Tweet A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902)

This has probably been posted somewhere... I have my order in:

http://www.flickeralley.com/fat_trip_01.html

Curious - Amazon lists the disc as blu-ray at that price, while the Flicker Alley link doesn't mention it. $39.95 msrp would seem mighty steep for a standard def disc.

It's $10 cheaper as pre-order direct from Flicker Alley.....

Curious - Amazon lists the disc as blu-ray at that price, while the Flicker Alley link doesn't mention it. $39.95 msrp would seem mighty steep for a standard def disc.

It's a DVD/Blu-ray combo set.

The bluray is almost all taken up by the documentary about the restoration. There are only 3 Melies films on the disk totaling a little over a half hour. I bought the five disk Melies DVD and the Encore disk instead. It has every remaining film by Melies and looks great on my projection system. If they want me to spend $35 on a bluray, they need to give me two hours of films on it, not a half hour of films and 90 minutes of supplemental documentary.

Serge Bromberg is bringing A Trip to the Moon to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 9. Program:

Mon, Apr 9 at 7pm
A Trip to the Moon and Other Travels
World-famous film preservationist and entertainer Serge Bromberg returns to BAM with this special program featuring his recently restored color version of Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon and a selection of rare
silent films from around the world. This program features silent shorts with live accompaniment from Bromberg, including:
A Trip to the Moon (1902) Directed by George Méliès Recently featured in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning movie Hugo, Georges Méliès short masterpiece about a trip to our cratered neighbor was recently restored by Serge Bromberg with its original 1902 colors. Featuring a kinetic score by Air, this restoration was hailed by The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott as “surely a cinematic highlight of the year, maybe the century.” Winner of the National Film Critics award for Best Film Restoration of the year.
A Trip Down Market Street (1906) A famous trip down San Francisco’s Market Street.
San Francisco After the Catastrophe (1906) San Francisco a few days later, after the catastrophic 1906 earthquake.
After the Ball (1897) An erotic film from George Méliès.
The Love Nest (1923) New restoration of a very funny Buster Keaton short about a boat trip.

I may have missed seeing it (perhaps in another post), but is there a release date for this yet?

The original release date was March 27th, but Flicker Alley has pushed the release date back to April 10.

Thanks for the info. Can't wait!

I am in the process of digesting the DVD having received it yesterday.

Big question here: in the documentary (maybe 5 and 1/2 minutes in) there's a subtitle stating that we are listening to the voice of Melies from iirc 1931. Now, I'm pretty sure that he gave an interview about then but was it recorded?

If so, I'm very surprised that this hasn't surfaced elsewhere.

If not (which I kinda suspect), I would imagine that someone translated erroneously maybe something like "the words of George Melies" into "the voice of....." and that it was really a French actor speaking.

Anybody out there that can shed definitive light on this?

Steve

This is a very nice package. DVD and Blu-ray discs, and a small booklet, in a steelbook case.

The colored film looks wonderful. I noticed so many things that I'd overlooked before. The modern score by AIR is odd and jarring at first (very percussive), but settles in just fine as the film proceeds.

There's also a black-and-white version of the film that looks very good. The B&W version has three audio options: An orchestral score with Melies' narration, a piano score, and the piano score with a actors providing voices for the characters. That last alternative is pretty amusing. One problem that Flicker Alley has acknowledged is that they left the Melies narration off the Blu-ray disc (apparently the DVD has it). They say the problem will be corrected in the future, but they're still selling the current pressing, so buyer beware if that Blu-ray narration is important to you. No word yet on a replacement disc program.

The documentary is OK, though it features a bit too much of Tom Hanks as Melies' fictional assistant from a 1998 film. Typical shots of decomposing nitrate film and the efforts made to recover and restore the color print. Talking heads like Jean-Pierre Jeunet discuss Melies' importance.

The booklet is derived from a 196-page book that's available online as some sort of Flash-based(?) file... you can't download it (at least not from this source). The booklet has lots of information about the dimensions and construction of Melies's studio.

One problem that Flicker Alley has acknowledged is that they left the Melies narration off the Blu-ray disc (apparently the DVD has it). They say the problem will be corrected in the future, but they're still selling the current pressing, so buyer beware if that Blu-ray narration is important to you. No word yet on a replacement disc program..

