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A VIEW ASKEW WITH VINCENT PEREIRA by Cliff Stephenson
Known around View Askew as "The Cleanest Cat In The Entire Operation," Vincent Pereira has functioned as participator on all of Kevin Smith's films on laserdisc and now DVD, and as producer of the groundbreaking Mallrats and Dogma DVDs. Pereira is also a filmmaker himself, recently writing and directing to much acclaim the independent dramatic thriller A Better Place, also coming to DVD as a special edition this April. Taking time out from the production of the Dogma disc and his numerous other projects, Mr. Pereira sat down with DVDFILE's Cliff Stephenson to talk about his DVD production work with View Askew, Kevin Smith, the Dogma controversy and his thoughts on plenty more. So, we know present An Interview With Vincent Pereira...
Vincent Pereira: Oh, no problem! DF: I guess just to start off with, what exactly is your role in View Askew and in relation to the Dogma DVD? VP: Basically what happened was, I guess it was probably around August of 1998, Kevin had gotten a call from Universal and they had said that they were going to be putting Mallrats out on DVD. And way back when Mallrats first came out on laserdisc, Kevin had wanted to a special edition back then 'cause he had done the Clerks special edition. But apparently they had gone ahead and mastered the laserdisc before he had even gotten a chance to speak to them about it. And when he got work from them that they were wanting to do a DVD, he didn't want that to happen again so he called them up and he was like "Hey, why don't we do a special edition on this?" and they were cool with it. But he was busy editing Dogma at the time, cutting Dogma and he sort of put it in my lap and he was like "Hey do you want to basically get all the elements together and talk to the people over at Universal about putting this disc together?" I thought it was cool and I guess everyone was happy with how I worked on it because when the Dogma project came around he basically did the same thing and he sort of put me in charge of the DVD on View Askew's end. DF: That Mallrats DVD is pretty highly regarded. Unfortunately, like everything else and Mallrats, the disc is hugely under-appreciated. But Mallrats is one of those films that carried itself and really built its audience on video. By the time the DVD came out there was such anticipation about it. VP: Especially since Kevin had been talking about it ever since the laserdisc, we'd been talking about how disappointed we were that we never got a chance to a special edition. And then when DVD took off and they were going to put it out it just seemed like the perfect thing to do. DF: So where are you guys now with the Dogma DVD? VP: Basically we're just sort of working and putting it together. We did a rough assembly of all the deleted scenes and, unlike the Mallrats disc where all that we had to work from were Betacams that were telecined off of the work print. We had VHS copies here at the office, they tried to dig up some higher quality material at Universal but I think there was a bit of a miscommunication because all that stuff was in the TV department so they could put together the TV version. So we had to basically go off of our VHS tapes which is why, when you watch that disc, the deleted scenes don't look all that hot. They're a little blurry or whatever. This time, luckily, we have Betacam copies that were telecined directly off of the negative of all the dailies. We've pretty much reassembled all the deleted scenes from those, so they're going to look really good. We did that. We're going to be recording the commentary next week. J.M. Kenny, the guy who produced the Mallrats DVD for Universal, is working with us again and he's going to be putting together another documentary. This time it's going to be focusing on, you know the Mallrats disc, the documentary focused on sort of the sophomore slump thing and the failure of the film which was interesting, this time we're going to focus on the controversy surrounding the release of Dogma, which was all the religious controversy and that stuff. So he's doing that. There's a bunch of other stuff that we're sort of working on. Scott Mosier did some storyboards, we're probably going to put those on there. The production designer called me and said that he had a bunch of artwork so we're going to take a look at that. Vincent Guastini, who did the effects, emailed me and he was like "Hey, I've got a bunch of behind-the-scenes effects footage," we're going to take a look at that and maybe do something with that as well. So right now it's very sort of actively, well it's actively in production and it's also actively in the planning stages. We just sort of keep adding things to it. DF: Because we'd heard rumors that it might be a double-disc set. VP: Yeah, that's still a possibility. It's