{"id":4243,"date":"2012-02-05T21:22:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T02:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4243"},"modified":"2012-02-26T19:18:30","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T00:18:30","slug":"nick-redman-twilight-time-2011-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4243","title":{"rendered":"NICK REDMAN \/ TWILIGHT TIME (2011 \/ 2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0DVD<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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March 2012 marks the one-year anniversary of Twilight Time, one of several independent video labels whose goal is to release catalogue titles that have slipped under the radar of the major labels, such 1952’s My Cousin Rachel<\/strong>, and the relatively recent Fright Night<\/strong> (1985).<\/em><\/p>\n

When the interviews for this label profile took place in late November of 2011, the home video business had already gone through several substantive changes from which there\u2019s basically no going back: less classic films are being released by the major studios on DVD and Blu-ray, and the very nature of how these films are being release has started the move from the once bountiful seasonal boxed sets, themed actor & director collections, series, and tribute reissues, to an on-demand style of distribution.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This is an important stage in the ongoing evolution of film distribution, because from the debut of the videotape, studios have been wrestling with the issue of what constitutes an old film\u2019s worth, if not the desire to maintain absolute ownership as titles slowly fall into the realm known as Public Domain: roughly 50 to 70 years after the “creation of publication,” a work loses its copyrighted status and can be reproduced, distributed and sold by anyone, as there is no rights holder. (Copyright term limits have been extended in recent years in the United Stares and Europe, making the simplest definition<\/a> of a copyrighted work rather tenuous.)<\/em><\/div>\n

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A film\u2019s worth during the 1920s through the 1940s was ostensibly tied to its ability to make money through its first-run domestic and international release, and reissues. When television became a venue to sell packages of old film catalogues to TV during the 1940s and 1950s, classic movies were given a third life, and whole libraries of once-dead stock circulated domestically and internationally on the Idiot Box.<\/em><\/div>\n

This proved useful, as studios realized the ongoing circulation of their product on the small screen ensured certain stars, genres, and series remained popular, if not familiar with new generations of movie fans. However, it became clear over time that viewing habits could no longer be fully controlled: if one could see old movies \u2013 any movies \u2013 for free on TV, why pay to see a movie in a theatre, with added travel, parking, and food costs?<\/span><\/p>\n

Videotape democratized the process of viewing, renting, and taping classic films on a massive scale because the gear and the media (pre-recorded and blank) were available everywhere, and while initially viewed by studios as a threat to theatrical revenues, the formal genesis of home video spawned the biggest exploitation of catalogue material. From VHS to Beta, laserdisc to DVD, every kind of film from around the world seemed to exist on physical media whose only restrictions were, in the case of DVD, formal region coding, or TV standards like PAL, NTSC, and SECAM for older tape and disc-based formats<\/em><\/p>\n

Studios still owned the bulk of their film catalogue, and there seemed to be no end to the venues where a single movie could live on; if not on tape or disc, then pay-per-view, pay TV, specialty cable channels, and syndication.<\/em><\/p>\n

But by 2011, the profitability of older catalogue material \u2013 in terms of 15-20 year old films \u2013 had started to wane, and the standard distribution model of pressing tens of thousands of copies of a 1942 noir, a 1958 soap opera, a 1975 disaster film, or a 1982 drive-in horror film wasn\u2019t logical. The solutions have included not releasing anything, only reissuing top-selling catalogue titles, licensing titles to independent labels, and self-distributing titles through online-only venues as streamed, digitally downloadable, or pressed on-demand DVD-Rs.<\/em><\/p>\n

