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TheRedEye The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 4192 Location: Oakland, CA
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Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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ProgrammingAce wrote: | Like movies for example. Are there a huge group of people who collect the dailies from early movies? Are there book collectors who collect rough drafts? People who collect pilot episodes of TV shows? |
Don't know much about book collectors, but as for film and television, yes there are people who collect artifacts, early scripts, footage, etc. The major difference is that their respective artforms are old and established enough to be recognized as important, and have funding to maintain proper archives. There is obviously a lot of interest in these sorts of things; either that, or every major home video company in the world managed to somehow overestimate the demand for bonus features on DVDs, many of which (at least on the DVDs I own) rely on artifacts that some "fringe collector" managed to hold on to.
We don't have that sort of luxury with video games (though we're getting there). I don't know what's going to be important in fifty years, which is why I think it's our duty to preserve whatever we can before it's too late. That is what this site is all about. |
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TheRedEye The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 4192 Location: Oakland, CA
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Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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As for the sheer volume of these fringe collectors: no, I don't think there are 1,000 people actively seeking out and preserving daily builds, scripts, notes or whatever, but I would imagine well over 1,000 people have listened to the same commentary track I did on my Citizen Kane DVD, with insight derived from dailies, scripts and notes that people thought were important enough to hold on to, despite the film being a box office failure and studios not having the luxury of television distribution and home video to bank on.
Citizen Kane is my favorite movie, and my life is more fulfilled knowing the information in that commentary track. That alone is the only argument I'll ever need for preserving video game history. |
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PACHUKA
Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 105
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Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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ProgrammingAce wrote: | Looking at video games as an entertainment medium, are there any other groups out there who go wild for "pre-production" artifacts? |
Fiona Apple made half a CD, which was leaked on the internet. She gave up on it. But fans drank it up like it was liquid orgasm.
ProgrammingAce wrote: | Like movies for example. Are there a huge group of people who collect the dailies from early movies? Are there book collectors who collect rough drafts? People who collect pilot episodes of TV shows |
There were tons of episodes of the "honeymooners" that have been lost due to poor care. One of those was re-discovered. The guy who gave it to them was a collector. I recently got ahold of a rare copy of the pilot of W*A*L*T*E*R, the pilot spinoff of M*A*S*H. Only shown once. It survived because a fan archived it. I happen to collect all of those. Another example is the release of DVDs. When older movies started coming out, they needed a boost. So they included cut scenes, lost materials, and other stuff. Storyboards in Disney films, the Wizard of Oz has multiple cutscenes. The fans ate it up and still do. And I know an early rough draft of Harry Potter would fetch thousands.
ProgrammingAce wrote: | I'm sure there are fringe collectors out there, but the Smithsonian hasn't opened a wing devoted to classic movies yet. I'm not really sure video games will be any different. |
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/History_and_Culture/PopularEntertainment_History.htm here's a link to the Smithsonian section on classic movies, television, and other media. |
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PACHUKA
Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 105
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Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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TheRedEye wrote: | Citizen Kane |
Like the fact that rosebud wasn't a sled, but an asian bath house girl who gave erotic massages. |
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TheRedEye The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 4192 Location: Oakland, CA
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Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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PACHUKA wrote: | TheRedEye wrote: | Citizen Kane |
Like the fact that rosebud wasn't a sled, but an asian bath house girl who gave erotic massages. |
Actually, the rumor was that "Rosebud" was the nickname William Randolph Hearst gave to his wife's naughty bits. Probably bullshit, but a fun story nevertheless. |
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Li Wang SnHX WiIYrd
Joined: 29 Aug 2003 Posts: 798
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ProgrammingAce
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 580
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:27 am Post subject: |
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My company has been involved in making movies for the last 92 years, we throw tons of that stuff out every year.
We are the storage vault for both Disney and Warner's original master copies. In 2006, i helped throw away the original film masters for every movie we ever possessed. Over 10,000 film reels were destroyed.
I almost kept a master from Who Framed Rodger Rabbit, but they weighed about a hundred pounds and i don't have the $70,000 projector to do anything with them.
We also threw out about 80 SGI workstations, they either belonged to Pixar or Fox (the previous owners of the building). We weren't sure, and i didn't know how to boot them anyway.
I did manage to grab a bunch of original artwork and silkscreens from about 200 different movies. I didn't figure the stuff had any value. I was considering trying to blow out the stuff i don't want on DP for $3 each... |
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ProgrammingAce
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 580
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:29 am Post subject: |
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Heh, i probably threw some of those away myself... |
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GDRI
Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 352
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Vlcice
Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 89
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:51 am Post subject: |
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ProgrammingAce wrote: | Are there book collectors who collect rough drafts? |
I'm actually very surprised to see you bring that one up! Manuscript collectors are crazed and dedicated to their hobby, and a lot of interesting things have surfaced because of them. Look at basically any scholarly edition of Shakespeare, which mentions every textual deviation between the different period printings and manuscripts; or how scholarship of Le Morte Darthur changed when a manuscript of Malory's original text was discovered; or the analysis of Jude the Obscure which depends on alterations in the thousand and one manuscripts and proofs from Hardy; or the Nag Hammadi Codices; or any of a million other cases. Book scholarship has often depended very much on collectors keeping copies of manuscripts, and it's very long established. I don't think you could have picked an example that had more to disprove your case.
It's not possible to save everything, and a lot of material is destroyed by careful custodians when there are duplicates simply because you can't store so many copies of everything. That doesn't mean that nothing is important. |
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Kiddo
Joined: 11 Jul 2008 Posts: 87
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:59 am Post subject: |
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I think most of the other people spoke on the point of the importance of archival. Although I think that part of the conversation actually drifted from the original point, it's still important to have stated.
