INSIDE AMERICAN ZOETROPE'S DVD PRODUCTION LAB by Peter M. Bracke

In the nascent days of the home video boom circa the early 70's, few could have predicted the major and lasting impact that VCRs would have over the entire film industry. Though movie attendance had long ago started to erode as television became a way of family life in America, and there were already some alternative delivery media in which to view a movie (such as cable and eventual network TV broadcasts), by and large the theatrical experience was the only way in which to see a film. But this would soon all change in the blink of an electronic eye...

If anyone had any doubts about the full force of the video revolution, such skepticism would soon be obliterated by the early 80's. VCRs invaded homes in the millions, video stores cropped up on every corner, and MTV's video-based aesthetics influenced the creative community and infiltrated the culture. As theatrical-to-video windows began to shorten, renting a video would become common replacements for catching a matinee, going to the drive-in or just taking the whole family out for a Saturday night flick. In fact, soon video revenues would surpass theatrical profits, and now today it is far more likely you'll see a film at home on video than you would in the cinema.

Given the swiftness of the rise of the VCR, perhaps predictably many within the Hollywood community were slow to catch on to the importance of home video as a delivery device for movies. Many filmmakers downplayed the new paradigm or dismissed it out of hand. As videotape formats are technically of very low quality, it wasn't until the success of the laserdisc format (with high-end film buff, at least) that a more high-quality home viewing experience became readily available. Even so, by and large most filmmakers still were only marginally involved in the life of their works once they left the theater. From today's perspective, it may be surprising how content most seemed to let the studios handle subsequent home video and television transfers and edits of films, and even the laserdisc format saw scores of lackluster releases with faded prints, poor consistency in image and sound quality, and barely if not any supplemental material added to heighten the appreciation of the film.

Still, not all directors were blind to the importance of video technology and the changing face of theatrical distribution. Notable examples include Woody Allen, who was the first to demand his film to be "letterboxed" for home video (with Annie Hall in the early 80's) and Steven Spielberg, who also pushed for higher-quality presentations in the home. And certainly George Lucas and THX would make great strides in setting workable and consistent high quality standards for consumer equipment and laserdisc presentations.

Taking A Hands On Approach

Though not alone, one filmmaker in particular embraced video technology early on, though unfortunately his efforts were often (and still are) largely overlooked in favor of his more high-profile and press savvy contemporaries. That one filmmaker is Francis Ford Coppola, who had long sensed that it was important for the creative community to take active control of there work through all phases exhibition, not just the theatrical end. Even with his cinematic legacy firmly in place after such cinematic classics as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, amongst others, the auteur did not sit on his laurels nor ignore the importance of emerging technologies.

"I have always tried to stay personally involved with my films through post production, to keep creative control" Coppola remembered recently. "For this reason, we built our own editing and sound mixing rooms in San Francisco in the mid 1970s." But beyond just overseeing post production, the filmmaker began to use technology to enhance creativity and the filmmaking process itself. "Our post production facilities have continued to grow and evolve with technology ever since. For example, we were among the first to edit films electronically in the early 1980s." The director's following works bear this out, with such disparate films as One From The Heart, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Tucker: A Man & His Dream all utilizing technologies ranging from the old-fashioned (the hand-cranked antique cameras employed in Dracula), to progressive on-set techniques (the elaborate sets and "remote trucks" of One From The Heart) and on through digital technology (the subtle use of CGI in 1997's The Rainmaker).

Still up-to-the-minute, Coppola continues to embrace new technologies, continually dabbling in new areas such as television (including his recent new sci-fi series Third Wave) and now the highest-quality format currently available, DVD. "I was an early proponent of the format, because I knew there had to be a better way to view films at home than on tape. I knew that we would want to get involved in the creative process of designing and authoring the DVD versions of my films." Such progressive thinking, of course, does not come without its roadblocks. The director lamented that "In fact, I personally advised studios to adopt DVD in the early days; at first many declined, but today I am happy to see that nearly all of them are on board."

So like all good auteurs, the filmmaker and American Zoetrope, his 25-year-old motion picture production and post-production company, simply took matters into their own hands. Originally Zoetrope's facility was conceived to produce Coppola's own projects. But in recent years, new equipment, personnel, rooms, and alliances have been added to enable the facility to service outside projects. Now, American Zoetrope has announced the opening of their full-featured DVD Production Lab, the first of its kind to be erected by a filmmaker-owned and operated independent production company. As Coppola continues "It was natural for us to add this new DVD authoring technology to our repertoire. I want our "DVD Lab" to be a special place, primarily helping the filmmaker tell (or retell) their story by taking advantage of the new interactive medium."

