Steve, questions: Your time at Warner Bros. Pictures restoring movie & cartoon scores

Well, reading that just kills. Even if the stuff is toxic, I hate reading that it's been turned landfill, meaning that if, in the future, someone decides that there's something they want restored...it can't happen.

 

Hi Steve,

Forgive me, but what exactly does UNSYNCED mean.

Was this some sort of multi-track archiving project (nothing to do with the actual film as such)?

TIA,
Stephen

 

Steve, maybe they kept the stuff you didn't transfer, after you left the project? Or even some of the original parts you worked with? I mentioned in the other thread about the parts being found to some but not all of the ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS stuff. Maybe some other movies, etc. too? From the Sinatra In Hollywood box :

 

Does exisiting 35mm mag require baking just like traditional magentic tape, or is it an entirely different beast?

 

True enough...I had forgotten that the baking came about from the 70's formulas......my bad.

In the 35MM Mag realm, what kind of problems arise from poor storage?

 

Anything that would prevent you from taking the tape/reel out of the box and slapping it on a playback unit and instantly playing it.

I guess what I'm wondering is how 35mm mag deteriorates under bad conditions in comparison to regular tape.

 

Once it starts to stink and shed, is there any way to halt the deterioration, or does re-boxing it into modern cases just slow down the death?

(BTW...thanks for the Q&A, Steve. I love this stuff! Now, I'm headed out to get the snow out of my driveway!)

 

How lots of stuff has gotten saved over the years!

 

Hopefully all your restored copies still play...

 

I think Volume 2 has more of the hi-fi stuff. It must've been really neat to work with those tapes. I had no idea you were involved in these; if only you had worked on mastering both of the CD's, that would've been fantastic. The raw scoring sessions on the DVD's are amazing.

I had no idea that optical recordings could sound good. All I've heard is muddy, grainy sounding audio.

 

Are there any online samples posted of the HI-FI stuff?

 

Can't vouch for the quality: http://www.amazon.com/Carl-Stalling...2MN3/ref=pd_bxgy_m_text_b/105-9913019-8861202

 

I presume they have a good magnetic sound print, so the 5.1 track will come from that.

Warner are releasing another two early CinemaScope films in April, Kismet and Hit the Deck both released by M.G.M. in 1955. Both DVDs will have 5.0 and 5.1 sound tracks. My guess is the 5.0 track is a direct transfer off an original magnetic print, whereas the 5.1 track will probably processed to send some of the bass to the .1 channel. I doubt they have the separate dialogue, sound effects, and music master.

 

Yeah, it seems that Warner take the back channel (which was really auditorium effects) and send it to both the Right Back and Left Back Dolby Digital channels.

Heh, not my favourite early 'Scope film, but I'm glad the mag audio was saved. The success of H&TM prompted Wayne to produce Track of the Cat also for director William Wellman. I think it is a far better early 'Scope film, that was also released in 1954. The DVD features a good 4.0 track, but it is the secondary track on the DVD, by default it starts with a 2.0 track. Possibly this is because the 4.0 was artificially re-channeled, but it sounds original to me. Maybe it was just an authoring mistake?

The use of stereo, and surround, is very interesting in the period. They tended to mix the audio relative to each actor's location on the screen. They split the screen into thirds, and as soon as an actor moves from one third to the other, their dialogue will fade across the channels.

This produces some strange effects when an actor's position changes over a cut. For example, sometimes an actor's voice repeatedly flips from far Right to far Left over a cut, which is so extreme that it emphasises the stereo sound. It kind of reminds me of early stereo music recordings when the instruments and vocal were often hard right and left, without much in the middle.