ProgrammingAce, out of curiosity's sake, I kind of want to ask - for what reason do you come here, if you are not interested in video game archival? I understand there may be some other reasons, but it's notable that the very intent of the site, to my knowledge, is the debate that came from this discussion. |
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kap Minister of Paranoia
Joined: 28 Aug 2003 Posts: 2103 Location: I hate you.
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:13 am Post subject: |
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nixon wrote: | Didn't Lost Levels have a "leak" long ago from our trusted circle of friends, where TSR or someone, but up quick reviews of a couple of games that we were working on with articles here? It's all so fuzzy. |
Yeah, it happened right after CGE in Vegas if I'm not mistaken (could be!) It was TSR and boy, was I pissed off. |
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Wonderbutt
Joined: 30 Nov 2003 Posts: 323 Location: Doritos Inc.
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:22 am Post subject: |
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TheRedEye wrote: | PACHUKA wrote: | TheRedEye wrote: | Citizen Kane |
Like the fact that rosebud wasn't a sled, but an asian bath house girl who gave erotic massages. |
Actually, the rumor was that "Rosebud" was the nickname William Randolph Hearst gave to his wife's naughty bits. Probably bullshit, but a fun story nevertheless. |
Another rumour: Wallace Beery killed Ted Healy.
I hate to think so, but it's known Beery was brutish and a right lout. |
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PACHUKA
Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 105
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:04 am Post subject: |
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They're right about video games disappearing. Especially with idiots making halloween costumes out of them:
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GDRI
Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 352
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:39 am Post subject: |
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PACHUKA wrote: | They're right about video games disappearing. Especially with idiots making halloween costumes out of them: |
At least they're not making them out of rare prototypes or Sharp X68000s or something. |
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Wonderbutt
Joined: 30 Nov 2003 Posts: 323 Location: Doritos Inc.
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:07 am Post subject: |
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GDRI wrote: | PACHUKA wrote: | They're right about video games disappearing. Especially with idiots making halloween costumes out of them: |
At least they're not making them out of rare prototypes or Sharp X68000s or something. |
Well I have a hat made from a rare Panasonic MSX Turbo-R... |
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ProgrammingAce
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 580
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: |
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Kiddo wrote: |
ProgrammingAce, out of curiosity's sake, I kind of want to ask - for what reason do you come here, if you are not interested in video game archival? I understand there may be some other reasons, but it's notable that the very intent of the site, to my knowledge, is the debate that came from this discussion. |
I kind of archive stuff by accident. I have a number of friends who send me things that would otherwise be destroyed. I have something of a unique position where I have the skills to recover and use data that even most other people in the industrry aren't trained in.
You may not see my name attached, but I've removed dongle codes and digital fingerprints from a number of the leaked betas out there. I do it because I can, not because I think the data needs to be free. Take the goofy Asuka 120% limit over patch. I have no interest in ever playing the game, but I spent a week reverse engineering a 10 year old binary blob.
Aside from that, I enjoy sharing what I know. Sometimes I can answer some questions. If not, I can usually find someone who can.
Don't get me wrong, I do "archive". I really enjoy spending stupid amounts of money to save prototype hardware. I just don't think it would be a big loss if everything I own were to suddenly dissapear. |
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goldenband
Joined: 31 Oct 2008 Posts: 19
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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ProgrammingAce wrote: | My company has been involved in making movies for the last 92 years, we throw tons of that stuff out every year.
We are the storage vault for both Disney and Warner's original master copies. In 2006, i helped throw away the original film masters for every movie we ever possessed. Over 10,000 film reels were destroyed. |
Jesus! I know Hollywood, and TV/movies in general, are generally terrible about preserving their own past -- witness what happened to the archives of the Dumont Television Network, which were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. But still...
Why did it all need to be destroyed? Were these all the absolute, generation-zero originals? Tell me this isn't as horrendous as it sounds -- it's bad enough if it was strictly commonplace stuff like Roger Rabbit (though what on earth will they use for future DVDs?), but if there were any sole surviving prints in there, that's downright criminal (of them, not of you). |
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ProgrammingAce
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 580
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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goldenband wrote: |
Why did it all need to be destroyed? Were these all the absolute, generation-zero originals? Tell me this isn't as horrendous as it sounds -- it's bad enough if it was strictly commonplace stuff like Roger Rabbit (though what on earth will they use for future DVDs?), but if there were any sole surviving prints in there, that's downright criminal (of them, not of you). |
What are you supposed to do with it all? Due to copyright law and legal contracts, we couldn't just sell it or give it to collectors. There's no economic sense in storing them forever. As corporate cost cutting, things have to go. We held them for as long as we could, but we were closing down the building that housed the vault.
It's kind of funny, some of the people from Warner were throwing out a bunch of crap they had stored. One of our directors walked by and saw a stack of "Wizard of Oz" posters. She asked for one since she was a big fan. It wasn't until a few years later she realized it was an original from the 30s. They probably threw away a dozen others. |
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goldenband
Joined: 31 Oct 2008 Posts: 19
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, I should've been clearer -- by "them" I meant "whoever refused to pay for the storage anymore", not your company which obviously needs to stay afloat and can't offer its services for free. I used to work for a company that did preservation and archival services, and we had a similar vault, though much much smaller; any client who wouldn't pay anymore had to come pick their stuff up, or out it (eventually) went.
I guess it just blows my mind that a big company would let their original film masters get thrown away. From a historical perspective, that's a bigtime disaster. I personally think there should be a copyright law waiver for such things, in the interest of the public good, but I'm preaching to the choir here... |
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