With the announcement of the first two titles to come out of Zoetrope, Alejandro Jordowski's Fando & Lis, as well as Coppola's own Apocalypse Now, the venture has gotten off to strong start, with the company already indicating a strong committed to preserving the vision of the filmmaker, whether it be in entrenched in the mainstream or far towards the offbeat. As Coppola stated in regards to the upcoming DVD release of his own Apocalypse Now, "I was able to preserve my vision of how the film should be presented. And I even got to address the speculation that had been raging on for years about the ending of the film by including some extra footage with a personal commentary."

Along with the ability to work with filmmakers and include value-added content, American Zoetrope and Coppola hope to help further the possibilities of the medium and successfully marry theme with content without sacrificing either in the process. "Many of the DVD titles that are out today seem primitive to me, in many cases, the presentation style is out of synch with the original film, bells and whistles that do not support the film. I want our facility to be a boutique that works with the client to design everything: the graphics, the sound and the navigation. And I don't mean only big studio pictures, but also independent films and international films...documentaries...experimental films..."

A Closer Look At The DVD Production Lab

On the heels of the announcement of the opening of the American Zoetrope's new DVD Production Lab, and our excitement over the prospects of a filmmaker-run DVD enterprise, we were happy to receive word that our request for an interview with the Production Lab had been granted. We subsequently had the pleasure to sit down with Howie Stein, Manager Of Operations and all-around nice guy, who spent considerable time talking with me about a variety of issues, and the day-to-day concerns that go along with a fully-functioning telecine and DVD operation.

Though originally I was going to use selected quotes from this interview, I found the chat so interesting that I decided to simply reprint it here in its complete form. We chatted on about the the operations and facilities of the production lab, Coppola's commitment to the DVD format, as well as a bit on their current and upcoming projects. So, after the opening pleasantries, here is a conversation with American Zoetrope's Howie Stein...

Peter Bracke: Well, obviously, as a DVD site think the format is a great technology and medium for presenting film and a tool for filmmakers. It certainly is exciting to see someone like Francis Coppola and American Zoetrope take such an active interest in the format and the future. How did the DVD production lab develop?

Howie Stein: As you might now many years ago Francis Coppola started editing films on video long before it was popular and long before it was practical. At that time laboratories and service providers weren't particularly doing video dailies for feature film projects, so he decided the way to support those things was to do telecine in-house. We started off with a very crude and simple telecine setup and over the years it's, how should I say, the ante's kinda gone up and now we have a pretty sophisticated full-blown telecine suite here.

PB: If memory serves didn't he (Coppola) starting using technology heavily on his film One from the Heart? Some of the stories there are legendary in regards to using video equipment and monitors in which to direct large sets and sequences remotely.

HS: Yeah, a lot of that started with One From The Heart. Francis has always kind of, uh, liked technology and utilizing kind of a strange hybrid of old and new tools. And using computer and video and film production was something he was kind of a pioneer in utilizing those tools and technologies. Telecine's kind of out an outgrowth of that. In context it all leads to why we're doing DVD here. Again, Francis always claims his line is he always has one foot in the past, one in the future.

PB: Not a bad line to claim!

HS: Yeah. That's kind of really where it's at here. You know a lot of directors and studios have not endorsed DVD for a number reasons, but you being a DVD journalist and professional I'm sure are well aware of this topic.

PB: Yes, you could say that! Luckily some filmmakers, though, seem to "get it." I'd gather that Coppola has a DVD player himself? (chuckle)

HS: Francis has been a fan of DVD since it came out and certainly uses them on personal basis and was very excited about the concept of his facility expanding into DVD work. Um, we kind of get into it on two fronts. For one, we were inspired by Francis' interest and secondly I mentioned our telecine and some of our sound work here. We wound up being service providers for a number of clients for their own DVD projects. And that service work ranged from doing telecine mastering of projects to remastering sound for projects from existing assets into 5.1 tracks utilizing for DVD releases.

PB: So you have the full capability of doing sound mixing as well?

HS: That's right. We can do sound mixing, remastering, we have a very unique setup in that in our telecine suite we have the ability to capture virtually any release format of sound and we can take those formats and even if they were stereo mixes or LT RT sources and we can create 5.1 soundtracks from them for utilization to take advantage of DVD's 5.1 capabilities.

Anyway, we wound up doing that process for a number of outside clients and at the same time, we knew Francis was very hot on DVD and wanted to have creative and technical control over his own projects for doing DVD releases. So all those things kind of added up to the idea of let's jump in ourselves. We're film professionals, we understand a lot of film technology, we're fans of DVD, and we can probably do a pretty good job based on our sort of heritage of quality and reputation here of turning you know film projects into viable DVD.