The current state of the industry is more unstable than it\u2019s ever been because no one can see where it\u2019ll settle for a while, and studios are attempting to meet demand of a consumer base whose behavioral methods of experiencing, acquiring, and archiving products is still changing. Exactly what films will remain popular is unknown; whether current interest in a specific range of catalogue titles will evaporate forever within a handful of years is unknown; and whether the concept of copyright will shift from something absolute towards degrees of limited ownership is unknown.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twilight Time isn\u2019t alone in recognizing the value of older films, their importance to film history, and a hungry fan base starving for new goodies, but the label represents an example of how classic films may end up surviving on a physical medium, and reaching an increasingly smaller \/ niche audience of classic film fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of this multi-part label profile begins with a discussion with Nick Redman, a veteran of the soundtrack business (including specialty labels Bay Cities, and later Fox Records), co-producer of the Oscar-Nominated documentary The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage (1997), and now producer at Twilight Time, co-founded with Brian Jamieson, and whose titles are exclusively distributed by veteran online soundtrack merchant Screen Archives Entertainment.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the end of this Q&A are several links towards related interviews & articles that expand on subjects, topics, and issues touched upon in this discussion.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>: With studios cutting back on the release of older titles, I\u2019m curious if you find Twilight Time\u2019s \u2018timing\u2019 has been ideal in tapping into the classic film collector demand the studios have largely abandoned?<\/em><\/p>\n

Nick Redman<\/strong>: You could say that was a very important aspect to Twilight Time\u2019s [TT] starting. I don\u2019t think we could\u2019ve started TT had the studios been doing the same thing today that they were doing in 2007.<\/p>\n

At Fox, where I\u2019ve been involved since the early nineties running the catalog music restoration program (which is ongoing), we pioneered the limited edition market, and we\u2019ve also continued working with Fox Home Entertainment over the years doing isolated scores, commentary tracks, all kinds of things to tie-in with Fox Home Ent.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2010, it was becoming apparent that Fox, like every other studio, was completely dropping out of the catalogue DVD business, and so it seemed logical to go to them and say \u2018Look, you know what we\u2019ve been doing with limited editions soundtracks for the past couple of decades. Why don\u2019t we have a go at doing it with DVDs?\u2019 and that\u2019s how it began.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the business arrangement that exists between Fox North America vs. Fox Europe where there are a number of classic films still being released in Spain or Germany, for example, but with very few exceptions, in North America it\u2019s virtually dried up.<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: When we\u2019re doing the soundtracks, we kind of control the market here in North America, in the sense that we put out the soundtrack and Fox in Europe or some other label does not put it out in some other territory due to various rights agreements.<\/p>\n

We discovered that\u2019s not the case with the DVD business where the territories act completely independently. I mean, there is no reciprocal arrangement between Fox North America and Fox Spain, Fox France, Fox U.K., and Fox anywhere else. For those people, if they have adequate masters in the Fox territories, they\u2019ll put out what they can do, and if they want to continue doing classic films for a while, they will do so.<\/p>\n

Fox America doesn\u2019t tell them what to do, and it seems has no interest in what they\u2019re doing. For example, we\u2019ve noticed that for a couple of foreign releases, where they\u2019ve come out as 16×9 high-def masters, we don\u2019t have high-def masters on those titles in the Fox vaults, and we have no access to them. That\u2019s something that was generated by the foreign territories and not generated by Fox America.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Is it unusual that Fox wouldn\u2019t create a definitive digital master for all territories and ancillary markets, much in the way Sony has done for their catalogue, and Warner Home Video have done by mastering some region-free Blu-ray titles with multiple language and subtitle tracks, leaving it up to the territorial distribution arms to address native packaging nuances?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: I can only assume policies differ from studio to studio, and perhaps that it is the way it is for new releases and certain older blockbusters, but not for the majority of deep-catalogue titles.<\/p>\n

Fox America seems to have given up on catalogue titles, but it\u2019s not just Fox; it\u2019s every studio. What is strange to me is the coming of the high-def market was a huge problem because it came too soon.<\/p>\n

When DVD arrived in the late 1990s, it converted the American public from renters to buyers. That was always going to be the big thing with DVD: were they going to be successful in converting a renting public into a buying public? They succeeded tremendously well. Then when the hi-def master became possible in the home, it was just too much change-too soon for the majority to consider upgrading their collections.<\/p>\n