not a definite. There's so much material, I mean it's not definite as of yet but it could very well be a double disc set or a DVD-18. DF: Wow. VP: Yeah, cause there's just so much material that we have. DF: So were you guys thinking DVD all along during the actual production of Dogma then? Were you sort of planning ahead for it or was it an afterthought once the film was done? VP: I think it was more during the editing. It was interesting that we were working on the Mallrats DVD at the same time that Kevin and Scott were editing Dogma. So the two projects were almost happening side by side. And when Kevin finished his first cut of Dogma and it came in at 3 hours, it was like "Gee, we're going to have to lose a lot of material here" and then it was like "We can put all that stuff back on the DVD." So it was always know that we would go back and put a lot of deleted scenes on. I don't know that it was actively planned so much. Although in general, every film that Kevin has done he's tried to do a special edition of. So in that sense it was kind of planned. DF: Yeah, there was seemingly a lot of hands on for the laserdiscs of Clerks and Chasing Amy. Now with DVD is there an added amount of involvement due to the fact that now you have menus and such? VP: I think there's an added amount of involvement because Kevin and Scott have chosen me to be the View Askew sort of point-man to sort of deal with the studios. Back when they did Clerks and Amy it really was Kevin and Scott and they were both busy with their own stuff, so I don't know that they were as intimately involved with the DVDs. We were definitely, I think, more involved with Mallrats than we were with either of the other ones. Amy they were involved with quite a bit, Mallrats was probably much more involved and then Dogma as well. We're just very intimately involved with it. As far as the menus and stuff, we didn't really participate that actively in Mallrats. I know that J.M. Kenny, he wanted to do some cool stuff with animated menus and we sent him all the artwork that we had and we basically sort of let J.M. go and do that on his own. DF: They were good menus. VP: Yeah, they were cool. He did a good job with them. We had all that comic book artwork and he told me the idea that he had for them. I think on our end, as cool as that stuff is, here at View Askew we think about things like what are the cool deleted scenes to put on, how can we do a really good commentary. And then when it comes to the documentaries and the menus and all that stuff, like I said, we worked with J.M. Kenny on Mallrats, now we're working with him again on Dogma. And it's sort of like "Hey man, you can sort of go off and come up with some cool stuff on your own for that." DF: It also had one of the best Easter Eggs I've ever seen. VP: Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was cool. DF: Also on the Mallrats DVD, you guys used the multi-angle feature to show you guys actually recording the commentary. Did you like doing that with the disc? VP: Yeah, it seemed cool. I know that there were a lot of technical problems because J.M. Kenny came up with the idea to do it and then he brought in a Betacam, single camera set up, and they just recorded the whole commentary. Then I think there were space issues so they could only do 24 minutes worth of clips. I know they, I spoke to him a bit about it and I know that he said they sort of had to figure out how to do it because no one had done it before. So I know that there were some technical issues as far as getting it done but in the end it seemed to work. Although, I've read some things on the net where some players, well some people were kind of annoyed by the logo that popped. Now that doesn't pop up when you're just watching the film. That only pops up when you're listening to the commentary right? DF: That depends on how you have your player set up. There's a setting in your player to turn your icons off. What will happen if people don't have the icons off then the Mallrats logo would pop up. Actually not the Mallrats logo but a camera icon would actually pop up. So what you would do is go into your player set up and it's just part of your initial set up and you would shut it off so that's more of a player/user issue than a disc issue. VP: Yeah. DF: Would you guys ever want to do a video commentary like they did for the Ghostbusters disc where it's silhouetted? VP: I never saw the Ghostbusters disc. From what I heard, do they even move or is it just solid figures? DF: Well, they can move. The problem was they just really didn't. When I heard about it I thought "Oh that's really great and they can do a lot of stuff. They can stand and point stuff out as it's happening." But what happened was the three of them just basically sat there. Columbia did it again for Muppets From Space, which actually was much better than what they did for