From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 22, 2003
I just finished transfering our olden but best video,
ARISE, from the
1" master into my computer so that I can render
it to DVD.
And do some minor updates. URL, the second Bush, CDs
instead of tapes
in the ad at the end, new address... that's what I was
GONNA do... and
it's probably what I will do, at first.
But JIMINY CRICKETS! Wei and I watched that old thing
run as I was
tranfering it and, as I half feared, I could think of
ways to improve
every third shot using newer art, animation or devival
footage. We have
CGI FLY-OVERS of DOBBSTOWN now for example, and footage
of devivals
featuring giant Dobbsheads that BREATHE FIRE. And think
how some of us
have HIDEOUSLY and SPECTACULARLY physically changed
since the last cut
of ARISE (1991.) And all these female preachers that
arose since ARISE.
The problem is, every third shot is A THOUSAND SHOTS.
I could fiddle
with this thing FOREVER. Or at least for a couple of
months. But,
GOT-DAMN IT, the whole idea was simply to GET THE FUCKING
THING ONTO
DVD. PERIOD!!
So I guess I'll do an immediate DVD that's essentially
the unchanged
old version, maybe just tack a nice message at the end
about new
address, the website, etc. Then do other, later.
Besides, much to my surprise, I discovered that what
I was transfering
IS a slightly updated version. Apparently Cordt added
the changes to
the original master. (I also have a dupe master probably
holding the
oldest version.)
There are two versions of ARISE: the 1987 original version,
which is
what I have been selling on VHS for many years, and
the 1991 "Polygram
version," which was distributed in the '90s. (Nightflight
showed the
original 1987 version.) When Polygram bought the thing,
or rather
inherited it when they bought Bananas Video, they FREAKED
and insisted
we replace all the Cecil B. DeMille and Disney clips.
Cordt Holland did
all that replacing. I rarely see this version and was
startled while
transfering to see the first George Bush, and Saddam
Hussein, where
there had been Disney clips and some Reagan shots.
The 1987 version is always packaged in a bright green
box sleeve with a
big Dobbshead on the front -- designed by Dr. Howll
to look much like a
box of detergent. This 1987 one -- only on VHS now --
still has the
clips that Polygram wanted removed.
The 1991 version, sometimes found in stores still, always
comes in an
unbelieveably amateurish and shitty blue box with a
crappy spaceship
looking thing on the front. The art was done by the
son-in-law of the
idiot at Bananas Video who finally picked ARISE up for
distribution.
Greatly against my wishes.
I dunno what kind of box the DVD will have. But it looks
like after I
get an immediate version done, I will spend some time
(!??!) picking it
to pieces and replacing a lot of the bad art shots and
possibly a few
more Reagans. Also Papa Joe Mama's now defunkt 900 number
has to be
removed. I'll probably take some shots from the 1987
version and put
them BACK into the movie.
While Wei and I were watching it she was marvelling
at what BABIES we
all look like in this ancient footage. She has only
known these people
since the 90s. However in ARISE there are shots of Hellpope
Huey,
identified as such in subtitles, talking about Dobbs.
In 1981. She
thought it was a joke. She couldn't believe this long
haired youth was
the same Hellpope Huey she knows now. Since she herself
doesn't age,
she has trouble reconciling these grainy images of smooth
faces with
today's smooth images of grainy faces.
I'm debating whether to include ANY new shots of me
in my Gray
Mansonian look of the present, or to stick only the
old devival shots
and let video-only SubGenii continue to think of me
as a clean shaven
26 year old with short hair and huge glasses. I love
seeing the looks
on their faces when the horrible truth of the vast SubGenius
time span
sinks in.
I'm alternating that ARISE bizness with trying to get
some other new
swag ready for Xistlessnessmas. BobSongs 6, Mp3s Stash
2, Best-Of-ESO
2003 MP3 collection, Media Barrage 2, Hours of Slack
Vol. 12 and 13 in
high res, maybe 66 MORE Hours of Slack in low res. Oh
yeah and I DID
put together an hour's worth of new animation last month.
Huh. Oh yeah
and I still haven't gotten a new old car much less had
the dead iVan so
much as towed away and shot. Busy busy busy. Oh yeah
and I gotta figure
out how the hell to utilize the new faces of SubSITE
that St. Bucky
created without causing an avalanche. Turns out a lot
of careful
tweaking is required, GOT damn it... I can't just drop
it into place as
Bucky had hoped.