Then there was the competing war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. People became incredibly confused just as they had done way back in the Betamax-VHS days, so that put a lot of people off of upgrading. And then when that war was settled and Blu-ray had won, there wasn\u2019t enough interest in it. It settled into a niche market like laserdisc, so the studios thought \u2018You know, maybe it\u2019s not worth supporting as much as we thought it was.’<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I\u2019ve certainly noticed that on the font lines, as I was there when we carried the two HD formats and people just sort of looked at it and thought \u2018Well, I just bought a DVD player after holding out for many years. Why do I want to get something new?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there was the issue of pricing, and the variety of available new and catalogue titles. The studios didn\u2019t know exactly what genres to support, so they offered one classic, two comedies, a few dramas, and some action, and it was a really strange mish-mash of titles coming out with high price points. Nobody was buying them, and it sort of contributed to the format being pushed to the margins like laserdiscs for a while.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious of your thoughts on the Movies on Demand [MOD] format, which is part of the studios\u2019 plans to reassert themselves through digital downloads & custom releases?<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: I think the general idea, much as they will deny it point blank, is to go gradually to streaming and piping it directly to your home and bypass a physical media. I\u2019m not going to say that it\u2019s a long-term goal, but it\u2019s not that far away, and depending on who you talk to, 5-7 years at the very most.<\/p>\n

What we were able to recognize in starting TT is exactly the same principle that happened in the nineties when major labels started to back away completely from soundtracks: it became a niche label business.<\/p>\n

We never thought (and I never dreamed) the day would come so quickly that the DVD business – which was so big just 4 years ago with the studios, deriving so much revenue – would be a business that they would allow to dwindle away. It\u2019s going to devolve to a niche label business; it\u2019s going to be labels like TT, Criterion, Image Entertainment \u2013 all the ones that we know about \u2013 and it\u2019s going to be exclusively a sub-license business for physical media, with the studios owning and controlling all forms of streaming and downloading.<\/p>\n

I think the Warner model that began with their on-demand DVD-R is a strange one. It\u2019s good in the sense that yes, you can buy a DVD-R of your favourite movie if they deem it worthwhile to put it out, but it seems awfully strange to me that you would pay say $19.95 to Warners for a glitchy DVD-R, $26.98 if you\u2019re buying it from Amazon, and that they are selling their catalogue Blu-rays for $10, like Bullitt<\/strong>. It seems to me that the pricing is topsy-turvy.<\/p>\n

With laserdisc, they treated it the way it should\u2019ve been treated, which was as a premium product, albeit it was so expensive in those days. I find it amusing that many people squawk about the price of TT Blu-rays because some are $34.95 and some are $29.95, and they scream that that\u2019s so expensive when it\u2019s not out of line with Criterion\u2019s price point, and so much better than it was 20 years ago when you were paying routinely $120 for a Criterion laserdisc.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I\u2019m assuming part of TT\u2019s pricing model is to support the rights you have to negotiate to build up a small cache so that you can continue to develop titles so that the label has an ongoing title roster?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Well, the limited edition model of 3,000 units per title was exactly the same with what we started at Fox in 1995 with CDs. It appeals to the studios because for them it\u2019s a model that eradicates paperwork. In other words, we say to them \u2018We\u2019re going to do 3,000 only for \u201cX\u201d title,\u2019 and they say \u2018Fine, how much are you going to pay,\u2019 and we work out a per unit rate which they then get in advance.<\/p>\n

With that hit it\u2019s one payment and they\u2019re out of it; and then we have the 3,000 units that we hope that we\u2019re able to sell. If we\u2019re going to release, let\u2019s say, 2 titles per month, which is what our current plan is, we have to make sure that we get to our break-even point, which is basically 1,500 minimum on each title in order to pay forward the royalty obligations for the next month\u2019s titles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a much cleaner model than say licensing 50 films from them and saying \u2018We\u2019ll pay you a $50,000 or $100,000 advance against royalties,\u2019 because then they\u2019re dealing with royalty statements every quarter, and of course if you\u2019re distributing through the usual \u2018bricks & mortar\u2019 outlet you have to deal with things like returns, and that\u2019s when it becomes incredibly messy, paperwork-driven, and utterly confusing. It\u2019s a tangle the studios don\u2019t really want to be involved with because it creates a job on top of a job<\/p>\n

