Close. Videotape (which means fixed resolution) for studio recording, film for location work. From season 23, it was all video.
EDIT - Spearhead excepted, of course.
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Wiped Episode Discoveries
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
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Close. Videotape (which means fixed resolution) for studio recording, film for location work. From season 23, it was all video.
EDIT - Spearhead excepted, of course.
Right. Videotape has a cleaner, less grainy look and a slightly higher frame rate, so it looks more "live." In those days, the video equipment was too bulky or too limited to work well outdoors, which was why they used film.
Monty Python's Flying Circus was shot the same way as Doctor Who -- a videotaped in-studio performance with prefilmed exterior scenes fed into the video at the appropriate points in the performance. There's actually a sketch in one episode where the characters attempt to go outdoors and are startled to discover that they're suddenly on film! They come inside and they're back on video, and then they try another exit and -- gasp -- more film! They're surrounded by film! They eventually escape the room through a Terry Gilliam cartoon, although I think that turns out rather badly for them.
I loved that! Actually having the type of media used help tell a story.
One concept that would be nice to see would be to tell a tale of the universe seeming to have the life sucked from it--using worse and worse video--and then ending up in a dram state with whatever the next state of the art high frame rate video is.
One concept that would be nice to see would be to tell a tale of the universe seeming to have the life sucked from it--using worse and worse video--and then ending up in a dram state with whatever the next state of the art high frame rate video is.
The excellent About Time books are good at pointing out how film/video can be used to create an effect: the jungle in Planet of Evil is on film, even though it's in a studio, so it looks "real." Conversely, they argue the long corridor in The Sunmakers should have been shot on video despite being on location because you'd think they'd built a really large set.
I'm not saying it wouldn't work or make sense from a practicality standpoint. I'm just saying that the cases would have to says Blu-ray and that would lead to fans who don't have Blu-ray players having to purchase them and a Blu-ray set would probably incur a higher price tag. So they shell out and when they see the same picture quality as the old DVD releases, you're get an uproar that they're not getting pristine remastering (as explained above, Who would not benefit from what is expected from Blu-ray. WE know this, the layman probably wouldn't), and that many had to double-dip by buying sets for new episodes AND paying more to do so. I just don't foresee average Who viewers being understanding about the situation just because of space-issues for extras.
Which brings us back to the original argument that the best course of action which would please everyone would be individual DVD releases. BUT the obstacle here is the BBC itself (who seem to have lost interest in Classic Who - note the lack of extras for Web of Fear and Enemy of the World) and who probably think there isn't a market for it. (on the other hand, they DID make extras for Underwater Menace but didn't even bother putting that out at all)
The whole situation is very frustrating. I don't know why some titles are discontinued while others aren't. Now, its perfectly understandable that some Doctors will sell better than others (Tom Bakers vs the others), color vs B&W and certain stories more than others (Genesis of the Daleks vs the Twin Dilemma for example) so I can understand adjusting volume of production for this versus that. However, when you just simply make numerous titles unavailable that would deter collectors and, IM0, potential new fans. I acquired all the Who titles and I just squeaked in under the wire before the great deletion started....having only to shell out for copies of the Web Planet and The Two Doctors. If I had waited a few more months I may have not even begun delving into Who and probably wouldn't have bought any DVDs at all. (Now, yes, many would say I'm "old school" in that I bought DVDs at all, but streaming services have the same problem - I say if you're gonna offer Classic Who, make them ALL available darn it).
to me, its perplexing that nearly every individual Classic Who titles had GENEROUS extras (would have loved Trek to approach every episode like that) and then suddenly, to do an about-face and not physically release, not only extras, but possibly the stories themselves.
FWIW, I don't think anyone has understood any of the decisions made over the years in regard to the classic DVD releases.
One interesting chapter in the history of the DVDs was Warner Home Video's scuttled plans to release bare-bones DVDs in Region 1 alongside the VHS releases about fifteen years ago. There was a bizarre backlash by fandom against WHV's plans because the DVDs wouldn't have been overseen by the Restoration Team and they wouldn't have the (overly) generious extras, so they pulled the plug on the project. Eventually, WHV did release something on their own, the Key to Time boxset, and I knew people in fandom who didn't consider that boxed set "official." Who fandom is a strange place sometimes.
If Worldwide decided to release classic series season boxed sets with little more than the episodes themselves, I'd have no problem with that. The digital masters for the episodes exist, there's money to be made thanks to people who weren't in the market for classic Who DVDs five, even ten years ago.
I adore the detailed extras on the Doctor Who DVDs. I've recently started on a long-term plan to rewatch the entire classic series, instead of just going through it piecemeal and in random order with whatever I stumble across at the library or on Netflix, and including watching the reconstructions online (I've only seen the "Marco Polo" recon so far, but it was pretty good). But while I have the option to binge-watch the (surviving) episodes on Hulu, I'm preferring to rent/borrow the DVDs where they're available, so I can see the bonus features (at least where I haven't already seen them). So it's going to be a pretty slow rewatch. I'm only up to "The Sensorites" so far, and haven't yet gotten to its bonus features. (It's interesting to revisit, knowing what we know now about the implied relationship between the Sensorites and the Ood. I never realized the symmetry -- the Sensorites communicate by speech and need a device to communicate telepathically, while the Ood communicate telepathically and need a device to speak.)
