Ron Howard Beatle film in 2.35:1

Those looking for technical faults will find them, those looking to be entertained will be satisfied as well...

 

Sure, but when dealing with archive material in 1.33 there is no need to go 2.35 and crop more than necessary.
1.78 would be the best compromise.
It is a documentyary after all, not an epic with Monument valley as backdrop

 

That's nothing new. Even back in the day, some films were shot in 1.33:1, matted to wide-screen, then opened back up for TV and video.

 

The colorization on this thing was pretty bad, and I'm actually usually much more open to colorization than many folks. The Beatles have near-red hair at times.

It's odd that the 20-year-old colorization Apple did on "All You Need is Love" is far superior to the stuff in this documentary.

Especially odd that they chose to colorize the Washington DC 1964 show, and to boot they used a mixture of the original videotape footage and the Maysles film footage of the show. I can't imagine it's anything but *more* of a challenge to colorize something when it waffles back and forth between videotape and film.

The footage in general in this film seems to be often inferior to what we've seen before. The Japan '66 footage looks worse, the Sullivan stuff looks awful, NME looks bad too. Cropping and in some cases colorizing this stuff doesn't help and just makes it worse.

I would assume they weirdly cropped AHDN to 2.35x1 just so it had a "movie" look to it to contrast the other TV footage and newsreel footage, etc.

I thought the film as a whole was fine. It was kind of "Anthology Lite." Larry Kane had the best insights; I think he should pull an Alf Bicknell and do a full documentary on his recollections.

 

I saw this film a second time and was quite close to the screen. Unfortunately, a lot of archive clips appear to be sourced from 1980s-1990s film-to-tape transfers of varying quality. It's terribly distracting from a close perspective. Watching this on a computer or home television is probably the best way to experience the visual aspect (but not the aural aspect). Sadly, I bet a lot of that original film was junked in the time since it was transferred, so we only have standard definition video recordings from here until eternity.

 

I really hope they didn't do that.

 

Not scope, no.

I don't think that is exactly true, but where I will agree is that some of the material looks surprisingly crappy. I have an inside source but won't say anything more until I get some questions answered.

 

after seeing this ,the best thing was the 30 min Shea thing,I am happy it wasn't 2.35:1 ,but why 1:85?? why any colorized clips? why was A Hard Days Night 2:35:1??

 

You mean junk the original films?

I suppose it's possible nobody was willing to shell out the money to go back and re-transfer the film. But when the NYC arrivals, NYC press conference and even some of the Maysles footage (outtakes or workprint I assume) were upconverted from SD video, I'd think they would have sprung to re-transfer at least some of that if the film still existed to scan.

My guess is they wanted to sell the point that the Beatles were breaking into the movies, so they gave it a faux widescreen crop to emphasize it as "cinematic."

 

I recant my support for the colorized DC sections earlier in this thread. I thought they looked exciting in the short clip on my little phone screen... in actuality they look more like a crayon job on larger sources. Yet another of the multiple bad-calls made throughout this film's production.

 

That's exactly my thought as well. There were many bad decisions made in this show. I have an inquiry in and may have some answers in a week or two.

BTW, I was disappointed that noted Beatles expert Ron Furmanek's name was not in the credits. Ron played a pivotal role in the Anthology documentary 25 years ago, and I'm surprised they wouldn't have him in to assist in finding all the pieces.

 

I would have greatly preferred if this film really had to be made, THAT Ron would have done it instead of the Ron that ultimately did. I'm positive the end results would have been far more to my liking. I was never disappointed in Furmanek's work.

 

I remember when the full original videotape (not the kinescope that had been around for eons) finally was apparently found *after* the TV edits of "Anthology" were made but before the home video (allowing them to finally use that footage), I was stunned at how solid the footage looked. I don't think a 1964 B&W videotape of a raucous gig like that could really look much better.

I'm stunned by how much worse some of the stuff in the Howard film looks. Not only does the colorization make the DC stuff look weird, but they zoom/crop it as well. Apple eventually released the full DC show from the videotape source a few years back exclusive on iTunes, and of course people have since ripped the iTunes version to DVD, etc. Those look infinitely *better* than the footage in the Howard film.

I almost wonder if, in a few cases, they wanted this stuff to look worse *on purpose* to give it an "archival" feel. It's almost like they wanted the DC show to look like one of those old timey drawings you'd see on the cover of an old Saturday Evening Post.

This is of course nothing new. Apple had inferior copies of the 1965 "Intertel" promo videos for "Anthology", and used a kinescope for "Shindig" instead of the videotape source that circulates.

Back to the Howard film, can anyone confirm that they use the same "edits" between the videotape and Maysles film from the DC show as the "First US Visit" DVD? It is possible that rather than working from original elements, they simply pulled the footage from that DVD?