We knew that this limited edition model was the cleanest and the easiest; the one that wouldn\u2019t sink us into debt; and make it easiest for everybody all around. It\u2019s hard on us only because we have to front the money for the royalties, and then if we don\u2019t sell well enough on a particular title, then that becomes a losing proposition, but that\u2019s a chance we thought was worth taking.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Do you find that your background in soundtracks also helped a great deal in terms of which business models work, where the flaws are, and so on?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Yes, I think it did in this particular case, because working in conjunction with Screen Archives Entertainment (SAE), who I\u2019ve worked off and on since the late eighties, we know that we had sort of one big soundtrack mail order company that could effectively consume most of the niche labels\u2019 products.<\/p>\n

Basically, without SAE, labels like Kritzerland, La-La Land, FSM, and any of those who already sell through their own websites would be in a bit of a pickle. SAE has become in a sense (and I mean this facetiously) the AIG of soundtracks. It is the operation, if you like, or the octopus that controls all of those niche labels\u2019 output and finds a home for them.<\/p>\n

Their worldwide mailing list is basically the<\/em> soundtrack market, so when we began working with SAE years ago on various soundtrack-related projects, we realized that what they did – by effectively going online, by effectively eliminating bricks & mortar retail \u2013 was, in a sense, eradicate one of the biggest problems: distribution.<\/p>\n

They ended the problem of going to a third-party distributor who then sold your products to all kinds of stores and accounts all over the country, and then dealing with the problem of half of that product coming back 6 months later because every store in America has the right to return anything they can\u2019t sell. That creates enormous accounting, and it makes the labels unsure of what they\u2019re doing. You can\u2019t be sure how many you\u2019ve sold; you can only be sure of how many you\u2019ve shipped, but you never know how many are coming back.<\/p>\n

SAE is a no-return business because they will take a certain amount of a limited edition quantity of every single label in the soundtrack business. They sell them over a period of time, but those are sales – they are not shipped numbers – so therefore it gives everyone an accurate idea of what\u2019s selling. In other words, you get a very clear and quick idea of whether a title is going to move its limited edition quantity, or whether it\u2019s going to stall and sit there for sometimes years.<\/p>\n

When we began TT and we instituted this limited edition \/ DVD-Blu-ray model, I went to SAE because we knew they were the best in the business at this particular thing. They are after all the sort of grandfather of it. We said to them \u2018We will sell you the TT DVDs on exactly the same basis; in other words you won\u2019t get stuck because you only pay us for the ones you actually sell.\u2019 There are only 3,000, so therefore 3,000 are warehoused, and SAE works their way through them on a sale-by-sale basis. That way no one is compromised with things that we think are sold but in reality aren\u2019t sold. It makes sense.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: With Mysterious Island<\/strong>, was there any kind of restoration you had to do yourself or had Sony already done the work?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Sony does everything, and they\u2019re particularly ahead of the game because they\u2019re doing 2K and 4K scans and protection masters of as many of their films as they can, regardless of whether or not their own studio or anyone else is going to release those things on Blu-ray. They already have a substantial list of catalogue titles that are what we call \u2018Blu-ray ready.\u2019<\/p>\n

