The McCartney Years dvd coming up

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by peerke, Aug 15, 2007.

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  1. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I wouldn't, but others would and apparently are. I mean, I would probably have some misgivings if they reissued the Beatles albums with, say, 10 seconds edited off the beginning and end of each song.

    So I have no problem owning and still watching and enjoying the set. I also have no problem criticizing the ridiculous and frustrating decision to hack away at the image on the DVD's, and the image is sort of one of the main points of a DVD! :)
     
  2. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I don't think this is a fair comparison at all. The "Beatles Anthology" is, first and foremost, a *documentary*. It doesn't purport to be a collection of performance clips or musical clips of any kind. The "McCartney Years" is a collection of his music videos. That is the centerpiece of the collection.

    A better comparison would be if they had taken the original "Beatles Anthology" as released in 1996 on VHS and Laserdisc, and then, when putting it on DVD in 2003, editing material out or cropping material out that had been there in 1996.
     
  3. Ed Bishop

    Ed Bishop Incredibly, I'm still here

    Well, no, obviously most of us didn't...:D

    But fan ire is understandable, and won't get better after that equally daft justification on Carruthers' part for the video cropping. This may be a classic example of 'looking to the future without preserving the past, taking what was old and marketing it for the future, forgetting how many people care about the original aspect ratio of an image, or the original mix of a recording.

    In the end, it's all product; and inevitably some compromises enter into the overall 'mix.' To be honest, if not for the 5.1 mixes--and knowing what had been done to the videos--I would probably have passed on this one. Granted, one can argue that 5.1 mixes are revisionist...but not if the original mixes(mono or stereo)are included, just as one cannot reasonably argue a pan&scan image if a collection also includes the widescreen original.

    Paulie could have said no to any of this...but, given what he said yes to, I can live with the LB'd vids. But then the producers and director didn't give a spit for us, they were looking ahead to the next generation who--they presume--won't remember or care about what the original vids looked like or the recordings sounded like.

    Just as there are purists, so will there be philistines....

    :ed:
     
  4. Mike the Fish

    Mike the Fish Señor Member

    Location:
    England
    To be fair I was more interested in the surround sound than the pictures.

    By the way, can we have a summary of the hidden stuff again please? I can see on disc 2 that there's two versions of Put It There (it shows two angles) but I can only access one of them. I can get the grainy Goodnight Tonight & Baby's Request. What more should I be seeing?
     
  5. semidetached

    semidetached Monkees Mixographist

    Location:
    Bucks County, PA
    An alternate Fine Line also.
     
  6. cb70

    cb70 Senior Member

    Out of boredom really. I tire of the 80's video stuff and 00's live stuff too fast. I'm sure I'll pop it back in one day and finish it off though. I am enjoying the 5.1 mixes though. Great stuff there.
     
  7. Mike the Fish

    Mike the Fish Señor Member

    Location:
    England
    Do I access this via the angle button?
     
  8. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    I was watching the "So Bad" video from the "Extras" section last night, trying to figure out why it wasn't included in the main portion of the program...then it hit me, the closeup faces and full-length 'portraits' would never work being cropped, no matter how they adjusted it.

    I have to give them credit for not ruining this one...
     
  9. semidetached

    semidetached Monkees Mixographist

    Location:
    Bucks County, PA
    I'm not home but I believe that's how I found it.
     
  10. JLGB

    JLGB Senior Member

    Location:
    D.R.
    Widescreening is NOT good be it stretching (distorts) or letterbox ..even worse cause it crops...unless shot originally HDTV or 35mm..Example. Elvis On Tour ..and many documentaries where shot 16mm which is HDTV resolution or more..but was transfered ..montaged to 35mm and thus has to bee seen (to get everything) widescreen..cause 3 4:3 format pictures are playing inside the 35mm format..kool!
     
  11. Bobo U2

    Bobo U2 Active Member

    Location:
    The Bronx
    Anymore of those very cool center channel mp3's??:winkgrin:
     
  12. Mike the Fish

    Mike the Fish Señor Member

    Location:
    England
    Any more on the hidden stuff?
     
  13. Claudio Dirani

    Claudio Dirani A Fly On Apple's Wall

    Location:
    São Paulo, Brazil
    Yes, that's it. Press to Play it :)
     
  14. Mike the Fish

    Mike the Fish Señor Member

    Location:
    England

    Aaggghh!
     
  15. Claudio Dirani

    Claudio Dirani A Fly On Apple's Wall

    Location:
    São Paulo, Brazil
    Don't treat this baby so bad, you'll still care for it!;)
     
  16. Mike the Fish

    Mike the Fish Señor Member

    Location:
    England
    Make it go away!!!!
     
