Ron Howard Beatle film in 2.35:1

This a pretty stupid Idea

 

I bet the B&W footage is colorized too !

Gotta be modern even if it foregoes authenticity !!!!!!!!!!!

 

Really? Are you sure?
That makes no sense on the surface.

 

Here's a trailer for all you Beatle peedles.

 

not sure what you mean ,when you consider nearly all footage of the Beatles is 1:33 :1 cropping this for 2:35;1 is a Stupid idea!

 

What I mean is I agree it's a stupid idea from what we know. But Ron Howard is no dummy so there must be a reason why this was done

 

maybe that's only the trailer ,but it didn't seem that way

 

It's probably worth mentioning Pathe's short The Beatles Come to Town was 2.35.

 

A Beatles doc about the touring years? Awesome! Wait, wrong aspect ratio? **** that ****!

 

It's a very stupid idea to take mostly 16mm and standard def video and bump it all up to 2.39 for theatrical release. I think this was a very poor creative choice on the part of Ron Howard, since most of the images are sliced and diced top and bottom, losing a lot of image area. Most of Howard's films over the past 25 years have been 2.39 scope, but they were specifically shot for that aspect ratio. (Actually, 2.20 in the case of Far and Away, shot in 65mm.)

What's really bizarre is that the film is (mostly) going to be released on Hulu and home video, and is only going to be shown in a handful of theaters.

Sometimes very nice, bright people make poor creative choices.

 

I still believe this "Live" project allows Apple to release a film based on the Litigation from this other project, except there's Ron Howard Oscar winning Director/Brian Glazer Producer against the other party:

'Lost' Beatles Film: Sony Music Aims to Stop Lawsuit »

 

Anyone else notice that brief shot from the first U.S. show at the Washington Coliseum? It's colorized! Personally, I hope we get that whole show colorized. It's competently shot but suffers from the fact that in most shots it's a homogenized mess of grey - no blacks and no whites and the greys are all within a very narrow range. Colorization might "separate" the elements in the image and make for a much more satisfying viewing experience. (And obviously the decision to shoot in black and white was a practical decision, what with the technology of that era, and not an artistic choice. So color away, I say!)

As for the extreme aspect ratio, lord, I have to believe that the actual feature (as opposed to the trailer) will be "full frame" 4:3 or thereabouts. I hope so, anyway!

 

No, that lawsuit was essentially tossed out of federal court. Twice. To be more accurate, the most recent filing ended with the plaintiffs essentially withdrawing their complaint after being hit with a counterclaim. (And Apple prevailed in the separate but directly related lawsuit in the UK.)

 

yeah I know ,but how long is that

 

Thank you updated news about older lawsuit, had not heard the outcome about it.

Well let us all hope the feature is "Deluxe Edition" for DVD/Blu-ray with a whole lot of Bonus material/complete concert footage at least in Full Frame!

 

ah, I just love chopped mop tops! geez, can't we just have it the way it originally was?

 

It's possible to take the material from the Washington show and expand the contrast so that the blacks are really black, the whites are white, and the midrange is normal and well-balanced. Remastering could also add a little bit of sharpness and some noise reduction in order to clean it up to improve it. It's never gonna look good, because it's 1964 image orthicon cameras, but it can always look better (can't get no worse). I don't know why it looks so bad in the trailer except to say that it looks to me like bad creative choices were made.

Here's an interview with Ron Howard promoting the film on The Today Show:

 

I don't have a link on that. I do have the link below indicating that Apple Corps did win the case:

Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness: Lost Beatles US Concert Movie Blocked From Release »

To me, this is kind of an open-and-shut case: if it has the Beatles' images and uses songs published by Northern Songs, you'd have to legally clear them in order to use it. I'm reminded of the Magical Mystery Tour, where the film itself is in the public domain (because they basically forgot to copyright it), but the Beatles' images and music recordings are still protected. Underlying rights can stop a lot of projects like this from ever getting released, unless all involved parties can come up with a compromise arrangement on which everybody agrees.

 

Yes, in this case, the film's producers alleged they had secured the song rights from Sony/ATV and then Apple intervened and persuaded Sony /ATV to go back on the deal. Tortious interference, as the lawyers say. But it turned out the producers never got a written commitment from Sony / ATV and relied instead on some vague verbal assurances and emailed expressions of encouragement. No other issues, such as use of The Beatles' image or name were raised in either the US or UK cases.

 

About twenty minutes; there's a letterboxed copy on British Pathé's YouTube channel along with outtake footage.

 

Just what I suspected....see post #2 above. I'd rather they just work with the contrast and NO colorizing.

 

I think they could raise issues on likenesses and the trademark on The Beatles®, which Apple will zealously protect. I don't think you can release this film without getting approval from Apple Corps, or else they'll go to the ends of the earth keeping you occupied in court. It's amazing to me that the people who started this project spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring the videotape and shooting a documentary to go with it.

I guarantee you, portions of this video will be in the (highly authorized) Ron Howard film later on this year.

 

Oh, yeah. There's brief clip from it right near the very end of the trailer. Apple owns the video master (as opposed to the crappy, truncated video-to-film-and-back-to-video transfer we were saddled with all those years) and they've spent some time and money colorizing it, so it's likely to be one of the centerpieces of the film.

 

Hard to believe I would ever say this, but after twenty-odd years of witnessing what Apple has done with The Beatles legacy, I actually find myself longing for the good old days when Capitol was in charge.

 

That clip caught my eye as well when I watched the trailer. Colorization might work and benefit the Washington 64' concert, but I hope it's not over used on a majority of the black and white footage. I'd like to see them keep the authenticity with the B&W footage if possible. That said..... I wonder if they did it for Sweden 63', Hollywood Bowl 64', Paris 65' and Munich 66'?