I'm doing the same thing myself; I've been randomly watching ClassicWho for about a year and I think I'm ready to start from the beginning. However, I'm starting with NuWho first (up to Boomtown now). I should be at the end of Season 8 by the time Season 9 premieres. I'm paying VERY close attention to every detail this time around as I'm writing a timeline as I go (actually four timelines the main line which is our perspective, one for the Doctor's life in his perspective and three smaller ones, one for River Song (in her perspective), one for Captain Jack/Face of Boe and one for Sarah Jane. maybe one for the Time War but that's a rather nebulous ball of timey-wimey stuff.) Once Season 9 is done, i'll backtrack back to An Unearthly Child.
I spent years and many an hour writing a Trek Chronology. But since there is no new Trek and I've exhausted every shred of info from that franchise, I'm filling my spare time with a new Doctor Who Chronology.
(such is my life).
I spent years and many an hour writing a Trek Chronology. But since there is no new Trek and I've exhausted every shred of info from that franchise, I'm filling my spare time with a new Doctor Who Chronology.
(such is my life).
I've already seen the first three serials within the past couple of years, so I started with "Marco Polo." I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to skip over the ones I've already seen; my goal is mainly just to be thorough and watch everything, including watching the reconstructions for the first time, and it seems sensible to go about it chronologically.
Interesting -- this is also something I did fairly recently. It was prompted when Netflix was going to pull the new series and Torchwood from streaming, and I decided to rewatch both of those on Netflix, Sarah Jane on Hulu, and the various mini-episodes on YouTube or wherever I could find them, plus the first Capaldi season courtesy of On Demand cable -- basically the entire modern continuity in chronological order (but not including Miracle Day, which I rewatched last year and which doesn't really have any continuity connection to the rest). Fortunately, Netflix renewed its contract after all, since I wouldn't have finished before the cutoff otherwise. Maybe rewatching the whole modern series in order was part of what prompted me to get more systematic about revisiting the classic series.
I meant to include in my post above that what prompted me to begin big chronological re-watch is that I just made my own set of recons of the 20 missing stories (along with my own batch of extras - still a lot of interesting tidbits floating around on youtube, dailymotion, etc). I plan on slotting them in when I get to Classic Who.
Maybe recons aren't official releases but they certainly are official stories. All the soundtracks are there, many have intact episodes or at least snippets from the episodes. The pics are from the productions (for the most part) and its as close as you can get to watching the actual thing. Some are quite good ("Dalek's Master Plan", "Evil of the Daleks", "Fury From the Deep"). I'm a big proponent of the work Loose Cannon did.
I got the Tenth Planet and Shada tapes when they came out and they are really offical recons. I found them to be disjointed and alittle hard to follow at times. It'd be easier just to release the soundtracks on CDs, they'd make better audio styled books IMO.
What was that sketch called? I don't seem to remember it. (Never mind found it "Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of other Things.")
Yeah, the vast human psyche is an annoying thing. Technically, you could do just as is stated. But the perception (that Marketing folks built, I might add) is that BluRay gives you a better picture than standard DVD. (That's why you shell out for it when you've already got "The Wrath of Khan" on DVD.)
Of course the reason for this is because there's room for more data on BluRay, so you don't have to compress anything or cut corners to fit a film onto a disk. Unfortunately, then when you get somewhere that the picture is as good as it gets, it is hard to explain that you can use that extra space to pack in more material. The dumb human brain can't get past that the picture should be better. Gahr. When I was a kid, we had to rent a VCR from the liquor store on the corner to watch old movies and we liked it!
It's simple Economics really. For most stories we're long past the point where the number of people in the future who will want to buy them will bring a return of investment worth the cost of pressing, warehousing and distributing them.
Plus even if they were to keep them in print what Retailer is going to want to take up shelf space with them versus something that will sell more copies, more quickly.
I've no doubt that in the nearish future anyone who wants to amass a complete collection (or as complete as is possible) will be able to so digitally but the DVD ship has sailed at this point.
Yes, it sounds way too good to be true. However, if it's true it would make sense to hold the announcement back until the store opens, that would definitely bring a lot of attention and business to it. If they sell to continental customers I'd definitely buy anything but I still hope they'd also release them on DVD matching the previous releases, I'm fine with no special features if producing them would be too expensive or time consuming.
If they don't release DVDs I'll just make them myself with the digital versions and fan made covers. I downloaded covers for all missing serials a few years ago, they're still floating around on one of my hard drives.
And one last thing, IF (and I'm aware it's a very big if) we're down to three missing episodes, just animate them, BBC! It might be expensive but three episodes should be possible, just take a bit out of every sold digital episode and use that as the animation budget. I can absolutely understand not animating a hundred episodes, but three? A full release of the complete classic Doctor Who should not fail because of three measly episodes.
It's been explained, basically Enemy and Web were outside the original plans and costings drawn up years ago (obviously) and there was no one left in charge at BBC Worldwide to commission DVD extras. Also they would have had to sit on the releases for longer - increasing the chance of them leaking out, and would had missed the anniversary. Of course with the downloads they could have both, but still.
Besides, unlike every release before them them, they didn't have to provide extra incentives for people to buy them again. Web was the best selling DW DVD without extras. Even with one episode missing and no animation.
Underwater Menace was also outside the original plans, but within time to get things commissioned. It's just getting someone to do the animation for that price that is the problem. Its a shame it wasn't found a little sooner, then they could have done that instead of Moonbase, and no one would have been the wiser.
They do have a release date listed, October 26. So we have just under two months to know for certainty if this is legit or a hoax.
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