Ghostbusters because I think they sort of figured out "OK, we've actually got to have these guys move around for this to work." So it's an interesting way to use that, and it's all done in the subtitles so it was even less of a space consideration than doing something multi-angle. VP: Yeah. DF: Now you directed your own film, A Better Place. What's going on with that right now? VP: It's basically, again, sort of actively in production. Don May over at Synapse Films got in touch with us at View Askew and he had met Kevin somewhere and Kevin had told him that he liked a bunch of his laserdiscs, like he had the Re-Animator disc, this was back when Don was with Elite. And when Don went off and started Synapse basically he sort of emailed me out of the blue and he was like "Hey I talked to Kevin Smith about a year ago and he mentioned that you had a film." Don said that he was looking to start putting out some indie films via Synapse Films on DVD. So I sent him a screener and he dug it. So basically we have been actively working on it ever since. It should be out towards the end of April. We're going to be doing a remix of the sound over at Skywalker and it's going to be a slightly different edit of the film than what played at the film festivals. DF: Oh great. VP: Yeah so that should be cool and there's going to be a commentary and stuff like that. DF: So you'll be doing your own commentary? VP: Yeah, yeah. DF: That'll be great. VP: Yeah it'll be cool. DF: Kevin Smith has recently been providing updates for the Chasing Amy DVD. VP: Yeah. DF: Do you know where they're at with that right now? VP: The last I heard, I believe like out of the blue, a date was announced. I know it was supposed to be either May or late April. Actually I was talking to Kevin the other day and the funny thing is that I'm not sure if Criterion or Miramax is doing it but I know that from what I've heard, whatever disc comes out should have all the Criterion supplements on it. Whether it's through Miramax Collectors or through Criterion is what I'm not sure about. But I do know there's going to be a new anamorphic transfer. That's the one thing that was definite that I heard about. DF: Oh great! VP: Yeah, which was cool. DF: That's going to be really nice. VP: Yeah, yeah cause the film was shot in Super16 so it was pretty badly pan & scanned on videotape. And it's always better to have a anamorphic than a hard matted transfer. DF: Yeah that's one of the things we definitely push for at DVDFILE. VP: What I don't get is why Jim Cameron won't do it. But Titanic and The Abyss are both, from what I've heard The Abyss is going to be non-anamorphic. DF: We don't think it makes a lot of sense either. We've gotten opinion from people. We did a poll and out of about 5000 responses to this poll, 97% preferred widescreen. VP: Yeah. DF: And of those 97%, 85% preferred that it be anamorphic. VP: I've read obviously, the people who argue against anamorphic say that there's downconversion artifacts. But, I don't know, I had a first generation Toshiba player and it also looked better than laserdisc. That's all I can say. Even when it was a anamorphic, and I don't have a anamorphic set at the moment I'm just watching it on a normal 32" set and the player is downconverting it to 4X3. I've never seen any of these really bad artifacts that I'm supposed to see. It's always looked better than laserdisc and it just seems to make sense to me that the discs be anamorphic because then when people get their anamorphic sets they'll be able to see the difference and not have to buy a new disc. It seems so strange. Now you guys obviously look at more DVDs than me. What are the downconversion artifacts that I'm supposed to be seeing that I don't see? DF: Well, the part that gets tricky is that it's actually not a disc problem... VP: It's a player problem. DF: Yes. So it's like saying "Let's not put anything out in Dolby Digital 5.1 because most people have stereo televisions." VP: Yeah, exactly. DF: And luckily companies like Columbia/TriStar, DreamWorks, New Line and Universal have figured out that they need to be tailoring to the high end consumer and then those that don't care as much are going to get the added benefits anyway. VP: Yeah, exactly. DF: As far as Cameron goes, if you look at all of the films he's done, and by the time The Abyss comes out he'll have all of his major titles released, you'll have two that are anamorphic. You'll have Terminator 2 and... VP: Aliens. DF: Right, and those seem to be more about the studio doing that than the filmmaker. It was like the studio made sure that the presentation was going to be better than the filmmaker did and I've never understood that. VP: It just seems so bizarre. DF: I would have always thought they would want their films presented in the best possible way. VP: I don't understand his thinking cause he's always been on the forefront. His