ehrlichman, Special Assistant to the President Dwight Chapin and Deputy Assistant Larry Higby.

"They filmed big events: White House performances by Bob Hope, Dionne Warwick, Johnny Cash and Raquel Welch; hordes of anti-war protesters on the National Mall; legions of adoring fans on the campaign trail; visits from heads of state like Haile Selassie, Nicolae Ceausescu and Indira Gandhi; their historic trip to China; and Tricia Nixon’s Rose Garden wedding.

But they also filmed each other: Chapin goofing around with his camera; Ehrlichman clowning with Kissinger on the beach; and Haldeman filming Higby filming Haldeman at the Great Wall of China. Ehrlichman filmed birds. He was especially fond of hummingbirds. The home movies record every aspect of their experience of the Nixon White House, from the prosaic to the profound. These four men carefully documented their time with Nixon because they believed that Nixon would transform America. And in a way, they were right.

Today, when we think of Nixon, we think first of Watergate. But Our Nixon isn’t a film about Watergate. It’s a film about four of Nixon's men and the story they thought they were a part of – before Watergate changed everything."

The campaign has already reached over 15% of their $10,000 target, which will go to pay for sound design, color correction and an original score. Pledge $10 and they'll send you a retro-style campaign button. $25 gets you a DVD copy of the film when it's released, and they'll give you one of the original reels of film if you donate $500 or more.

Visit the Our Nixon Kickstarter Campaign page for more

X-Wing Battles Snow-Covered Suburban Trench

Minnesota thermometers may not dip to quite the same lows that they do on Hoth, but they get darned low. Chicago is buried in snow too, but it never occurred to me to get one of my fx friends to add the iconic X-wing fighter to spice up the drudgery of shoveling. Now I want a personal space ships with snow-clearing laser phasers.

related:
Star Wars Movie Viewer
Star Wars: Behind The Scenes Home Movies
Star Wars: Prehistoric Computer Graphics

The Original Star Trek Series On DVD For Only $60

I know, you don't usually turn to Retro Thing for financial advice. But hear me out just this once and you could save quite a bit on DVDs of classic TV shows.

Before we go any further, I have two things to declare.

First: this post is aimed at readers in the USA and Canada. If you're hanging in Middlesbrough, you'll have to make do with free post and packing.

Second: My shopping style isn't exactly environmentally friendly. Follow this advice and vast flocks of polar bears will drown as the arctic warms to temperatures unseen since Sarah Palin's great grandpa hunted wooly mammoth herds on the Alaskan plains.

The trick?

It turns out that many DVD box sets are much cheaper on Amazon UK, even when you add transatlantic shipping. In fact, the prices are lower than published on the Amazon site, because there's 20% VAT added to all purchases made in the UK. If you're outside the EU -- hunkered down in a little house on a mountainside in Canada, for example -- VAT will be subtracted from your purchase at checkout time.

So, all 79 episodes of Star Trek: TOS can be yours for £32.39. Shipping to the USA is £5.06, for a grand total of £37.45. That's only $60.

On Amazon.com, you'll pay $132.47 for basically the same thing (each season alone is over $60).

Pricing seems to be somewhat hit and miss. For example, The Prisoner ends up costing about the same as it does in the US, while the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series on DVD is a bargain at only £46.64 ($80). British shows like Doctor Who can be significantly cheaper as well -- Doctor Who 2005 Series 1 to 4 can be yours for £37.19 ($60), and the Swedish sensation The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a bargain at £4.16 ($6.70).

Now for the big gotcha. These are Region 2 DVDs, so your player has to be region free and capable of playing PAL-format discs for them to work. That's not as big a deal as it might sound, because many DVD players sold within the past few years can be unlocked with a few button presses and automatically handle PAL to NTSC conversion. Just Google your player's model number with keywords like "region free" or "unlock." It took all of 30 seconds to unlock my player, and so far it has played everything I've thrown at it (dvdhacks is also a great resource for unlocking your player).

The other gotcha is time. It'll take a week or two for your purchases to arrive, but you weren't planning to watch all 25 Battlestar Galactica discs in a single sitting anyway.

So what are you waiting for? Extreme international shopping awaits.

Galoob Die-Cast Enterprise D

My mother is not a science fiction fan at all (despite her prognostication about flat screen TV's), but she always liked this toy version of the Enterprise D. When Star Trek returned to our screen with The Next Generation in 1987, it boasted cinema quality special effects including a new version of the Enterprise. I remember reading about the design of the model in Starlog (yeah, yeah... I'm admitting it...) magazine. They actually built a number of models, the largest had a saucer that was 10 feet across, illuminated by neon tubes inside.

Not only did the Enterprise return with a dramatic new shape, it had the ability to separate into two sections - the saucer, and the stardrive section. The premise was that in an emergency, most of the crew could evacuate to the saucer, while the stardrive section freed of its bulk could wage battle. This facility was a long time fan rumor, spurred by a technical manual of the original Enterprise that cited "explosive bolts" that could separate the saucer permanently from the rest of the ship in an emergency. This was the first time we saw it in action on screen (a little too much in that first season, as I recall...)

Since this first-run syndicated show was a risk, no one could predict how successful the show would eventually become. Even toy companies were tentative to pledge too much support outside of a handful of action figures. This die-cast toy was one of those early toys. Even though I wasn't the right age for it, I bought it anyway... just to at least better understand the odd shape of the ship. I still have it on my shelf after all these years, and I still perform a slow motion saucer sep a couple times a year, just to keep the crew on their toes.

Since When Does McDonald's Have A Goony Looking Knight Character?

They don't, but it sure does look like a character from the the McDonaldland cast of characters, doesn't it? McDonaldland was the magical home to milkshake volcanoes and apple pie trees, and Ronald McDonald and his product tie-in pals would have adventures. This all-over "magical place" concept from 1971 earned Mickey D's a lawsuit from Sid & Marty Krofft (but that's a story for another time), but not before Burger King could create their own cholesterol carting cast of characters a few years later.

The Burger King Kingdom feature a ring-twirling magical monarch, the skeptical Duke of Doubt who didn't believe in magic, and Sir Shakes-A-Lot… immortalized here in drinking glass form. He was a knight made up of stacks of Burger King paper cups, and he consumed so many shakes it rendered him permanently cold. The Kingdom concept was phased out by the late 80's, but you've probably noticed that the Burger King character is back in an ironic web 2.0 version since 2003, now as a disturbing glossy-masked character. I hope they don't create a creepy Sir Shakes-A-Lot too, unless he's portrayed by Sir Mix-A-Lot, of course.

Ernie Kovacs Remembered

Inveterate video genius Ernie Kovacs died on January 13th, 1962. Most people don't recognize the name today, despite significant accomplishments (most of which weren't really lauded until after his death). He was an occasional host in the early days of the Tonight Show, he was the first host ever of a morning television program (so successful was the experiment that he was pushed off the air by a little morning show called "The Today Show"), but most significantly he was the first comedian to really use television in a way that you seldom see... even today.

Doctor Who Explained

The new Doctor Who has been delivering Christmas specials every year since it's return. The specials are usually oriented toward folks who don't necessarily follow the show closely. Though if you'd like to brush up on what Doctor Who (old or new) is about before the next special, TV's Craig Fergusen offers a helpful primer in this unbroadcast clip.