Groan. <edit> OK, here is the info as they state it:

We've successfully received the order for A TRIP TO THE MOON IN COLOR & THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE BD/DVD Combo Limited SteelBook Edition.
Quantity ordered: 1
Dear Flicker Alley Customer, Thank you very much for your interest ordering the A TRIP TO THE MOON IN COLOR & THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE BD/DVD Combo Limited SteelBook edition. Please note that one of the bonus feature audio options on the Blu-ray disc of our limited SteelBook edition -- A Trip to the Moon in B&W Audio Option 1, featuring Robert Israel's orchestral score and the original English narration written by Georges Melies -- is currently missing its narration track and only features Robert Israel's orchestral score. As such, all Blu-ray discs shipped at this time will be with this orchestral score only configuration. This only affects the Blu-ray disc of this set. The DVD disc in this publication contains the correct audio for this bonus feature. We are currently in the process of remastering and remanufacturing a Blu-ray disc which will have the correct audio option for this particular bonus feature, and will make it available in the near future, by request, to customers who fill out our on-line Disc Replacement Form, which can be found on the product information page of the Flicker Alley website (www.flickeralley.com). We appreciate your business and understanding in this matter. Sincerely, The Flicker Alley Team

Rick

A blu-ray.com user got an e-mail which indicates that there will be a replacement disc program:

"...We are currently in the process of remastering and remanufacturing a Blu-ray disc which will have the correct audio option for this particular bonus feature, and will make it available in the near future, by request, to customers who fill out our on-line Disc Replacement Form, which can be found on the product information page of the Flicker Alley website..."

Today there's a link near the bottom of the Trip to the Moon page to a Disc Replacement Form.

I gave them my info. A "Thank You" form says that they'll contact me when the discs are re-printed and ready.

I received my copy and I have to say, it's one of the nicest packages I've ever seen for a DVD or Blu-ray. The case is great, beautiful artwork and a good solid feel, the art on the discs is great, and the booklet is nicely done. Really, it blows away virtually all, if not actually all, of the special editions from much bigger studios.

The only downer is the score on the color version. To me it's awful; probably the worst accompaniment of any official silent release I've ever heard. (I'm sure it's not Flicker Alley's fault though, I'm sure it was a contractual requirement.) Whose idea was it??? Was it an attempt to make the film more palatable for younger viewers? Well, younger viewers won't watch it, much less buy it, and any that do would likely be "one of us" and would appreciate it more with an appropriate score. It's akin to thinking that colorizing Citizen Kane will make young people more likely to watch it. So the only effect it does have is to irritate its real audience.

Despite that, I'm VERY glad that Flicker Alley has made this available. And the documentary is well done and nice to have.

I received my copy and I have to say, it's one of the nicest packages I've ever seen for a DVD or Blu-ray. The case is great, beautiful artwork and a good solid feel, the art on the discs is great, and the booklet is nicely done. Really, it blows away virtually all, if not actually all, of the special editions from much bigger studios.

The only downer is the score on the color version. To me it's awful; probably the worst accompaniment of any official silent release I've ever heard. (I'm sure it's not Flicker Alley's fault though, I'm sure it was a contractual requirement.) Whose idea was it??? Was it an attempt to make the film more palatable for younger viewers? Well, younger viewers won't watch it, much less buy it, and any that do would likely be "one of us" and would appreciate it more with an appropriate score. It's akin to thinking that colorizing Citizen Kane will make young people more likely to watch it. So the only effect it does have is to irritate its real audience.

Despite that, I'm VERY glad that Flicker Alley has made this available. And the documentary is well done and nice to have.

One wonders why they didn't just add the Israel score with the narration plus the other score options as additional tracks to the color version...??? Are the running times different? The black and white version doesn't really need to be on there anyway, as it's already on the Melies box set.

I wasn't going to get this set, but the film group I volunteer for bought it for me. It is one of the most frustrating videos I have ever seen.

The color version of "A Trip To The Moon" looks very nice. But after watching the documentary on how it was restored, it's pretty clear that not one single frame of it is actually taken from the original color print. They assigned frame numbers to each frame, corresponding the badly decomposed hand tinted version with a B&W print in good condition. Then they used the hand tinted version as a color key for colorizing the B&W version. They never say this in the film, but they do say that in the original hand colored print, no more than five frames in sequence every survived intact. There were gaps scattered every few frames throughout the whole film. They show a colorist recreating the hand tinting for combining with the B&W print, and he turns off the film layer to show his tinting layer and it is continuous rotoscoped throughout the whole scene. Also, they state that the color print was tinted yellow overall throughout, but after the restoration, the colors are applied over B&W.

That said, the colorizing does a very good job of mimicking the look of dye tinting. I wouldn't know it was computer colorized if I didn't see how they did it.

