Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 7/16/00 DVD and the Filmmaker (transcript - Page 2) back to page 1 The panel Maltin: So now have you re-copyrighted your special edition? Romero: Yeah. With certain changes. I mean, you don't have to do much to be able to do that, you know. I think there were ten of us who got together with another dozen investors to make the film, and everybody's still alive. [smiles] In most cases fortunately, but in some unfortunately. [the panel cracks us] But you know, they have board meetings and they come up with things - "Let's colorize it or let's redo it. Let's do this and let's do that." So I guess some of them have joined the ranks of those who want to take advantage of the film for themselves. But whatever. I mean, it's terrific. It's very interesting. I don't have any problems with colorization as much as I do with cutting it. So I have to just sort of sit back from it. But I just love that so much of my stuff is with Anchor Bay - it's fabulous. [turns to Landis] But the commentary thing is something that - we just wanted to sit around and be old guys on a couch too. I mean it's mostly reminiscing. I can't imagine how these guys edit it all together. What do they find that's interesting? It's also amazing to me that there's so much of a demand for that. I mean, I love this stuff and I love to get to hear Michael Powell talking about Black Narcissus or something like that. But I'm amazed that so many other people are into that too. There's such an audience out there now! Maltin: Well, I think that in some ways the consumer is being educated to become interested in it, which is a great thing. I don't know that most people would have chosen to listen to it before, but now that they're being exposed to it I think it's possibly making people more movie savvy, who aren't already diehards. [turns to Waters] John, do you have any trouble revisiting your past films? John Waters Waters: Well, it's like going to a film psychiatrist. [laughter] The challenge for me is that I did a lot of the director's tracks on the side for the laserdiscs, and they won't sell them back to the company when they put them out on DVD. So I've had to do some of my movies like three times! You think, "God - what more anecdotes can possibly be left?! How many times can I tell the eating shit story..." [huge audience laughter] But you know, I love the idea. DVD is sort of like the hardback compared to the paperback. And the real fans not only want the sidebar of me talking, which I never listen too - I don't mind doing them but I certainly don't want to come home and listen to myself talking about my old movies... that really seems torturous - but they want added footage and you name it. I mean, we were talking about it backstage - they could even publish the call sheets really and someone would be happy. But I'm all for that. I mean, any way you can trick people into buying your movie three times... I'm all for it. [laughter and big applause - these ARE retailers after all] Maltin: Now... you've been working since the seventies... Waters: Since longer than that actually... Maltin: Well, above ground... Waters: Oh... above ground! Well, I don't if I am yet. But okay... Maltin: [laughs] When someone says to you, "Do you have that extra material for the disc?" do you hang on to that? Waters: No, not really. Because I wanted to make the exact movie that I did. The only way that I could stay on budget was to not shoot a lot of extra. I think Pink Flamingos was the one where I really had an hour of extra footage because I cut so much out. But I think I learned not to really do that again. For Cecil B. Demented, I shot the exact movie - the exact script. Which is scary, because you have little room to change things. Maltin: [to Minkoff] Now Rob, your fairly recent DVD of Stuart Little is one of these cutting edge products that has like twenty different special features on it - everything from kids read-a-longs to games and the like. How much did you have to do? How much were you involved in producing that? How much did you want? Leonard Maltin and Rob Minkoff Minkoff: Well... they actually hired a producer to sort of handle all of that stuff. And I suppose that the one thing I did was to look at the movie and decide what things we might want to add - that I might want to add. Deleted scenes or the gag reel or stuff like that. So I guess to a degree I was involved. But it wasn't my show. Maltin: Did you enjoy it? I mean, was it something that was a chore, or did you enjoy having a chance to accumulate it all? Minkoff: Well... I sort of like the idea actually. I know some people have different feelings about adding deleted scenes, because if you deleted them, why would you want to show them later to somebody? But when you're going through the process of cutting a film - and I'm a little bit more of a novice at this than my