PB: Is the facility setup for high-definition telecine?

HS: At present we do not support Hi-Def, although we are investigating the possibility of it in the future. But we're not as of yet Hi-Def ready.

PB: It's pretty exciting technology.

HS: It is. And we're gonna see a lot more of it in the future.

PB: Setting up your own DVD production lab must have been a rather daunting task in all areas, and did you ever think it would just be easier to let someone else do it? What are some of the benefits of setting up your own lab versus outsourcing it all?

HS: Maintaining quality and technical control is really what it is. I don't want to bad mouth anybody in this industry because there's plenty of people doing a great job with DVD, a lot of those people however are more from the service side of the industry and not from the creative talent and there a number of very prominent video houses, etc., that have launched into DVD work. What they don't bring to the party is an understanding and a director and filmmaker's perspective of what it took to make those projects and what some of those concerns and sensitivities are about translating those into DVD.

Of course, DVD has strong limitations and you have to really understand and respect the material in order to maximize it over those limitations. So we feel like we have the upper-hand in doing that and with Francis being a bit of perfectionist and a bit of a master with some of his work was very concerned about how it would translate to DVD. So what better way to put those concerns aside than to have your thumb in it in your own backyard, literally.

PB: Now, when you guys decide to produce for yourselves, say Apocalypse Now instead of sending it off to someone else, do you decide the supplements, extras, aspect ratio on your own? In other words, is it all your own independent project or, um (trails off while confused) What I guess I'm trying to say is it Paramount that technically still owns that film and has final say or...

HS: Francis Coppola technically owns Apocalypse Now, but Paramount Home Video is of course publishing and distributing the DVD so we worked very closely with them on their concerns along with working closely on our end with his concerns to come to some reasonable compromises about some of the decisions that had to be made.

PB: I think all previous video versions of Apocalypse Now were actually presented in a 2.0 or 2.10:1 aspect ratio, correct?. However, I know it was usually theatrically exhibited at 2.35:1. Many fans have always wanted to see the 2.35:1 aspect ratio on home video.

HS: Yeah, we've respected the original theatrical aspect ratio with the new DVD release. We've seen several check disks and I don't think people are going to be disappointed. (Editor's Note: Actually, the aspect ratio of the Apocalypse Now DVD will be 2.0:1, which is the original ratio of the cropped 70mm blowup.)

PB: Well everyone is all very much looking forward to it. It's been one of the highest email-generators on our site, the question of the aspect ratio.

HS: Yeah, I get fair number of those myself. [Laughter].

PB: You guys are probably aware of anamorphic transfers on DVD, correct? Since Apocalypse Now is going to be anamorphic, how big an issue is that for you? For us, we feel DVD has to be as good as it can be, and that means always utilizing anamorphic on widescreen transfers. Is it something American Zoetrope insists on?

HS: I would have to pass on that actually. Let me backpedal here. My role here is not tech director, I'm more on the operations end. There are a couple other people here that are mainly dealing more with that issue, but we do deal with the issue. But I can't address that one.

PB: Let's talk about some of the other projects you guys have done outside of Francis' work.

HS: Yeah, I wanted to bring that up because one sort of thing that was a little misconstrued in your short article on the site...

PB: (Embarrassed) Oh, ugh, I know what you are going to say...I did mess this up...

HS: Fando & Lis was actually the first release produced in part here, which just came out last week. It is not actually Apocalypse Now as you stated...

PB: (Hiding head in shame) Yes, I did think Apocalypse Now was the first. Oops. Fando & Lis is really a great Alejandro Jordowski film, as well as a surprising first choice for a release in a way. It is great to see you guys supporting such non-mainstream fare. Obviously, the industry must have already begun to hear about your production lab. Have you gotten a good response?

HS: Yeah, we have. It's still very early and the word is just getting out now but people are very intrigued and you know they're especially noting the uniqueness of a filmmaker doing DVD's in his own facility. As you pointed out in your first piece, this is kind of a first here. We have a lot of strengths and a lot of weaknesses from the geography of where we are which is kind of an interesting thing. Of course the film industry as you well know is in the area code I'm talking to, the area code that you're in (Los Angeles), us being some 400 miles away (in San Francisco) there's some pluses and minuses for both feature film work and DVD.

PB: I imagine there are a lot of potential logistical hassles.

HS: The DVD process involves a lot of client interaction and a lot of client QC sign-off so educating people about the fact that we've been in San Francisco doing film work for LA studios for 25 years, we kind of know the ropes of how to get stuff back and forth and how to creatively deal long-distance so to speak on projects. Again one of the things we have is a Northern California film culture, history and heritage and experience and yet we're dealing with a lot projects and creatives in LA, so bridging that gap is one of our strengths here. A lot of people we talk to about doing projects at first a little put off by the geography.