The documentary is very good, and it gives tantalizing 1080p clips from Melies films not on the bluray. It's clear that they didn't necessarily pick the bonus films because they would look best in hidef, they picked them because they had an astronomical theme. That's a shame, because on my projection system, the improvement in image quality of the bluray over Flicker Alley's DVD Melies sets isn't all that great on "The Eclipse".

The B&W version of "A Trip To The Moon" is missing the voice over narration Melies wrote for it. Flicker Alley is going to fix that and do a disk replacement program when the corrected pressing is ready. The music on the documentary and B&W versions are very good.

But this brings me to the most infuriating part of this disk...

The color version of "A Trip To The Moon" has only one soundtrack, and it is the WORST soundtrack I have ever heard added to a silent film. The old Blackhawk needle drops and the dreadful Clubfoot Keaton are better than this. The music sounds like the bastard child of Pink Floyd and 1970s porno movie soundtracks. It doesn't hit a single accent in the film. During chase scenes it noodles along aimlessly. Explosions happen on the screen as the underwater synth sounds loop on and on. The music makes the film seem boring, and that's quite a trick. I have no idea why they used this track in the first place, and I'm even more baffled why they provided no alternative. I can't watch the color version with this soundtrack. The whole reason for buying this disk and the thing the documentary is building up is totally ruined by lousy music.

Flicker Alley did a great job of packaging this... the case is beautiful. The documentary is interesting. But there is nothing for all of it to be backing up. Three short B&W films that only look marginally better than DVD and a beautiful colorized version with a soundtrack that renders it unwatchable. What a waste!

Wow, this sounds incredibly disappointing, especially after all that buildup. All that money spent on "restoring" the color version of the film, yet NOT ONE FRAME OF THIS PRINT is actually seen in said restoration, just a computer simulation (albeit by all accounts an extremely faithful one) laid over a black-and-white print? And on top of that, the only score option for the color version is for one of those awful newfangled electro-percusso-experimental jobs ala the Alloy Orchestra? Yikes.

Without wanting to get into an argument because I don't have a dog in this fight, I'll just say that there are people who are excited about this project BECAUSE it has a modern soundtrack by AIR. The "old favorite" composers that some people prize are just names to this newer generation.

The documentary shows the original color print film being placed in a glass jar above a restorative(?) solution. Every few days they (Serge Bromberg/Eric Lange) would take it out and pry another few frames off of the print... the film had bonded at the edges, but not the center. Then they would digitize those few frames. This work began in 1999, and the resulting digitized file was just stored until recently, when they felt that they had the tools needed to pull it together. I think it's wrong to say that "not one single frame of it is actually taken from the original color print."

This soundtrack is much worse than the Alloy Orchestra scores. It's loopy, dreamy synth ambiences that bear absolutely no resemblence to what is going on in the film. Characters are being chased and running away, aliens are exploding and the music loops on as if it's half asleep. Even the big boom when the cannon shoots them into space goes by without being noticed by the musicians. It looks as if some ambient Tangerine Dream sort of band just pulled cues off the shelf and wallpapered them in sequence by sequence withut regard for the action.

I am quite sure that nothing from the deteriorating color print has been incorporated into the final color version. They explain it all in the documentary.

The color print was taken off the reel a few frames at a time, and the frames were photographed. But the photographs obviously would not be usable as moving images because big chunks were missing and parts of the frame had shrunk and deteriorated. The documentary shows the Technicolor colorist with two monitors side by side- one with a fragment of a frame from the color print and the other with the corresponding frame from the clean B&W print. He is digitally duplicating the colors as an overlay on the B&W print. They talk about trying to duplicate the way the dyes built up on the film as the hand tinter would reload her brush. When they show the restored clip, it has the exact same detail as the B&W print and none of the deterioration of the color print.

This is the only way they could have possibly accomplished this. If they tried to patch missing frames or parts of frames from the B&W print into the color print, the yellow overall tint and the density fluctuations in the deteriorating nitrate in the color print would have made it impossible to match. It would flicker and wiggle around like crazy.

I used to do art conservation and there are specific terms conservators use to describe their work. "Preservation" is halting deterioration and documenting the work in its current state, "Restoration" is maintaining all of the original and only bridging gaps or missing areas with newly created patches with the goal of returning it to as close to the original state as possible without impacting the original parts that remain. "Recreation" is using existing reference to recreate a work as it originally appeared.