esteemed colleges to my left - I noticed that as I was cutting the movie, it was sort of an emotional experience. Because you put a lot of effort into and work into creating the scenes, and then you shoot them, and later when you decide that they shouldn't be in the movie, there's still an attachment to them. And so I'm happy to be able to archive that in a way that saves it. Because if we didn't put it on the DVD, it would disappear and probably be gone forever. Maltin: Which was true in the past. That's why they can't find outtakes and test scenes and deleted scenes from five or ten years ago, let alone twenty or thirty or forty years ago. Minkoff: Right... and I remember seeing once they played that cut footage they made from The Wizard of Oz of the Scarecrow song, If I Only Had a Brain. And it was amazing to see that. I was such a big fan of that film, and to see a huge new piece of the movie - or the Jitterbug Song - which doesn't exist anymore but someone was standing in the wings when they were filming it, just shooting with their own home movie camera - just to be able to see that material makes me hungry for more. Just to know that that stuff existed at one time and to not be able to see it anymore... as a filmmaker that effects my thinking on that sort of thing. So I think it's nice to be able to give that back to movie fans. Maltin: Do you have a favorite DVD that you've seen? Minkoff: Ummm... a favorite DVD... Maltin: One you've seen that impressed you... Minkoff: That's hard for me. Maltin: I just threw that at you. John? You? Waters: Well, porno's pretty good on DVD. [more laughs from the audience] You know, Shaving Ryan's Privates is a good one. [another big laugh] Landis: You know, someone was telling me yesterday that DVD was pioneered by the porn industry. I'm not kidding - someone was giving me this scholarly talk on it... Maltin: [laughing] Where was this exactly, John? Landis: In the hall, right outside! [to audience] But is this true? Is the porn industry always first? [the audience applauds in response - it IS actually true, strange as it may be] Wow. I have no point, I just thought it was interesting... [panel cracks up] George Romero, David Zucker and John Landis Waters: Isn't that what home video was invented for? Maltin: Well, I think that was part of the whole idea, is that you could watch something privately. That people had to slink down the street in a raincoat before... Waters: Most people don't have the nerve to masturbate in a movie theater... [big laughter] Maltin: I have no follow up to that. [even bigger laughs] Landis: There should be a commentary on some of those. [more laughs] Maltin: Another marketing concept that may yet bear fruit. [laughs] You never know. [to Romero] George, you mentioned Michael Powell on Black Narcussis. Some of those experiences are truly extraordinary. Are there others that you can think of that have stayed in your memory? Romero: Well... I still confuse the big lasers with the new DVDs, and I forget what I have in my collection. But Scorsese's commentary on his films and the ones that Michael did commentary on - those are all fabulous. Maltin: Exactly. Because there is one of the great filmmakers of all time, who fortunately lived long enough to do that. And I keep wondering why nobody has sat down with Billy Wilder yet and gotten definite interviews about Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot and some of those films? He's still here and he's lucid - now is the time. [Editor's note - the staff of the Bits wholeheartedly agrees with this sentiment.] I'd be very anxious to see something like that or buy something like that. Romero: I find that my favorite DVDs are of my favorite movies - just to have them with that sharper image and better sound and some background information about it, in some cases interviews. The interview with Ustinov on Spartacus is really fun. You know, I really love that stuff. It's great that this sort of education is getting out there. I mean, people say, "Gee I learned more about filmmaking from looking at this stuff than anything in school." Maltin: Now... what about the actual quality? I know that's an issue. The reason that some older films are not yet on DVD is that the studios feel that the material - the negative doesn't exist or the negatives that do exist aren't up to snuff. That they need some restoration before they'll pass muster on DVD, which enhances any flaw that might be there. Now, I'm gonna start with you on this George, because I know that you come out of independent filmmaking. Have you had problems going back on some of your earlier titles? George Romero Romero: Well, yeah. But again, thanks to Anchor Bay, they did a sensational job on the negatives for Night of the Living Dead. I had gotten used to the - you know all the early prints of Night of the Living Dead were done on toilet paper. [laughter] And I had