Once we talk 'em down and they realize there are ways to communicate and there are ways to get things back and forth, we put up stills on the web site, we have lots of tricks we have to keep the creative flow going without being slowed down. Even if you're working in LA and you've got someone in the Valley and West LA, so that can be several hours as well. So being 400 miles away isn't all that much different. A lot of times you drive from one end of the basin to another, and you could've been on a plane here in the same amount of time. So we work around that in a creative fashion.

PB: I suppose some projects can be done partly at American Zoetrope and partly via other facilities and third-parties? The client always has the option...

HS: Some projects, studio-controlled projects, studios are very eager to do their film-to-tape transfers within their own facility. We fully understand and respect that. But for a number of projects, like the Fando & Lis project we were able to handle all technical ends of this in-house. We actually transferred the negative in our own telecine and create motion graphics. Another thing we can do is keep it all together, in that most facilities it seems are picture oriented, then you go another place to do the audio encoding, etc., but we're doing it all here. We're doing telecine, picture encoding, audio, AC-3, etc.

Zoetrope has always taken a boutique approach to film work where we're not a huge operation we're small, we're concentrated, and we sort of cover a lot of different aspects of a feature film project, and we're sorta now taking that same model and bringing it over to the DVD side where we have expertise in picture and sound and telecine, so why not make a client comfortable by unifying that into one facility. That's another aspect that's different than a lot of the other houses.

PB: It's always great when you have the ability to support both creative side and the service side at the same time, without have to sacrifice one or the other. What other upcoming projects are on the horizon?

HS: We're in negotiation right now for a variety of titles and projects. I think again the example of the two titles we launched to start off with demonstrate that we're not just doing big-time studio pictures, we're very interested in independent, archival and other interesting projects for DVD as well as things that Francis may have had or that Zoetrope had involvement in, such as Tucker (A Man And His Dream) or Dracula.

PB: Oh, by the way, I should mention... (makes desperate, extended plug for DVD of "The Conversation" way too long and shameful to print...)

HS: That's one we're very excited about! There's been a lot of talk about it, unfortunately I don't have any details to give you yet.

PB: Well, I'm patient. (Laughs) And, I suppose I know have to ask the big questions or readers will send me hate mail. DVD fans are really wanting to see The Godfather on DVD...

HS: Unlike Apocalypse Now, Paramount really owns The Godfather, not Francis or Zoetrope. I can't say when a DVD of the films would be out.

PB: Perhaps we can put a horse's head in Paramount's bed. No, no, no, just kidding! (Editor's Note: Following up on this interview, Parmount theatrical confirmed restoration work was near completion on The Godfather. However, no news is forthcoming on any future DVD release.) Getting back on track, does Zoetrope have their own secured film archives?

HS: We actually have our own archivist and a number of vault areas where we're maintaining a number of things. So we're excited about that aspect of DVD like you are, to be able to take things and recognize them and respect them, and bring them back to life.

PB: So, does Zoetrope also do restoration work?

HS: One we reason we have a strength in the market is we have a real respect for film heritage and history, we have a fairly solid body of experience in restoring projects as well. We've been doing a lot of archival work in our telecine suite utilizing some digital noise reduction for scratches, dirt, and other filtering devices, and we're also doing some audio restoration work so we're in a good position to take some of the classic, older titles that we have and present them as best as they possibly can be.

PB: Well, our time is winding down here. As a film fan and DVD enthusiast, I think thye format will become a genuinely powerful resource for buffs and filmmakers. What do you look to for the future with DVD and American Zoetrope? Any big final thoughts?

HS: It's such an interesting time with DVD right now in that we're kind of one this new frontier. It reminds me of the early days of audio CDs when all these people would just go into their vaults and pull out all kinds of old neat old shit that you didn't know existed and quickly figure out how to package it, present it and get it out there. There's a lot of neat stuff that people are starting to dig out and get out there on DVD. It's really exciting.

PB: Yes, definitely! I'm sure I speak for our readers as well when I say we're all excited to see what Zoetrope has in store for us. Well, thanks for taking the time to sit down, er, chat with me on the phone.

HS: My pleasure!

All images Copyright American Zoetrope. Apocalypse Now still Copyright American Zoetrope and Paramount Pictures. Special thanks to American Zoetrope's Howie Stein and all at PR for their help in the writing of this article. And, of course, Francis Ford Coppola. For more information on the DVD production lab, visit the American Zoetrope web site.