When I call Sony and I say \u2018We\u2019d like to license a batch of titles,\u2019 I first talk to Grover Crisp (Senior Vice-President in charge of Asset Management at Sony) who tells me what\u2019s in the hopper – what\u2019s been done, what is currently being worked on, what they\u2019re likely to tackle next – and they start with what the studio wants to do themselves versus what the studio would like to license out to other labels. We then sort of cherry pick our titles based on that information.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t touch the masters at all. We\u2019re not restoration experts. They are shipped by Sony or Fox to our authoring and compression facility, [and when all of the capturing is done], the masters are returned to the studio. We are only issuing titles that are, in a sense, \u2018ready to go.\u2019<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Were you involved in the isolated score track on the Mysterious<\/strong> Island<\/strong> Blu-ray?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>:\u00a0 I was to the extent that I hired Mike Matessino to do it for me. We had to go from every source that existed, which included the old CD on Cloud Nine Records. That disc had been derived from Columbia\u2019s own LCR, which is a left-centre-right track stereo mix and has some separation, but is not terrifically wide. It is almost as Mike Matessino likes to call it a sort of a \u2018fat mono,\u2019 but that CD release was incomplete.<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s restored stems also had big holes in them, and there were huge numbers of drop-outs and things like that. There\u2019s also the M&E (music and effects) track, but unfortunately in particularly busy scenes, such as \u2018buzzing bees\u2019 or \u2018crashing surf,\u2019 there isn\u2019t any way to get those effects out, so using every source at his disposal, Mike cobbled together the isolated score so that every cue is there, but some of them still have the effects.<\/p>\n

We had a screening of the film at the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood, and one in the audience asked afterwards why had I called it an isolated score track in this case if it was really a music & effects track, and I said \u2018Well, it\u2019s not really a music & effects track, it\u2019s both: it\u2019s a hybrid.\u2019<\/p>\n

When we did Fate is the Hunter<\/strong>, we identified the isolated score track as an isolated music & effects track because that was the truth: it was mostly culled from the music & effects track. In the case of Mysterious<\/strong> Island<\/strong> <\/strong>it is mostly culled from the music tracks, probably in percentage terms about 70% from the music and about 30% from the M&E tracks, so therefore it didn\u2019t seem right to call it an M&E track; that would be misleading.<\/p>\n

I have told the labels that have called me about doing a new soundtrack album that\u2019s it\u2019s probably not worth it because you can\u2019t do anymore than the Cloud Nine CD; it might sound a little bit better, but there\u2019s nothing more to add that doesn\u2019t have the sound effects on it.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: The Root of Heaven,<\/strong> which you just released on Blu-ray, contains an isolated mono track of Malcolm Arnold\u2019s score. Do most of the CinemaScope films that were exhibited in stereo and surround sound survive with stereo music stems, or is Roots<\/strong> an example of stereo master tapes that are no longer extant due to various circumstances?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR: <\/strong>Fox certainly retains separate stereo music elements on most of their CinemaScope films, but oddly, in the cases of the “overseas” productions – where the music was not recorded in the US, like Roots of Heaven – <\/strong>only mono mix-downs or in some instances, nothing at all, remains.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Was Mysterious Island<\/strong> one of the titles that you\u2019d always wanted to release?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Not really. Again, Grover will say \u2018Do you have any interest in\u2026\u2019 For example, that\u2019s how we got Fright Night<\/strong>. I never would\u2019ve thought of Fright Night<\/strong> in a million years. They simply said \u2018Look, have you heard of this movie? A remake has just come out and we just did a real nice beautiful Blu-ray transfer of it, but the studio decided that it wasn\u2019t interested in releasing it, so would you like to do it?\u2019<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: That\u2019s really fascinating, because it is a huge cult favourite-<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: As I have subsequently found out. I didn\u2019t know that, and in fact I had never seen the film prior to getting involved in releasing it. I called a couple of sci-fi and horror nuts that I know, and they said \u2018Oh my God, Fright Night<\/strong> is one of the most beloved films of the eighties. You have<\/em> to put that out.\u2019 So we did it based on that.<\/p>\n

A lot of the scuttlebutt on the message boards is like \u2018How come this crappy label TT is putting out this wonderful film? Why isn\u2019t Sony doing it? \u2019 Well the truth is Sony isn\u2019t doing most of their catalogue films, just as every other studio isn\u2019t doing most of its catalogue films.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: For you, does part of the learning curve as a home video producer include reading comments from message boards or discussions?<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: I\u2019d like to say yes but I think the truth is really no\u2026 If three people write you and say \u2018You must put out (fill in the blank title)\u2019, what those three people that are passionate about a film don\u2019t realize is that they would be the three people that would buy it.<\/p>\n

