The OFFICIAL STNG-R general discussion thread!

[23skidoo]

Really, is anyone going to notice? Seriously. I know there are folks out there who are really techno geeks who can tell you if the sound momentarily switches from Dolby XYZ to Dolby ABC for 3.4 seconds, or who'll lambaste a Blu-ray release if a bit of grit appears on one frame and wasn't caught in the remastering. But unless this really causes havoc with viewing (like, say, the sound glitches on the Season 2 DVD release of Bionic Woman that caused Universal to issue free replacement discs) or someone is so thunderstruck that they're being denied 13 seconds of Gate McFadden in proper HD, I don't see the problem. It's not even an SFX shot by the looks of things.

Alex

 

[SoM]

I'll be noticeable - everything'll go a bit out of focus for that scene (ever seen a 60-80s UK show, like Monty Python or Doctor Who, where they switch from video to badly-telecined film? Bit like that.) Not drastic, though, just annoying (might even be more annoying for being brief in some ways).

As has been said, the bigger worry isn't about 13 seconds of one episode - it's if something like a whole act ended up missing from another ep. Hopefully, it WILL just be the odd clip here & there, at most.

 

[Squiggy]

Hm. You'd think that they would've checked that before they announced it would be in the teaser pack.

It also begs the question: If they've already found that original film was missing from one of the first three episodes to get the treatment, how much more is missing?

 

[Jon1701]

Hm. You'd think that they would've checked that before they announced it would be in the teaser pack.

It also begs the question: If they've already found that original film was missing from one of the first three episodes to get the treatment, how much more is missing?

It doesn't bode well, you know.

In this instance, its no biggie - but you have to wonder what might happen further down the line.

 

[AviTrek]

Hm. You'd think that they would've checked that before they announced it would be in the teaser pack.

It also begs the question: If they've already found that original film was missing from one of the first three episodes to get the treatment, how much more is missing?

Maybe they knew and chose the episode because of it. See how the fans react to the 13 seconds and then use that as a gauge to determine how to proceed the next time the issue comes up.

 

[Jon1701]

Hm. You'd think that they would've checked that before they announced it would be in the teaser pack.

It also begs the question: If they've already found that original film was missing from one of the first three episodes to get the treatment, how much more is missing?

Maybe they knew and chose the episode because of it. See how the fans react to the 13 seconds and then use that as a gauge to determine how to proceed the next time the issue comes up.

Possibly, but that thinking suggests it will be the rule not the exception. If they've already gone through the footage properly they could have slipped this in further down the line.

To me this suggests they didn't check properly, or simply assumed too much.

Either way, its a bit worrying.

 

[Harvey]

So far, it's happened once. I'd say its far to early to suggest any kind of pattern.

 

[milo bloom]

Does seem odd that there's not an alternate angle they could use, even looping over the dialog if needed.

We can always hope the footage will be found by the time they get to this season down the road.

 

[Harvey]

Well, it's a television show, not a feature film. There's generally not a lot of time to do multiple takes of something after you get it right the first time.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Speaking of vaults and vaults of film, I wonder if we'll get any new outtakes in these sets?

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Well, it's a television show, not a feature film. There's generally not a lot of time to do multiple takes of something after you get it right the first time.

The industry standard is usually to film at least two takes of each shot for protection, in case of some technical glitch that might affect the first take. What this likely demonstrates is that Paramount only kept the "circle takes"... the ones used in the final edit. The rest were tossed.

 

[Jon1701]

So far, it's happened once. I'd say its far to early to suggest any kind of pattern.

Out of all the episodes they could have picked (and I know there are reasons for each one) - they pick one with 13 missing seconds of footage??

I just cannot see that they would have picked it if they knew that was the case. They obviously did not know when they picked it. They could, I suppose, be incredibly unlucky. They picked the one episode out of 178 that has the missing footage.

The law of averages says it will probably happen again though.

 

[ATimson]

What this likely demonstrates is that Paramount only kept the "circle takes"... the ones used in the final edit. The rest were tossed.

That would surprise me, simply because it would require more work; after they copied all the takes to tape & selected which ones they wanted to use, they would have then needed to go back and prune the film down to just the chosen takes.

It's not impossible, but it seems to me like it would lose a lot of the time/money benefits of editing on video.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

What this likely demonstrates is that Paramount only kept the "circle takes"... the ones used in the final edit. The rest were tossed.

That would surprise me, simply because it would require more work; after they copied all the takes to tape & selected which ones they wanted to use, they would have then needed to go back and prune the film down to just the chosen takes.

It's not impossible, but it seems to me like it would lose a lot of the time/money benefits of editing on video.

Having just looked at an interview with Daryl Baskin, one of the TNG editors, he does say the following:

All the film was vaulted. Including the dailies, with :10 second handles on them.

I misremembered this as stating that the negatives were trimmed with 10 second handles. But if they did print dailies, why can't they just use that instead of the videotape? It seems the dailies were likely thrown out and an entire 1,000ft roll of negative was lost. Fortunately, it only contained 13 seconds of used footage for the show.

EDIT:
Just went through the interview again, and it appears when he uses the term "dailies", he's referring to videotape dailies. So that makes more sense.

 

[Rarewolf]

What this likely demonstrates is that Paramount only kept the "circle takes"... the ones used in the final edit. The rest were tossed.

I thought one of the reasons they gave for not doing HD originally was going back to the dailies would take too long to match up the correct takes.

I wonder if they might have picked up that shot recording another episode? It might show up later.

 

[FrontierTrek]

From what I understand, there is still a hope that the footage can be located and the thought is that perhaps it has just been mis-labeled and is in 'another box somewhere'.

CBS/Paramount will also be including a disclaimer on the disc describing exactly where the scene is in the episode.

http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/index.html#missingfootage

 

[FrontierTrek]

Another quick update - we've been assured that the scene itself fits pretty well into the episode and doesn't appear jarring to the viewer. Obviously, if you look carefully you can certainly tell that it is an upconvert, but it doesn't spoil the flow of the episode.

I'm sure that's the main point of concern for most of us - so I'm glad to hear that it doesn't take you 'out' of the viewing experience.

With regards to future missing footage, we've been assured that Paramount's logs and archives collection are VERY thorough, however the remastering team always expected that there would be a 'few missing pieces'. Hopefully those will be at a minimum!!

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Thank you, FrontierTrek. Sent you a PM by the way.

 

[Tosk]

I don't know if it's a fruitless hope, but with the upconvert being only thirteen seconds long, maybe they can devote a much more critical eye (and more time) to 'cleaning up' the shot as much as is possible. Y'know, more effort than could be afforded if it were the entire series being upconverted.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm not au fait with upconversion algorithms, but I assume that maximum entropy techniques might give the best results.