laserdisc transfers have almost always been regarded as the best. And then he's getting into DVD and he's doing these 4X3 transfers. And not only that, they're Super35 films that are matted down to 2.35:1 and you're like "Man you're just throwing away so much space there." So people that do have anamorphic sets, it's going to look like shit! DF: They just don't look as good. That's just the fact of it. It does look like the studios are starting to make the crossover slowly. Even Disney's started to get into it now. VP: Yeah, yeah finally. DF: Yeah, it seems like everything day and date from Disney is working out to be anamorphic. And this isn't a slight against View Askew, but I was actually a little disappointed in the Clerks disc. I was really hoping that they would have done that anamorphic. VP: As far as the Clerks disc goes, I was kind of hoping that they would have put a full-frame on there as well because it was shot in 16mm. So it just seemed to make sense that, with that film, they should at least offer the option. Because it was shot in 16, which has a 1.33 aspect ratio. But yeah, they just basically put the laserdisc on the DVD. It's just strange when I see that disc. They sell them here and I always look at that Clerks disc and I'm like "Man $5 more than Mallrats and it's just like there's so much more stuff on Rats." And then just the idea that that DVD cost the same as the laserdisc did. Same list price: $39.95. DF: Yeah, you've suddenly got 5" laserdiscs now. VP: Basically, yeah. DF: And to my thinking, Mallrats, I look at it at $35 and think "you know, this is the kind of stuff that I would have gotten charged $100 for on laserdisc, at least." I hear from some people that $35 is just too much for a DVD but look what you're getting for $35. VP: And you remember back when nobody thought twice about dropping $100 to get a gatefold two disc set of The Fisher King from Criterion, which was a fantastic laserdisc and that's how much they went for at the time. But when you compared the two. People complain about Criterion's pricing on DVD and I'm like "Man, I don't mind paying $40 for The Silence of the Lambs and getting the same stuff that was only the laserdisc, and it looks better on the DVD." DF: For $100. VP: Yeah. DF: Yeah, I think DVD pricing has been much more friendly and from talking to Universal, they don't want to do anymore $35 special editions anymore. They want to drop the price down to $30. So they're going in the opposite way, which is even better but the Mallrats disc I thought was a steal at $35. So are you guys going to be that involved with the Amy disc or are you just leaving Criterion alone? VP: Basically, Kevin was always very happy with what Criterion did and so it will essentially be just, basically, the new anamorphic transfer and everything that was on the Criterion. The one thing that I think they asked him about, and I'm not sure if he's definitely going to do it, because if you remember on that laserdisc, he made that really funny, at the time, "fuck DVD" comment? DF: Yes, that was my next question. VP: So yeah, the one thing I think they asked him to do is to do some sort of, and I actually said it to him too. I was like "You know it might be pretty funny if you did a videotaped introduction where you just sort of qualify that statement and say like ‘you know back then I wasn't quite..." Something crazy like that, but just something to intro the disc to explain that comment. They might do something like that. Cause I'd rather they not edit it. I think it would be cool if they kept it in there and just had him introduce the disc. DF: Yeah because obviously he made that comment but he's since had his change of heart. VP: Well at the time, and he still has like 800 laserdiscs, it was just the whole idea of laserdisc was the format that he loved and then this new little thing came along and was kind of kicking its ass. DF: And I know a lot of people felt that way early on. You spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on laserdiscs and then to have something come out and everyone's telling you "Oh it's better." VP: Yeah DF: I always thought his comments, when he said "fuck DVD," I always thought that was a riot. VP: It'd be funny of DIVX was still around. He could dub it and say "Fuck DIVX!" But DIVX died its untimely death. Thank God. DF: Yes, it was around far too long. VP: It's funny because they actually released Chasing Amy on DIVX and when DIVX died I think Kevin went out and bought a whole bunch of them to have them around as collector's items. We've actually got a Mallrats and a bunch of Chasing Amy DIVXs here at the office just sitting on the shelf. DF: Now you guys are obviously big on special editions. VP: Yeah. DF: Kevin Smith's always been big on it, obviously every film he's done he's done a special edition for. What are the things that DVD has to offer