The Blair Witch Venture producer says an upcoming Blu-ray launch will lastly current the movie because it was all the time meant to be seen.
The Blair Witch Venture producer Michael Monello says the upcoming October Blu-ray launch of the film from Second Sight will lastly “represent the filmmakers complete vision for the film” after years of sub-par transfers.
“For 25 years, Artisan/Lions Gate have been content to put out a version of this film that is NOT how the filmmakers intended it to look, with broken motion and film grain over video,” Monello mentioned. “Now that we have now an precise filmmaker and producer authorized model popping out, I feel I’ve earned the suitable to dump on a launch of the switch that Artisan did with out consulting us. In the event that they wish to money seize dump it out there I can’t cease them, however I’m not going to close up about one thing I labored so laborious on being launched with a shoddy switch and the identical previous extras.“
Monello continued, “It hasn’t been introduced but, however there’s a NEW model of the unique movie popping out in October with unique new content material. and for the primary time ever the movie will look the best way it was meant to from the start. Again in 1999, Artisan by no means consulted us on the switch they usually… I consider the technical time period is ‘f***ed it all up’ and neither they or Lions Gate ever mounted it. Not even for the Blu-Ray launch. The model coming will stand as the one model that represents the filmmakers full imaginative and prescient for the movie.“
There’s one other model of The Blair Witch Venture set to be launched in October by Imprint (which additionally consists of the sequel, Ebook of Shadows: Blair Witch 2), however it will seem it makes use of the identical previous switch that’s been used for years. Right here’s hoping the opposite launch from Second Sight will get an official announcement earlier than too lengthy.
Monello obtained extra technical concerning the new switch on Reddit. “The film was shot on hi-8 and 16mm. The 16mm was transferred to video, taking it from 24 frames per second to 30 frames per second (the standard for video at the time). All of it was loaded into an editing machine and the final edited version was then ‘burned’ onto DigiBeta tape,” Monello defined. “That tape is technically the ‘negative’ of the film. However in 1999, films solely had movie negatives, there have been hardly any mainstream distributed movies shot on video. To distribute the film, in addition to display screen it at Sundance, we needed to make a 35mm print, as no theaters might present video on the time, and Sundance refused to display screen video as nicely.“
Monello continued, “So the theatrical version everyone saw was hi-8 (30fps) and transferred 16mm film (24fps converted to 30fps) all converted to 35mm film at the standard frame rate of 24fps.” Monello mentioned that whereas it wasn’t splendid, it was what might be accomplished on the time, however the actual hassle began when it got here time to make a house video model of the film.
As a substitute of utilizing the digibeta grasp, they took the transferred 35mm damaging, and transferred it BACK to video (30fps). The online results of all this transferring meant the house video model doesn’t look or really feel like video anymore, and the movement is tousled. The movie was alleged to appear to be uncooked video digicam footage. We had no thought Artisan did that till we recorded the commentary observe. Once I noticed the video switch we questioned why it appeared so horrible. The crew recording the commentary had no solutions as a result of they’d nothing to do with it, so we inquired and had been advised it’s all being dealt with proper. Besides it wasn’t. That horrible switch is what was launched. And it was launched once more that was for the BD. It sucked, however we performed good troopers and didn’t make a stink on the time.
So this new Blu-ray launch of The Blair Witch Venture isn’t some miraculously crisp 4K model of the film (nor ought to or not it’s), however it will likely be essentially the most correct model of the film because the filmmakers initially meant.
It was introduced earlier this 12 months {that a} new reimagining of The Blair Witch Venture was being developed by Blumhouse, which prompted a backlash from the unique artistic crew because the main actors of the primary film have by no means been correctly financially compensated for the venture.