Even with something like the Fright Night<\/strong> Blu-ray, the message boards are agog with the fact that Sony is \u2018crazy\u2019 <\/em>that they\u2019re not doing it themselves, yet if Sony did it and had spent the money to release it and market it and then ship 50,000-100,000 units or more than that, they would find that 90,000 of those units would be back in their warehouse in 6 months time.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t sold out of the 3,000 units yet (and I didn\u2019t expect it to) but the message board people would then say \u2018It\u2019s pretty amazing that this rinky-dink outfit hasn\u2019t sold the 3,000 copies,\u2019 and then it becomes our fault that we didn\u2019t sell them, or it\u2019s too expensive, or it doesn\u2019t have any extras, or any other fill-in-the-blank reason why people don\u2019t buy it. They just can\u2019t accept the actual truth, which is there aren\u2019t many people who do want these things, and that is the sad reality of the business that we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

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[Editor\u2019s note: Fright Night<\/strong> is now the label\u2019s first sold out title.]<\/em><\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: That\u2019s one of the things I\u2019ve noticed when discussing issues of sales with other soundtrack producers. Sometimes I\u2019m just stunned when they\u2019ll say \u2018Well, we haven\u2019t sold that many,\u2019 and I\u2019ll wonder how the heck is that possible?<\/em><\/p>\n

When Kritzerland, for example, releases 1,000 copies of a title by an A-list composer, you\u2019d think there has to be <\/em>1,000 people that would want this; or 500 people that would want a never-before released Ennio Morricone score via an Italian label, or some of the amazing composers represented by Film Score Monthly [FSM], and yet there are titles still listed by vendors as \u2018for sale,\u2019 with large stocks on the shelves. I find that baffling because maybe 10 years ago, it would\u2019ve been very different.<\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: I\u2019ll give you an absolute cast-iron example. As recently as say 1991 \u2013 that was 20 years ago \u2013 it was impossible to get a deal with studios to release catalogue soundtracks, because at that time the re-use payment which was mandated by the American Federation of Musicians made it financially impossible: you would\u2019ve basically had to have paid $50,000 in re-use payments to release any soundtrack that FSM has put out in the last 15 years; not one of them would\u2019ve been possible just 5 years earlier.<\/p>\n

Fox was the first studio to have the foresight to say \u2018We have all of these wonderful catalogue soundtracks that were never released \u2013 ever<\/em> \u2013 so can we put them on CD?\u2019 which is what they originally hired me to do back in 1993.<\/p>\n

We started doing it at that time on Fox\u2019s own label, which was distributed through and by Arista. It was part of a big distribution machine, so the cost of doing it could be offset against a certain number of things, but by the time 1995-1996 rolled around and Arista wasn\u2019t as interested in doing those things anymore, Fox decided to let go its own record label and its regular record label staff. I stayed on because I was a consultant, and we tried to figure out with Fox Music\u2019s business affairs, how could we keep it going when the demand for the music was so low, but the price for doing the music was so high.<\/p>\n

So, working in conjunction with FSM, I said to [label owner \/ magazine publisher Lukas Kendall] \u2018What if we distributed Fox CDs just through your magazine and we go to the union and we call it \u2018the magazine rate?\u2019 They become limited editions, 3,000 units only, they\u2019re sold as part of the subscription to your magazine.\u2019<\/p>\n

On that basis, Fox Music business affairs people went to the union, and the union agreed for the first time that they would allow what they then started to refer to as \u2018the magazine rate\u2019 which was effective for limited editions, and Fox started releasing a bunch of its titles through the auspices of FSM.<\/p>\n

Now, you may have noticed recently that Lukas has decided that he was going to close down his label, and has recently been writing on his website the history of every CD that he put out. He talks about how many were pressed and how many were sold and how many are left, and that shows you that right back in the mid- to late-nineties, 3,000 units for most catalogue soundtracks was too high a number.<\/p>\n