  17. MusicFan76

    MusicFan76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    East Coast, USA
    I'm coming very late to this thread, but I'm slowly but surely working my way through the McCartney Years DVD collection. I have been very pleased with the videos and commentaries presented, and the overall packaging to me is an 'A' production.

    After watching the very short portion of Rockshow included on the final disc of this package, it left me wanting more. This is the most intriguing McCartney concert footage I have seen. The mood is great, the performances are strong, and it is a welcome refresher from the chaotic nature of his concert films of the last decade or so.

    Why hasn't Rockshow seen a proper, full-tilt release? Are there indications we'll see a full release sometime in the near future?
     
  18. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    God, I hope so. Rockshow is an awesome concert film, with definitive performances of many of those tracks. It's too damn good to be left on the shelf, but then, Paul (and the Beatles) have an awfully cluttered "shelf" full of things that "should" be released...
     
  19. telliott

    telliott Senior Member

    The thing that bothers most of us who want to see it again is that it WAS out on video a long time ago. I had it on the obsolete RCA SelectaVision CED format.

    What caused the video to disappear? It's not like the Beatles projects that have tons of red tape?

    Tim
     
  20. Ed Bishop

    Ed Bishop Incredibly, I'm still here

    That format was obsolete before it was introduced...:D

    You might as well ask why LIB isn't available on DVD...why indeed? If everyone involved wanted it out, it would be...so why is this one not out? Good question, but not sure there is any logical answer.

    :ed:
     
  21. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    But his point was that Beatles projects have to get agreements from many parties to come out, while "Rockshow" should only need the consent of one: Macca. That's a completely different issue, as it shouldn't be as difficult to get "Rockshow" out on DVD as it would be for "Let It Be"...
     
  22. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    The consent involved from all the different parties when doing Beatles projects is indeed a more difficult/involved process than a solo McCartney project.

    But in general, the hangup involved in all of these releases, Beatles and solo, has less to do with getting approval on projects, and more to do simply with the artist (whether McCartney solo or the Beatles as a whole) even being motivated enough or alerted to getting a given project jumpstarted. With the exception of "Let It Be", which seems to have had work done on it but may actually be getting hung up on approval issues, most Beatles projects that are actually begun are eventually okayed. In other words, it doesn't seem like there are a bunch of projects that are being presented to the Beatles that are being turned down or cancelled.

    For whatever reason, I don't think there are many people presenting them with these ideas, or who even have the opportunity to present them with these ideas. McCartney told the story of "Let It Be" where he ran into Michael Lindsay-Hogg and it was he who told McCartney that "Let It Be" had been out print for twenty-plus years. Unfortunately, that's how a lot of these projects get started. Somebody somehow presents the project to the Beatles, or alerts them to something, and then it gets going. "Yellow Submarine" was re-done at least in part in 1999 because a guy at the movie studio tried to go rent the film and found that it had been out of print, and he took the extra effort to get the legal issues worked out with Apple. Some of the stuff seems to almost make it out by sheer luck or chance.

    Unfortunately, in terms of "Rock Show", it's just my gut feeling that the excerpts found on the "McCartney Years" set makes it less likely we'll see it released in full anytime soon. I'm worried that McCartney sees this DVD set as the de facto release of his promo films (even though it's missing a bunch of them), as well as the Unplugged and RockShow films (even though we only got excerpts of those).

    I dunno. Maybe if Criterion or somebody like that approached MPL, maybe MPL would let them do "RockShow" on DVD. Maybe there aren't a lot of outside companies approaching MPL to do these things. But it doesn't seem like McCartney is interested in flooding the market with all of the OOP or never-released projects, which would amount to quite a few releases.
     
  23. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    I think Paul does indeed see "The McCartney Years" as THE one-and-only video collection, and I think it would be odd (and unprofitable) to put out a smaller, even less comprehensive set collecting the missing videos, especially when most of the hits that people would want are on the main set.

    The only solution I see to this problem is for Paul to put out a companion set to "The McCartney Years" covering his live films. Disc 1 could be "Rockshow," disc 2 could be "Unplugged," disc 3 could be Glastonbury (or my preference, the complete "Chaos & Creation at Abbey Road" show), and the "bonus" disc 4 could collect the missing videos. This release would make sense, it would be comprehensive (as far as live releases), and it would solve BOTH problems (the missing videos and the out-of-print live performances).
     
  24. mark f.

    mark f. Senior Member

    To add to what balzac and Sean are saying, the problem you have with the McCartney archival projects is that he considers himself a current and viable artist. Guys like that don't have the time or inclination to go back to the vaults very often. They want to work on new things.

    Agree that The McCartney Years is his final archival DVD statement for a very long time.
     
  25. Ed Bishop

    Ed Bishop Incredibly, I'm still here

    Understood...but if everyone involved could agree on LIB NAKED, why not the true original naked LIB, the movie?

    :ed:
     
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