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Author Topic: ALIEN: the directors cut Dave Williams Wet nipple scene Posts: 1836 From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA Registered: Jan 2000 posted 11-04-2003 04:47 PM                        First, the reason that the auditorium was not full had nothing to do with it bieng in Salt Lake City. The local church no longer counsels against R rated films nor speaks out on certain films, instead counsels against any film that may cause uncertain feelings in your heart. R rated films play fairly well here. I often find full crowds at them. The problem with alien not doing well here is probably because in Utah most people are truly cheap. If it is out on video (it is in its original form), then they don't care how big a screen it is on. Also, to the grainy issue. Remember that this was done in the golden age of actually FILMING fx shots, not creating them in a computer. The original shots were done in 35 mm, then transferred to another print, then transferred some more, etc. They did not clean up these shots from the original fx shot negs, just the assembled shots after all the transfers. Dave  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-04-2003 07:04 PM                     Dave, Actually most, if not all of, the effects shots in Alien were done in VistaVision and or in 65mm to eliminate the build up of grain from the FX shot. Both these formats offer a picture area twice to three times that of a full 35mm frame and the effects shots that go though the usual three to six generations usually end up matching the master shot almost exactly if the D.P. and Effects directors are worth their spit. The graininess is due to early Eastman High Speed film stocks that were used to shoot many of those scenes. There was a pretty good article I think in American cinematographer on how it was filmed. Having seen several of the 70mm prints of Alien I can definately vow that the effects shots were absolutley seamless. As to Utahn's being cheap... I definately disagree! I surely see more high end cars and dealers.....aka Mercedes, Lamborghini, Masaratti, etc. than I ever saw in the Midwest area. Also at least certain theatre owners spend a ton of money on building sites, adding on, upgading, etc. Far more than I ever saw happen back in the Midwest. In reality the reason Alien would never do good here is because the rating of the film doesn't fit into the religeous well being of almost half of the population out here. Showmen in this area would make a killing on something like "Sound Of Music"(aka"Sound Of Money"). The sing along version actually did really well out here. Oh boy!.....Watch out for the Sing Along "Wizard Of Oz" comming to Utah in Februray. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Ian Price Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1714 From: Denver, CO Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-05-2003 10:15 AM                     I saw Alien presented in 70mm at the Continental Theatre in Denver when it opened. I just saw the new print and it is just like Steve Guttag said, it had excessive lateral jitter. The sound was thin. I remember the throbs and groans of the ship in the original 6-track magnetic soundtrack. This was quite simply a very bad printing. The story is still very good, but the technology suffers. I thought the dot matrix computer displays and hand held devices totally placed the film in the 1980s. In this case video would have been preferable to film. But I know they can do much, much better.  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-05-2003 02:06 PM                     Ian Price wrote: quote: I saw Alien presented in 70mm at the Continental Theatre in Denver when it opened. Hmmm. In the 70mm engagement list mentioned earlier in the thread the Denver engagement is listed as having been at the Cooper. quote: I just saw the new print and it is just like Steve Guttag said, it had excessive lateral jitter. This was quite simply a very bad printing. In this case video would have been preferable to film. I was pleased with the Digital Cinema presentation that I saw (Edwards Spectrum Stadium 21 & Imax, Irvine, CA). While this DLP showing wasn't perfect, I noticed none of the annoyances that are being mentioned in this thread.  |  IP: Logged Dave Williams Wet nipple scene Posts: 1836 From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA Registered: Jan 2000 posted 11-05-2003 09:32 PM                        My mistake on the film stock on the alien fx shots. they really should have gone back to the original negs to and use the computers of today to recomposite them together, and clean them up a little better. As for utahns bieng cheap. I will still stand by that statement. The majority of them really are cheap. Yes we have plenty of those here that are not cheap, and thank goodness they spend thier money around, otherwise the only places we would have here are walmarts and shopko's! I still disagree on the rating issue. the new matrix film is R and does gangbuster business, so did one hour photo, final destination, other r rated films as well. It is the age of the film and the fact that todays film goers just don't figure on how wonderful a big screen presentation can be, regardless of if you can get it on dvd or not. I ALWAYS attend rescreenings of films past. the big screen is always worth it. Dave  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-16-2003 11:52 PM                     Ian said" I thought the dot matrix computer displays and hand held devices totally placed the film in the 80's" _________________________________________________________________ So what do we have today? Much high end test gear that still uses red, or green segmented LED displays that are dot matrix look alikes...not everything uses LCD displays and for very good reasons. Aren't we still going for hand held devices...Palm Pilots, etc?? I just don't see how these things date it back to the 80's. I always felt the film stood the test of time pretty darn well. Mark  |  IP: Logged System Notices Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi Posts: 215 Registered: Apr 2004 posted 01-12-2016 12:44 AM                 It has been 4409 days since the last post.  |  IP: Logged Jerry Axelsson Expert Film Handler Posts: 107 From: Stockholm, Sweden Registered: May 2005 posted 01-12-2016 12:44 AM                     Steve Guttag and others said: Regarding the 35mm ALIEN: DIR CUT. "I just saw the new print and it is just like Steve Guttag said, it had excessive lateral jitter. This was quite simply a very bad printing." I ran reel 1 of a well preserved original 35mm archival print of ALIEN-1979 as a direct comparison to the 35mm DIR CUT print. This was done recently. I would say that the original version also has an amount of lateral jitter. Perhaps somewhat less than the DIR CUT. Question which prints did not have lateral jitter? Only 70mm perhaps? (Note the original 35mm ALIEN print in this case is marked: "THE ALIEN" on the leaders and was a Mono print)  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 01-12-2016 07:57 AM                     Alien had both mono and Dolby A stereo prints in it's original release, as did many films back in the early days of Dolby Stereo.  |  IP: Logged

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