 

I really liked this film. The aspect ratio deal did not really bother me but the colorization was strange and seemed poorly done. I thought it was unnecessary I mean a lot of the archive footage was shown in the film in B&W anyway. As far as the rooftop ending, I thought that was a little strange too but I did read a little more about Ron Howard's intent and it makes sense. I will probably watch it a few more times.

 

Just saw the film here in Japan.

The first show was on the theater's big screen, and definitely not presented in "scope" size (it was about the same aspect ratio as modern TVs).

After the film was over, there was the 30-minute presentation of the Shea Stadium concert. This was in old-school 4:3. (I guess the Japanese are not of the mind to "fill up the screen" as the Shea stuff looked fine.)

While the film was similar to Anthology in many regards, I did enjoy the insights of both Larry Kane and Kitty Oliver.

I especially liked how Ron Howard made a point to explain how the group refused to perform to segregated audiences. IIRC, Anthology didn't really mention the U.S. civil rights movement much at all, so it was nice to see Beatlemania put into that context for a short portion of the film.

 

I saw the film this afternoon. My main gripe was colorization of certain clips and substandard clips of material that has already come out legally on DVD(Sullivan comes to mind). When I saw colorized clips of the JFK press conference and Washington DC, I did everything I could to not blurt out....WTF? Seeing Shea - another carrot dangling under our nose? Just wonder how if they ever get this out, how much padding will be done to make it a cohesive disc? Surely they can't just put out the 30 4K re-master shown now in the theater.

A funny thing to consider after all of this - after the movies, they had a panel discussion. One thing that came up - this film covered(loosely) the touring years. How about one covering the studio years? Naturally, one of the questions that popped up was "when is Let It Be coming out". Bruce Spizer gave a response - no, I don't have an inside track, but my guess would be in 2019. Yep, 50 year anniversary. Just wonder how many won't be here to see that? Wake up Universal/Apple. Your fan base is thinning every day you screw around with releases.

 

"I like you Vidiot. There is no lying in you"

 

This movie is really isn't being put out very much. Closest theater to me is 30 miles one way. What a drag.

 

The theater I saw it in was around 1.85 which was fine. I'm so glad it wasn't 2.35 like the trailer.

 

I was VERY surprised the movie came here. Shown at a single screen fully digital neighborhood theater. Very nice one too. So far, I've seen Hard Day's Night and Eight Days A week there. I'm wondering if the alliance with Hulu has anything to do with the limited release to theaters. Or do they think Beatles fans are dinosaurs? Many "young-uns" in the audience yesterday.

 

I don't get it. I thought a big point of these all digital theater systems was that they can transfer any film into a theater, anywhere. They can have "exclusive engagements" of old chestnuts like "The Sound of Music" that 12 people want to see, but they can't pipe this film into more theaters? I was going to go today, but I said the hell with it. It will probably be streaming within a month. If they don't care about the film, neither do I. I'll wait and download it. It sound dull, anyway. If it relies on a bunch of "talking heads" interviews with random people like Eddie Izzard -- it's nothing special or creative, anyway. I get my fill of that crap in a million other documentaries.

 

All I want is the truth! Just gimme some truth, now.

 

How I would make a Beatles Documentary by Dan Pussey:

I have original footage. This is of first importance. How can I use today's technology to en>hance it. Colorization?(whoops!) No, I would find the best footage available (fight for the best copy available. Steve? I mean, Ron damn Howard?) and then have it lovingly restored with the best techniques currently available. That's done... What more can you do?

Intercut interviews? No. It's tired. See the story visually. Listen to it through only let the Beatles. I would hire teams of transcriptionists to record the probably thousands of hours of recorded interviews. The words will bring form to what ever footage you overlay them. That is the artistry. To make poetry from the pieces. Ask Picasso. Ask Braque. And the music, of course. A minute of music rather than a minute of talk.


Creatively? I would take, say, the Japan concert and reconstruct it with my own cutaways, overlaid, enhanced. Just re-edit them as rough clay for a montage of the songs. You could probably use a program to map their movements in 3D and thereby quantize audience footage from the perspective of the band. I would recreate guitar fingerings based on 3D renderings. I'm sure you could get close to the real thing,

That reminds me, anyone have a Baby Taylor for sale? Mahogany preferred.

 

This is something that bugs the hell out of me with a lot of movies on DVD and Blu-ray.
I got so fed up of watching things with a remote control gripped tight ready to drop the volume down for some explosion (or something equally loud), only to have to drag it up again when the dialog starts.

I recently bought a 5.1 set up, just so I could raise the volume on the center dialog channel so this was no longer an issue.
It's not perfect, but I can actually hear what they're saying now, without having to have my ears destroyed in the process.