We decided on 3,000 because we thought \u2018Hell, we\u2019re talking about world-wide. Is there 3,000 people in the world that would support basically a good percentage of catalogue soundtrack releases?\u2019 and we found over the years that mostly to be untrue. Now how shocking is that? There are not 3,000 people in the world that would buy a catalogue soundtrack, or most catalogue soundtracks.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: There have been some cult titles that were expected to sell out, or by complete surprise, sold out in a matter of days.<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: For every Predator<\/strong> that sold out in 24 hours or every Commando,<\/strong> there\u2019s a Lust for Life<\/strong> by Miklos Rozsa that will sit there for 20 years and not sell at all, and it\u2019s horrible to think that today.<\/p>\n

I love the music of Alfred Newman; for me he\u2019s like a personal odyssey, and every time I convince one of our little record labels to go with an Alfred Newman title, I know I am shooting them in the foot because I know Alfred Newman won\u2019t sell at all. And he doesn\u2019t, and nor does David Raksin, and nor does a number of other people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m torn between constantly trying to preserve the legacy of these composers\u2019 works and having to convince somebody to put money into something that I know is basically a losing proposition.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I got FSM\u2019s Raksin set as part of a bonus gift order, and while it was always on my list of sets-to-get, the price was a bit high for me at the time, and when I finally listened to the set I was just blown away by it. I\u2019d always liked his writing, but I was stunned at how good he was, and it\u2019s definitely one of my favourite sets.<\/em><\/p>\n

I wonder if its failure to sell well is due to several generations of film music fans and film fans who don\u2019t know who these people are. When I started collecting LPs, theirs was largely the music one would find in new & used shops, but today they have to compete with reissues & new releases of music by several<\/em> generations of composers coming from every conceivable background, discipline, music stream, and country. There\u2019s simply a wealth of music that never existed so readily to buyers before.<\/em><\/p>\n

I also wonder if that\u2019s similar with the catalogue movies. Enhanced by an aversion to black & white cinematography, non-widescreen formats, and actors they\u2019ve never heard of, the films are disappearing because several generations can\u2019t related to their technicalities, style, or content. It\u2019s alarming to think that for many catalogue titles \u2013 be they studio or even grungy exploitation films \u2013 the target market is comprised of a small group of aging film fans.<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: I know that our audience is aging fast, particularly when it comes to the TT stuff. It\u2019s called Twilight Time for a reason; that was a joke title: the sun is setting on the world of physical media, and it\u2019s also setting on the generations of people that actually care about it. This is a race against time, you know, because it\u2019s all going to come to an end in a very short period, and it\u2019s just becoming a race to get out as much stuff before the curtain comes down.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Compared to the soundtrack grey-level and bootleg market that was ridiculously prolific in the nineties, there\u2019s far less (if not miniscule) illegal CD activity today because it\u2019s pretty much gone digital via P2P file-sharing and archive sites like Megaupload. It\u2019s less clear whether the current circumvention activities have been as detrimental as the illegal CDs that once flooded the market.<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Yes, they were causing some damage unquestionably in the nineties. I think with the file sharing it\u2019s hard to say how much damage that really does. There\u2019s no way to control it or stop it, and of course you\u2019ve got the European copyright laws where everything is basically going into the public domain after 50 years. This is all going to come to a colossal head very shortly when The Beatles\u2019 catalogue is in the public domain. I think that\u2019s when you\u2019ll see real government legislation coming in to put an end to this kind of copyright absence that we see now.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re also toying with a whole generation that\u2019s grown up on the internet and effectively think everything should be free. I\u2019m amused by the people that say on the message board \u2018Well I won\u2019t buy this TT Blu-ray for $29.95. I want to wait to when it\u2019s $14,\u2019 and then someone will write and say \u2018Would you buy it at $14?\u2019 \u2018No\u2026 I\u2019d rather wait until they came down to $7.99.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the end you\u2019d have to give it to them for free and<\/em> give them $5 just to take it off your hands. There never will be a point in time when it will be cheap enough for anybody because they live in a world unlike older generations, who knew that you had to go to a store and riffle through the LPs, and then select one and then go buy it; that whole very premise \u2013 choosing what you do or what you watch \u2013 has changed so exponentially.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: This is purely conjecture, but each year another set of films is poised to fall into public domain [P.D.], that realm where copyright has lapsed, and a film can be legally downloaded from sites such as Archive.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help wondering if one benefit of the studios switching the distribution of their aging catalogue titles (particularly the P.D. material) to MOD and digital delivery is to maintain an impression of ongoing ownership<\/em> in the consumer\u2019s mind – that if it doesn\u2019t come with a studio imprimatur, it\u2019s not valid and \/ or will be a poor quality P.D. release.<\/em><\/p>\n