over laserdisc as far as what you can do with a special edition now that you couldn't do five years ago? VP: Well I think the best thing is that you can put a ton of stuff on there and as you pointed out, it doesn't cost as much. To have like a double laserdisc set or the box sets where they were really packing in the extras way back when, you'd have to spend $100 or $125. Nowadays, you can do a double. What's the highest price on a double disc set? It's like $50? DF: Yeah. VP: For that much money you can get everything that was on a $150 laserdisc. So there's the price issue. There's the fact that they're anamorphic. You know they're all anamorphic..., well not all of them. It's anamorphic compatible. DF: They should be anamorphic. VP: Yeah exactly. DF: They can be. VP: Yeah, so they're anamorphic compatible so it's higher quality. Basically there just are more features, higher quality and more options I suppose. Like the option to put on multiple soundtracks. And laserdisc had it to a certain extent but not nearly as much as you do on DVD. The menus, the interactivity and stuff like that. There's just a lot more you can do with it. You can be a lot more creative I think. DF: Are there any downsides that you see to it? VP: I don't know. The only real downside is that DVD sort of came along right around the time that high-def is also going to be coming along. So it's almost like it's NTSC's last stand and ten years from now there's going to be high-def DVD so everyone's going to be going out and probably be buying their collections over again. That's the only real thing. It would have been nice if it had come a couple of years earlier. And of course there's bad compression. Some DVD companies just sort of throw shit out there and they look like crap because they don't know how to do their compression. And then the other downside is that you have companies that are just sort of throwing their old laserdisc transfers on the DVD. I was pretty happy, I was under the impression that the Blue Velvet DVD from MGM was going to be the old laserdisc transfer and I just recently read somewhere that it's been confirmed that it's a brand new anamorphic transfer. So I was like "Oh cool!" that's cool that they're doing that. I bought the Graduate DVD from Polygram and it was the same old laserdisc transfer which is overmatted and it's not anamorphic and it just doesn't look very good. I was kind of disappointed about that. DF: Yeah so much of the stuff that gets released is just a recycle of the old laserdiscs and the most frustrating thing about laserdiscs was that you ended up buying everything twice. Once with the movie only and then when the special edition was announced three months later. I hope that DVD doesn't go that direction. VP: It kind of reminds me of Cameron again. I mean how many editions of Terminator were there? Terminator 2. There were so many editions of his movies and I wonder if he's going to do the same thing on DVD. I wonder if that's the game he's playing. DF: Well we touched on this earlier and now maybe we can talk about it a little more. Now some filmmakers, they sort of take their films right up to the video transfer and then they let the studio make all the decisions after that. Do you think filmmakers need to be more involved and better-educated on DVD? VP: I think so. The one director who strikes me, and I love his films, but I don't know why he doesn't get involved is David Lynch. Because every time one of his films came out on laserdisc it was like a shitty transfer but then I've talked to people who've tried to worked with him on projects and it just seems like he doesn't really care about home video. And it's like if the director doesn't really care about home video then no one else is going to care and the studio is just going to shit something out that's crap. It would be nice if he took the time to sit down, or at least send the cinematographer in to supervise the transfer. I can understand if he's one of these guys who doesn't want to put any extras on because he thinks the final film is the final version, but at least have somebody there to make sure that it looks nicer. Or if he doesn't want to do it, like have somebody that he hires, that he trusts and be like "OK, you're going to supervise all my video transfers because I trust your eye and you know what I look for." I really wish that these guys would be a little more involved because way back in the laserdisc days, you had laserdiscs that came out that were overmatted and weren't framed correctly. It just looked like garbage and it's because the directors weren't involved. And I really wish that Lynch, cause I love Lynch's work and his work is so visually interesting, I wish that he would get more involved with it. Because I know, when I was talking to Don May over at Synapse, he used to run Elite. And if you remember a couple of years ago, when