Tweet 5/20 - Los Angeles, CA - The Kid Brother/High and Dizzy

http://www.laco.org/events/194/

The Kid Brother (1927) and High and Dizzy (1920), DigiBeta
with Carl Davis conducting his score with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Sunday, May 20, 2012, 6:30pm
Royce Hall, UCLA

Did anyone attend last night’s event? I was mortified by the UCLA Royce Hall projection situation. I gather the 35mm equipment is no longer being used. Please let me know if I've been misinformed. Prior to yesterday's Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Silent Film Gala, the last movie I attended at Royce Hall was TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE. For that event, Royce Hall presented a hi-def video clone of the UCLA restoration. For last night's HIGH AND DIZZY and THE KID BROTHER, it didn't appear to be even 1080p. Suzanne Lloyd told me last night that both films were shown as standard definition DVD. Perhaps she meant to say a clone of the DVD Mastering DigiBeta? (I recognized the video transfers used as I had produced them for The Harold Lloyd Trust back in 2002-2003).

Of course, Sue Lloyd was disappointed with the results as were others I spoke to (TCM's Charlie Tabesh, producer David Jacobs, actor James Karen, and maestro Carl Davis among them). There were intermittent digital artifacts (shown as horizontal lines) during both films. After Roger Mayer and Leonard Maltin made LONG speeches about film preservation at the start of the evening, their thoughts were severely undercut by problematic video.

I’ve been involved with the LACO Silent Film Gala for many years; I had just stepped down this past year. If I were still involved, I would have lobbied for actual film or better video. A real shame as this used to be an exemplary event in every respect.

Did anyone attend last night’s event? I was mortified by the UCLA Royce Hall projection situation. I gather the 35mm equipment is no longer being used. Please let me know if I've been misinformed. Prior to yesterday's Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Silent Film Gala, the last movie I attended at Royce Hall was TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE. For that event, Royce Hall presented a hi-def video clone of the UCLA restoration. For last night's HIGH AND DIZZY and THE KID BROTHER, it didn't appear to be even 1080p.

That's really too bad. The 35mm prints of THE KID BROTHER are truly stunning, since the camera negative survives in excellent condition. I don't think I've even seen a bad 16mm of that title.

I went to that screening of Tillie's; sitting up close, I would've guessed it was SD if not DVD. The picture was so bright and washed out, that it was no longer black-and-white, but gray-and-white! Dreadful. Not even the thought of hearing Carl Davis live could convince me to go back and put up with more video there.