As The Beatles is the crown jewel in their current owner\u2019s catalogue, Mickey Mouse and his brethren are equally valuable to Disney, but with the possibility that elements within the Disney empire will one day become P.D., I wonder if the studio\u2019s ping-pong game of moratorium-reissue-moratorium every 4 years is also designed to present Disney as the ultimate and eternal guardian of its creations, since it owns the negatives, and has decades of stewarding its creations through new generations of physical media.<\/em><\/p>\n

NR<\/strong>: Honestly, I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on this–inevitably, the studios and other major media asset owners are going to have to be proactive in some way to enforce copyright.<\/p>\n

In the US, as you may have seen, Congress has been mulling over an online piracy bill that could fundamentally change the shape and functionality of the internet. It is known as SOPA, (Stop Online Piracy Act<\/a>) and it has its advocates and detractors, but has recently been tabled because it is viewed as too problematic, too potentially damaging in wide-ranging ways to too many (innocent) web sites. However, regardless of the fate of this one bill, there will, in the not too distant future, be Government-sanctioned change, and then we will all have to get used to another brave new world.<\/p>\n

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ALSO AVAILABLE :<\/em><\/p>\n

In Part 2<\/a> of our Twilight Time label profile, film historian Julie Kirgo discusses her work writing liner notes for the label’s releases, and contributing value-added special features for DVD and Blu-rays, including commentary tracks.<\/em><\/p>\n

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KQEK.com would like to thank Nick Redman for his generous time and candor.<\/em><\/p>\n

More information on Twilight Time’s releases is available at Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Additional interviews with Nick Redman are available online: 1994 interview<\/a> with David Schecter, 2001 interview<\/a> with Bruce Kimmel, 2011 interview<\/a> with Jeffrey Kauffman at Blu-ray.com, and a lengthy 2011 interview<\/a> with Adam Gregorich at the Home Theater Forum.<\/em><\/p>\n

All images remain the property of their copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

This interview \u00a9 2011 \/ 2012 by Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n

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RELATED BLU-RAY and DVD REVIEWS:<\/em><\/p>\n

Egyptian, The<\/a> (1954) —\u00a0Fate is the Hunter<\/a> (1964) —\u00a0Flim-Flam Man, The<\/a> (1967) — Fright Night<\/a> (1985) — \u00a0Kremlin Letter, The<\/a> (1970) — Left Hand of God, The<\/a> (1955) — My Cousin Rachel<\/a> (1952) — Mysterious Island<\/a> (1961) — Rapture <\/a>(1965) —\u00a0Stagecoach<\/a> (1966) — \u00a0Violent Saturday<\/a> (1955) — Woman Obsessed<\/a> (1959)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Return to<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0DVD<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles \/\u00a0DVD . March 2012 marks the one-year anniversary of Twilight Time, one of several independent video labels whose goal is to release catalogue titles that have slipped under the radar of the major labels, such 1952’s My Cousin Rachel, and the relatively recent Fright Night (1985). When the interviews […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1075,11],"tags":[1077,24,1080,1078,1076,1079,1081,709],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-16r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4243"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4261,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions\/4261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}