OH SHIT, the DETROIT POSTCARD MAILING! Must do, NOW!!
So this is why I haven't been exchanging pleasantries
on a.s.etc. ...
trying to codify pleasantries and artistries already
laid down, so as
to preserve and, better, to SELL them. I have 500 collaborators
but
only 20 customers, but each of those 20 guys buys EVERYTHING
WE DO...
so if I keep making things for those 20 guys, I can
keep paying my half
of the bills. Otherwise I'd probably let all these incredible
artworks
and sounds and notions, which *you* flood SubGeniusdom
with, sit in
storage forever.
OH FUCK it's SATURDAY and technically I'm supposed to
ALSO DO A NEW HoS
SHOW. Well fuck this shit. Rerun time again.
I hope that Amsterdam devival went well last night!
I was thinking of
those guys. Come to think of it I was dubbing footage
of those guys.
I also wanted to write reviews of all the FUCKING GREAT
books I've been
reading, for the last two years, just for a.s., but
hell. BILLS BILLS
BILLS and "BOB" must come first.
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Artemia Salina <y2k@sheayright.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> I'm debating whether to include ANY new shots of
me in my Gray
> Mansonian look of the present, or to stick only
the old devival shots
> and let video-only SubGenii continue to think of
me as a clean shaven
> 26 year old with short hair and huge glasses. I
love seeing the looks
> on their faces when the horrible truth of the vast
SubGenius time span
> sinks in.
What you should do is take a snap shot of yourself each
year in exactly
the same pose, starting from when you were a little
kid all the
way up until you're 90, and use that in the re-edit
of ARISE as an
animation to age yourself at super high speed.
Failing that you could just round up Huey and yourself
and re-shoot
some of the footage with the same lighting, lens angle,
etc. doing
and saying the same things as in the original footage.
Then interleave
the old and new footage to flick back and forth between
young and old
versions of yourselves. Or even better (and maybe even
easier), with
digital editing, briefly mask yourselves in and out
of the original
footage at random points. At one moment you're young
and healthy and
the next moment you're old and wrinkled and decrepit
and smelly, like
in 2001: A Space Odyssey, kinda.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
The same effect happens if you fast-forward through
the "AS THEY SEE
DOBBS" video (compilation of TV News reports on
SubGenius, arrange
chronologically). It's like a time lapse of the flowers
of SubGenius
youth sprouting and blooming, and then the petals starting
to turn
sickly and falling off as it shrivels up.
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> I just finished transfering our olden but best
> video, ARISE, from the 1" master into my computer
> so that I can render it to DVD...
>
Two words: "Director's Cut"
It's *how* long a movie, and a DVD will hold
*how* much stuff?
Geez, you've got so much stuff sitting around
that you could pack that sucker full, easy.
Won't cost anything more.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: polar bear <bear@pole.com>
"nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>
wrote:
> Two words: "Director's Cut"
>
Another word: Zelig.
Or, how can you be in two places at once,
when you're not anywhere at all?
pb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Yeah... but again we're talking a lot of time. I was
looking at those
ARISE shots where there's this static, raggedly-masked
Dobbshead
crudely stuck over some jiggly stock stunt footage so
it looks like
"Bob" is in the scene... only it doesn't really,
of course. But now,
were we to round up all those original shots, we could
PRECISELY MATCH
that Dobbshead to every frame-jump and camera-jiggle,
match the
texture, the contrast, even the damn lighting, and believe
me I
envision doing all of that stuff. Then I envision working
on ONE STUPID
SHOT for FOUR HOURS. Then I think, uh yeah right. I'll
wait until I'm
dead and then let some rich kid hire some other rich
kids to do all
that crap, and I'll watch from Heaven.
I got the Detroit postcards to the P.O. with ONE MINUTE
TO SPARE before
the last pick-up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>
Better yet, nail the dobbshead to the center of the
shot so it, and
only it, stays constant in every scene. Everything
whirls around it
and it stays eternally the same. Surely you can find
some video kid
dumb enough to do that.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Nenslo, you've made it way too complicated. You just
CUT OUT A SMALL
PAPER DOBBSHEAD and STICK IT TO YOUR TV SCREEN. Then
EVERYTHING you
watch has that Dobbshead appropriately nailed to it.
DUH! Duh-EEEE!
Dok Frop and Sister Decadence have already been watching
all their TV
shows that way, for years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
nu-monet v6.0 <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:
> Two words: "Director's Cut"
>
> It's *how* long a movie, and a DVD will hold
> *how* much stuff?