he was still at Elite, they had Wild at Heart listed on their web site. They were going to do Wild at Heart. And I talked to Don about Wild at Heart and he said he went into the Sam Goldwyn vault and they were like "Alright which version of the film do you want to put out?" and he was like "What do you mean which version?" and they said "Well. we have an Interpositive for the Cannes version, which was several minutes longer than the version that was released in theaters and then we have the interpositive for the theatrical cut." So they wanted to put the Cannes version, which was longer, but he tried to get in touch with Lynch and Lynch just basically just never got back to him so the project just sort of fell by the wayside. And it's just like damn, it would be cool just to at least get an answer from him and say like "No put out one version over the other." Just so you could have the title at least be out there. DF: Yeah, because it never did happen. VP: I think now it's listed on Anchor Bay's web site because Anchor Bay seemed to acquired a lot of those old titles but who knows what they'll do with it. They'll probably end up doing the transfer themselves because it seems like David Lynch doesn't like to really get involved but it's a shame because his films are so gorgeous. But if MGM did a anamorphic transfer of Blue Velvet, I'm sure it will look good. DF: It's a shame that more directors don't really get involved and go "Gee, this is my film" and I kind of liken it to, and maybe this is too extreme, but obviously Kevin wouldn't want to take Dogma and give it to the distributor and say "OK, you guys go ahead and cut it now, you guys go and edit it." This is his film and I don't understand why some directors take their films to the studios and then say "Oh, whatever supplements you guys want to put on are fine. anamorphic transfer or not, it doesn't really matter." It doesn't make any sense. VP: And then there's the case of what Warner did with the Kubrick films. I don't give a shit how many times they say that they were director approved. I'm sorry but Kubrick didn't approve them from beyond the grave. What they did is they took the laserdisc transfers, which he did approve- ten years ago, and then they were like "It's director approved." Well yeah, they were director approved, based on ten year old technology. And that Eyes Wide Shut disc not being the uncensored version is just a travesty. DF: And full-frame only. VP: I know, come on! It's just ridiculous. What's going to happen when anamorphic sets become the norm are they going to do 4X3 windowboxed transfers of all those films because when TVs were 4X3 Kubrick preferred it? It just seems so bizarre. DF: And doing Eyes Wide Shut in full-frame only and saying "Well that's the way Kubrick wanted it," I can't imagine that someone asked him before he died. VP: Yeah, I can't imagine that somebody sat down with him while he was spending over a year to shoot the film and over a year to edit the film and actually demo'd for him. "Look these are the sets, in five years most people are going to have a anamorphic set so maybe it's a good idea." DF: Yeah. VP: I doubt that he would have said "no." Because he knows it's going to be projected in the theater at 1.85. DF: Yeah, I can't imagine taking a director and sitting down with them with a non-anamorphic disc and an anamorphic disc on a anamorphic set and showing them both and have the director say the non-anamorphic one better. And while I know that some directors see home video as a kind of cancer, the truth is, in many ways video is becoming even more acceptable than theatrical presentation. Far more people, and I know you guy won't deny this, saw Mallrats on video than ever saw it in a theater. VP: Yeah, that's where it built up its cult following on video. Even Clerks, Clerks did like 3 million at the box office but it was on rental charts for, Christ, how long? That film just rented like nuts. And even Amy, Amy did about 12 million. It did a lot more on video. DF: A lot of these directors really became famous on video. So to ignore video and say that it's not that important seems really backwards to me. VP: Yeah, I don't understand. David Lynch is the one that always jumps to mind. I know he makes cinematic films, but it's like eventually it's going to be out on video. If you're not going to supervise it at least send in your DP to do it or something. I had those laserdiscs, they just didn't look good. The New Line Firewalk With Me laserdisc was one of the biggest travesties ever released where like the angel's head is cut off by the top letterbox band. C'mon, that's ridiculous. I hope that with the DVD they've fixed that. DF: We've been talking with New Line about the Firewalk With Me DVD and they're really, really excited about it. VP: Yeah those guys put out great discs. DF: Now do you guys have particular favorite