gotten used to seeing this dark - and sometimes well reviewed - this grainy and shadowy and overly-dark image. And I remember the negative being not quite - you know. And then when I saw the cleaned-up Anchor Bay version, I thought, "You know, it's not quite as spooky this way. It's too good!" [laughter] Waters: It's amazing what they can do with it. I mean, my old films - like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble - were technically, you know, really very badly and cheaply done. And they look amazing now. A place called Chase in Los Angeles restored the last couple of my films. It's amazing what they can do today - take an old film and fix it up. And I need all the help I can get. [laughs] They can just make it look and sound better than it ever has before, without taking away what made the film popular in the first place. Maltin: Now, do you guys consult on that? Waters: I was there the whole time. Landis: Sometimes. When they ask you, you get to be there. But they don't always ask you. They're supposed to, but they don't. On old movies, the DGA has no power, so they just do what they want. On Kentucky Fried, which was also Anchor Bay - it looks awesome. The Animal House DVD - the new one - I actually think it looks too good. It looks gorgeous but it's too bright. Animal House was always kind of dark and funky. I'm not sure it was meant to look that good. Maltin: Well, that's one of the issues is that you can over-improve a film. And people, will all good intentions, just want things to look perfect. And you may not have meant for it to. Landis: And also again, we're watching these on television. And every filmmaker will tell you the horror story of when his film goes to TV, and some technician goes, "Too dark..." and just cranks the brightness up for broadcast. Romero: [laughs] That starts at the lab too. Landis: Yeah. Maltin: Which films have you worked most closely with, John? Landis: Well, the Animal House... I was delighted with the documentary. There was footage that I'd never seen from some TV station out in Eugene - I was just delighted with seeing that stuff with John. And the Blues Brothers documentary I thought was good. And then we put back in that footage in The Blues Brothers. I agree with John Waters - it's a way of reselling old material. But for Belushi buffs or anyone who may be interested, it had more of John Lee Hooker's song and other stuff. But I would never put that back in a theatrical release. Look at Lawrence of Arabia and Spartacus and all that - they were right to cut that stuff. I mean, I love seeing it. But shorter is always better. Waters: I like on Blood Simple, they made their director's cut shorter. I'm for that. Landis: Yeah. I had this experience on Coming to America. It was the fastest movie ever made, which is a weird thing to say. But from the time we finished principal photography to the time it opened in 2,400 theaters was three weeks. And we had agreed to this date, and we were cutting negative, scoring and mixing during principal photography. Because they needed two weeks to make the prints! So we finished it and if you look at it - it was a big hit - but it's fat. That movie is fifteen or twenty minutes too long. And it's always made me personally nuts, because if you take a scissors to it, it could be a really great movie. But it was a big hit, and now it's gonna go out on home video and I went to Frank Mancuso, who was at Paramount at the time, and I asked him if I could do a director's cut, and cut like fifteen or twenty minutes. And he looked at me and he said, "John, this movie's made over three hundred million dollars - this is a good movie." And he looked at me like, no... you can't touch it. [laughter] Zucker: I think with comedies, when people see it in their living rooms, it doesn't matter. Because it's only embarrassing to the director when you're sitting there with three hundred people during a preview, when the gags come on during a preview and no one laughs - that's why we cut them out. But I love, when it comes down to the TV version, when everything's back in. Because I love the jokes, even though the audience didn't laugh. [more laughter] Maltin: So you have no problems sweeping them off the cutting room floor and adding them back? Zucker: If they come up in any kind of a format that's gonna be viewed on television, I think it's fine. For example, I would love to have that version of Top Secret where they put all the gags back in. Because there was some real obscure stuff that didn't get a laugh in the theater that they cut out. But I loved it. Maltin: Might it get a laugh today? Zucker: No they still won't get a laugh, but it won't be embarrassing to me. [laughter] In the theater, it was just silence - it's excruciating. But I can sit at home and laugh like crazy. on to page 3 (back to VSDA 2000 menu)
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