>
> Geez, you've got so much stuff sitting around
> that you could pack that sucker full, easy.
> Won't cost anything more.
Eh well now that all depends. Those store-bought DVDs
that hold three
versions of a movie plus the making-ofs are made quite
differently from
the ones that we-all can make at home. Not the same
format. Incredibly
expensive machines. I can create the 10 gb worth of
stuff that goes in
it but it then has to be professionally duplicated,
something we must
avoid in the quantities we're talking about. "Underground"
DVDs like
we're talking about can only hold about 4 gb which is
good for maybe
two hours at most, and then only if you compress the
devil out of it.
It would indeed cost a bunch more per copy.
Ultimately what I have in mind is really majorly recutting
ALL of our
stuff into a couple of different ARISE-ish-like new
things and then
seeing if Troma wants it. They expressed interest in
a revised
ARISE/StangFilms but I'd have to pay for the revising
myself, and it's
only recently that I could do the right thing and just
DO it myself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> Eh well now that all depends. Those store-bought
> DVDs that hold three versions of a movie plus the
> making-ofs are made quite differently from the
> ones that we-all can make at home. Not the same
> format.
Didn't know dat. Okay, well here's a "Plan B",
which I've no idea if it would work. Can you burn
a DVD with VCD-formatted files, and if so, would it
still hold a lot? That is, burn VCD format onto
a DVD that would play in a DVD player that can
also play VCD format.
Or, come to think of it, is that what you do?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
nu-monet v6.0 <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:
> Didn't know dat. Okay, well here's a "Plan
B",
> which I've no idea if it would work. Can you burn
> a DVD with VCD-formatted files, and if so, would
it
> still hold a lot? That is, burn VCD format onto
> a DVD that would play in a DVD player that can
> also play VCD format.
>
> Or, come to think of it, is that what you do?
No, but that CAN work (I just checked.) BUT -- not all
DVD players play
VCDs, and not all computers play DVDs.
But yeah, one could cram a DVD with MPEGs, and then
either just leave
it as that or put it all in a VCD "wrapper"
on the DVD.
I have not been inclined to do that with VCDs but I
have considered
making one single SubG DVD-R that had ALL our known
video on it, in
highest-res RealMedia format. I know, I know, everybody
but me hates
RM. Then one might also put a lot of DivX on a DVD.
But... how many
people REALLY are gonna watch hours of video on their
fucking
computers. (People who would BUY the $15 DVD, that is!)
I have already posted all the parts for a 5-hour sub
VCD/DVD on a.b.s.,
so, maybe it's already been done, by some REAL geek,
even geekier than
me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jeff Spicoli <tubes@dood.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> I just finished transfering our olden but best
video, ARISE, from the
> 1" master into my computer so that I can render
it to DVD.
<snip>
WTF! You gotta Sony BVH-2000 in your den?
Spi[oli
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> I just finished transfering our olden but best
video, ARISE, from the
> 1" master into my computer so that I can render
it to DVD.
>
> And do some minor updates. URL, the second Bush,
CDs instead of tapes
> in the ad at the end, new address... that's what
I was GONNA do... and
> it's probably what I will do, at first.
>
> But JIMINY CRICKETS! Wei and I watched that old
thing run as I was
> tranfering it and, as I half feared, I could think
of ways to improve
> every third shot using newer art, animation or
devival footage. We have
> CGI FLY-OVERS of DOBBSTOWN now for example, and
footage of devivals
> featuring giant Dobbsheads that BREATHE FIRE. And
think how some of us
> have HIDEOUSLY and SPECTACULARLY physically changed
since the last cut
> of ARISE (1991.) And all these female preachers
that arose since ARISE.
>
> The problem is, every third shot is A THOUSAND
SHOTS. I could fiddle
> with this thing FOREVER. Or at least for a couple
of months. But,
> GOT-DAMN IT, the whole idea was simply to GET THE
FUCKING THING ONTO
> DVD. PERIOD!!
You could always do a Kenneth Anger on it and cut it
down to seven
minutes. Then five. Then three.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
That is exactly what I did do with the 5XDay footage
in order to get if
out of my fucking computer. I got it down from 90 to
70 to 20 to TWO
minutes, at which point it was actually pretty entertaining!
Well, for
the first minute anyway.
Original file name: ARISE redux -- Holy #192F07.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05
This page was created using TextToHTML. TextToHTML is a free software for Macintosh and is (c) 1995,1996 by Kris Coppieters