discs? VP: I couldn't speak for Kevin, but for myself, a lot of the New Line stuff. I really like their disc of The Sweet Hereafter, which was one of the first DVDs I ever bought and I think it's a really well put together disc. I love the Criterion RoboCop and Silence of the Lambs. I think those are both great. I've got like 100 discs at home, off hand I can't really think of really great ones. There's so many good one. Then there's some that... I've got to say, the Universal Scarface disc, which has nice features has got to have the single worst looking transfer I've ever seen. I don't know what happened there, that just looks awful. The Mallrats disc I like a lot. Of course a little bias there. DF: Well I think any disc you're actually on can qualify as one of your favorites. VP: Basically I really love the New Line stuff. Like pretty much anything they've...Oh, The Exorcist special edition. That's a really good disc. I like that one a whole lot. I was just looking at that the other night again. DF: That is a good one. VP: Yeah, that's a great disc. And there's another director who used to be all about full-screen and he let it go out anamorphic. DF: Yeah, I think with that one, he was shown the benefits. But I don't know how you'll convince Kubrick now. VP: Yeah I know. It's just going to get to a point where you're going to have to be like "Alright look, the man is dead. There's no way you can possibly show him the benefits but this is where home video is going." I read this Kubrick newsgroup and people get on there and they just scream and yell that like "That's the way he wanted it." and I'm like "Well, alright so does that mean that ten years down the road you people are not going to buy a high-definition transfer of a Kubrick film because he's not around to supervise it?" It just seems like such a ridiculous concept. Are you not going to go and see 2001 when it's re-released in theaters just because Kubrick is not around to personally supervise the prints? I mean it seems like such a ridiculous argument some of these people make, defending Warner Bros. saying that "Well he approved it. He wanted it that way." Well you know, he's not around anymore and his films are going to have to live on in the new technology. DF: Yeah, I mean saying that Kubrick wanted it that way, wouldn't it also make sense to release the Kubrick preferred version as well as release a widescreen version of his films for people who would prefer the theatrical representation? VP: Didn't they release a widescreen The Shining laserdisc in Japan? DF: I think they did. I've heard about that. VP: There was like a 1.66 widescreen Shinning laserdisc. I don't get it because those transfers, I didn't even get all of them because I heard they were so awful. I got The Shining because it had that documentary and it's not a terrible transfer per se, but it's an old transfer and it looks it. It looks like an old transfer. It looks like it was done on a Rank telecine that was state of the art ten years ago but nowadays is blown away by a Spirit or the C-Reality. One of these really, really high-end machine today that they should really just go back to the interpositives and remaster all those titles on. DF: Yeah, that was our argument when the whole Kubrick thing went down. Yeah, they're director approved, but they were 1990 director approved. A lot's happened since then, technology's gotten better. VP: Yeah, back then they got great review. They were like "Wow, these Kubrick laserdiscs look really good." And they did look really good, but nowadays when you put them on a DVD they just don't hold up. You're revealing all the flaws of the old transfer technology. DF: We really appreciate you talking to us today. VP: No problem. DF: We'll talk to you again before Dogma is released to get a progress report. VP: Cool. Excellent. Be sure to visit View Askew for all the latest news on Kevin Smith, as well as the official web site of Vincent Pereira's A Better Place. Photos courtesy of Vincent Pereira and View Askew. Additional thanks to View Askew PR, Kevin Smith and JM Kenny. |
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About
The Interview: Perhaps a rarity in the industry, Director
Kevin Smith's View Askew Productions is one of the
few companies created from the ground up and run by and for
film fans. Certainly, the story of Kevin Smith, director of
the cult favorites Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and last
year's controversial Dogma, is a classic success story. Shot
on a shoestring budget, Clerks went on to become a festival
and critical darling and established Smith as a leading indie
voice. His subsequent features like Chasing Amy and Dogma
would go on to higher and higher grosses each time out, and
his future projects continue to threaten even greater things
to come.
DVDFILE:
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.