Next to The Rutles: All you need is cash (1978), A hard day's night will always have a special place in my heart not only for starring the greatest band of all time, but also for being the first two Video-CD-like gadgets I got to know back in the early 90s.
We had The Rutles as a so-called "MovieCD" by Motion Pixels Inc. (which was also how the codec was called, pretty much a dead-end format, although it proudly advertized, "NO MPEG REQUIRED!" and audio and video were actually superior to the other), whereas we had A had day's night as a more ornate format released by Voyager, which held the whole film in 10 different MOV files (8-bit sound and heavy compression artifacts that showed especially during fullscreen playback).
But usually, you wouldn't notice that they were MOVs with the latter, because the thing came with its own A hard day's night-themed player and skin (which in itself wouldn't allow you to fullscreen the film where the image was about the size of the palm of a hand on the screen), and it totally floored me that you could actually select particular scenes or songs to navigate to within the film. On top of that, the player also with a bonus slideshow of set photos, and even a realtime version of the script by Walter Shenson, realtime as such that it was automatically synched to the film so that the pages were pretty much turning themselves at the right moments. The script even had three different layout types for a.) what had been written and left in the film, b.) what had been written but dropped somewhere down the line, and c.) random ad-libbing by any of the actors.
Plus, it also had a short early to mid-60s interview with Dick Lester, and his debut short, The running, jumping, stand still film which was how John and Paul had caught notice of him and why they wanted him as director for their first movie.
But two things I'm still waiting for from the Beatles is, firstly, a pristine DVD box of all their concert footage (digital, state-of-the-art telecines, if possible from the cameras originals, sound taken from separate tapes taken directly from the mixing table, not shitty camera mic audio, and both audio and video excellently restored and re-mastered).
But even moreso, I'm craving an official edition of their 1960s home-movies on Regular8 and Super8 in professional modern telecines. Many of them have already been included in the Anthology documentary series, but I was appalled with the 1996 TV and VHS version when especially prior to 1966, what felt like 80% of their home-movies were just flickery, blurry cheap off-the-wall transfers rather than professional telecines. I was actually rather pleased to find they'd obviously gone back to the vaults for the 2002 DVD edition where maybe 20% out of those awful, self-made off-the-wall transfers were replaced with professional telecines.
But even so, there's still many crappy off-the-wall transfers in the Anthology. Now, I'm aware that sometime back in the 80s, burglars took some of Paul's home movies so self-made off-the-wall transfers would be all he'd have left of those. But still! Lots of stuff unreleased. I could understand if Paul, Ringo, Olivia, and Yoko would find certain things too private on them for release, but it's not like I and millions of other fans wouldn't buy an official release in a heartbeat of all the things they wouldn't have a problem with of releasing them.
And I mean, they're Beatles, and Paul, Ringo, and their estates have probably billions on their hands. If I was them, I'd appeal to the burglars to return Paul's home movies, and in return I wouldn't press any charges and I'd even make them rich for giving the reels back. But then again, what do I know? I'm only a fanatic fan, not a Beatle myself.
We had The Rutles as a so-called "MovieCD" by Motion Pixels Inc. (which was also how the codec was called, pretty much a dead-end format, although it proudly advertized, "NO MPEG REQUIRED!" and audio and video were actually superior to the other), whereas we had A had day's night as a more ornate format released by Voyager, which held the whole film in 10 different MOV files (8-bit sound and heavy compression artifacts that showed especially during fullscreen playback).
But usually, you wouldn't notice that they were MOVs with the latter, because the thing came with its own A hard day's night-themed player and skin (which in itself wouldn't allow you to fullscreen the film where the image was about the size of the palm of a hand on the screen), and it totally floored me that you could actually select particular scenes or songs to navigate to within the film. On top of that, the player also with a bonus slideshow of set photos, and even a realtime version of the script by Walter Shenson, realtime as such that it was automatically synched to the film so that the pages were pretty much turning themselves at the right moments. The script even had three different layout types for a.) what had been written and left in the film, b.) what had been written but dropped somewhere down the line, and c.) random ad-libbing by any of the actors.
Plus, it also had a short early to mid-60s interview with Dick Lester, and his debut short, The running, jumping, stand still film which was how John and Paul had caught notice of him and why they wanted him as director for their first movie.
But two things I'm still waiting for from the Beatles is, firstly, a pristine DVD box of all their concert footage (digital, state-of-the-art telecines, if possible from the cameras originals, sound taken from separate tapes taken directly from the mixing table, not shitty camera mic audio, and both audio and video excellently restored and re-mastered).
But even moreso, I'm craving an official edition of their 1960s home-movies on Regular8 and Super8 in professional modern telecines. Many of them have already been included in the Anthology documentary series, but I was appalled with the 1996 TV and VHS version when especially prior to 1966, what felt like 80% of their home-movies were just flickery, blurry cheap off-the-wall transfers rather than professional telecines. I was actually rather pleased to find they'd obviously gone back to the vaults for the 2002 DVD edition where maybe 20% out of those awful, self-made off-the-wall transfers were replaced with professional telecines.
But even so, there's still many crappy off-the-wall transfers in the Anthology. Now, I'm aware that sometime back in the 80s, burglars took some of Paul's home movies so self-made off-the-wall transfers would be all he'd have left of those. But still! Lots of stuff unreleased. I could understand if Paul, Ringo, Olivia, and Yoko would find certain things too private on them for release, but it's not like I and millions of other fans wouldn't buy an official release in a heartbeat of all the things they wouldn't have a problem with of releasing them.
And I mean, they're Beatles, and Paul, Ringo, and their estates have probably billions on their hands. If I was them, I'd appeal to the burglars to return Paul's home movies, and in return I wouldn't press any charges and I'd even make them rich for giving the reels back. But then again, what do I know? I'm only a fanatic fan, not a Beatle myself.