DVDFILE: How did you get started as a DVD producer? What was your background?

Jonathan Gaines: I was working at Republic Pictures as a marketing manager for home video products, which basically means I was in charge of the creation of the marketing materials: posters, trailers and any type of sales material that the sales staff would need, working with promotions and publicity. Just basically shepherding projects through all the different departments. Within a few weeks or months of working there, I discovered that Republic owned the home video rights to the original Highlander. I knew that it was a pretty popular film and had a following. I was also aware of a different version of the film existing that hadn't been shown in the U.S.; a longer version that had been shown in Europe. I also knew that fans wanted to see it but there had been no official release of that version in the States. After looking at the videotape and laserdisc versions of it, I was horrified at the quality of the transfer and proposed to the bosses that we think about doing a special edition of it with a whole new transfer, laserdisc, the whole nine yards. They were interested and went from there and contacted the film's producers. The producers were interested, so once we decided to do it, the hard part was finding all of the elements because they were all stored in London and really weren't cataloged very well.

So I produced the Highlander 10^th anniversary laserdisc and VHS release at Republic and through that whole process I was able to meet a lot of people who worked within the laserdisc community, people at places like THX and Dolby. I got real hands-on experience on what it took to restore a film and research elements and material, how to produce an audio commentary, producing supplemental material. This was just icing on the cake for me because I was already a laserdisc fan and a fan of special editions and now to have a chance to actually produce my own was a real thrill and I saw it as something that I really wanted to do full-time. This was about a year before DVD launched, so I knew that DVD was going to be the next thing and decided that I wanted to focus all my attention on DVD, in terms of positioning myself more as a DVD producer than a laserdisc producer. Becoming familiar with DVD made me realize how much opportunity there was to do different types of supplemental material.

But I had gone out on my own and was producing a couple of laserdiscs, like Liar Liar and Austin Powers, and Warner Brothers called me up one day and said, "How would you like to produce an audio commentary for Demolition Man." So that was kind of the start of my relationship with Warner Brothers. It was really my foray into DVD. From there I went on to produce the Contact Special Edition DVD, which was, I believe, the first DVD special edition. So I continued to work on Warner Brothers titles, but at the same time I was also working with Artisan/Live, consulting on some of their stuff, QCing a lot of their masters and their transfers and writing menus for their stuff. I was doing commentaries for some of their earlier stuff. It just kept on growing and I've been doing it ever since.

DF: At what point were you brought into Superman?

JG: As I was in my beginnings with Warner Brothers, I was asking about certain titles and one of them was always Superman. The answer was always, "Well, we don't know what we want to do with it yet. Plus all the materials are in really bad shape and we don't know where all the original elements are" etcÑ It was just sort of put off and didn't really go anywhere until Michael Thau got involved with it through Richard Donner's office and coming at from the point of the director wanting to do it and be involved in it. Warners' interest grew and the timing was right. I was brought in to work with Michael in producing the DVD because Michael really was focused on the restoration, the re-edit and the remix and I was brought in to work on the DVD's supplemental material. We ended up working together on this thing for almost a year. I got to be a little more involved in things like the sound mixing. I wouldn't say I was making any decisions but I was part of it and could offer my opinion coming from a fan's point of view and from a DVD perspective.

Of course, while he was down on the dubbing stage supervising the mix, I was upstairs going through 200 cans of 16mm negative, looking at all the "b-roll" that Michael had unearthed in London. I was trying to figure out what footage we could use and what we had here. I had to go at it on an editing table with a little positive 16mm viewer, but since it was a negative, I had to take my digital video camera, switch it to the negative setting so I could try and make out what I was seeing in my viewfinder in positive. So that took quite some time, going through all that footage by hand and some of the footage was just in horrible condition. All the splicing tape was falling apart, so I'd being going through something and all of the sudden the splice would break and I'd have to stop and re-tape it and log it. It was pretty much like being an archeologist, going through this stuff. You never knew what you were going to find from day to day or what you were going to need.

DF: Was it more difficult with two producers on the project or did your strengths compliment the working relationship?

JG: This project was so huge, I don't think there's any way only one of us could have handled it. I just don't think I could have handled all the different aspects, just the scope of it. The fact that we were both fans of this film and loved this film so much, it made it all more enjoyable to get together and work on it and get excited about what we had found. Michael and I have forged, I think, not only a really good friendship, but a good working collaboration. I really enjoyed working with him, to write with him, edit with him and bounce ideas off each other. I don't think the DVD would be as good as it is if it wasn't the two of us working on it. So it was definitely a plus but it's actually the first time I've worked with another producer on a DVD.