The color print of "A Trip To The Moon" was first *preserved* and documented. Then it was used as reference to *recreate* the color version using a *restored* B&W print. It's inaccurate to say that the color print has been "restored" because nothing of the color print remains in the new color version except for the information that it gave the computer colorization crew.

I don't see anything wrong with this approach. They obviously cared a great deal about the project and did an excellent job. I don't know why tey would shoot themselves in the foot by saddling this beautiful recreation with a horrible soundtrack. Maybe one of the financial backers had terrible taste in music and insisted. I just wish they provided an alternative.

I emailed Flicker Alley and begged them that since they were going to remaster the bluray disk anyway, to go a little further and add Robert Israel's score to the color version too. I realy hope they do that, because without it, the new color version is unwatchable.

If they add the Israel score with the (essential in my opinion) narration as an option to the colorized version, I'll bite. If this is the best we can get of the original hand-colored version, I'm fine with that, but the way it's been hyped has been a bit misleading, however unintentionally.

The AIR score as exclusive accompaniment is a contractual requirement imposed by agreement between AIR and the Foundations that paid a huge amount of money for this project that, not withstanding the short running time of the film, is probably the most complex film restoration ever undertaken. Some people may not like the music but others do, and it came about because the Foundations polled several leading current French film directors who recommended AIR. Certainly it is a matter of taste and there is no right and wrong. There is a sunset on the AIR score because it was Melies' wish that the film be accompanied "in the mode" and of course, "the mode" in music changes rather quickly over time. There is even an original published score from 1903 which was composed by Ezra Read (1860-1922), a prolific and very successful composer of the era who, with his wife,Ida Hampden, is said to have written over 4000 pieces under some 120 pen names. Some of his works, such as "Cinderella Waltz," sold over a million copies. Maybe we'll record it someday, but its appeal is strictly antiquarian. whereas Melies' film still seems to charm almost everyone. Any music may be used at live performances.

In contrast to Bigshot's assertion, approximately 85% of the film is reproduced from the original hand colored print; the rest is filled in from the original (and marginally sharper) b&w original print from the Melies family, and computer colored. Sharp eyes can easily detect the difference between the two. I vass dere, Bigshot wasn't. Because the b&w print is sharper, HUGO used it and computer colored all the footage from ATTTM included in it.

As the Melies character says in that film, "this is where dreams are made." Isn't it amazing that a year before the first airplane flight, Melies imagined explorers arriving on the moon protected only by overcoats and umbrellas ... and that man actually walked on the moon before the birth of many persons living today who are now university graduates and parents!

Melies' voice was recorded in 1937, not 1931.

David Shepard

A couple of questions...

Then is the scene in the documentary of them colorizing every frame in a scene in the B&W print the work they did for Hugo?

When you say 85% is the color print, do you mean 85% of the frames are from the color version, or are you counting frames that are composites of both the color and the B&W? I am honestly interested in how they merged the prints into one, but the documentary is extremely vague about it. Did they overlay both prints in layers and work out a composite of the two using one layer as a filter over the other, or did they cut back and forth and color correct and blur to make the different footage match? The former seems possible. The latter approach seems like it would result in a hodgepodge mess.

Do you happen to know how long they're contractually obligated to use the horrible synth score with this? Is there hope that in a year or two they can release it properly?

I saw this in the theater last month and was very worried about the score. While it wasn't perfect, it didn't really bother me or take away from my enjoyment of the film. I guess it's just a matter of different tastes. I haven't seen too many instances of a company redoing a release just based on the music unless there's a legal reason.

There are few frames that are composites of the hand color and the b&w. There are lots of frames where the hand colored original had shattered into pieces the size of corn flakes and these were electronically reassembled. The film was also stabilized and cleaned frame by frame, especially as so much of it came from the digital stills (due to the chemicals used to unstick the roll, the original print has now almost completely decomposed) and the b&w was registered against the color -- the original prints were clearly made on different printers and the one used for the color copy was rather imprecise. I don't think there were any single frames of b&w inserted but there are lots of bits sometimes less than a second long. Look carefully at the film and you will find them.

Sorry, the sunset date on the AIR score isn't public information, but it is years away. We don't want sales to be stopped dead by people waiting for a re-do with other music, which may never happen anyway.

DS

I patiently waited for Sherlock Jr to get a soundtrack that didn't want to make me throw things at the screen. I guess I can be patient for the smell of Air to dissipate too. I suppose I could try to mix and match up the soundtrack myself.

Without wanting to get into an argument because I don't have a dog in this fight, I'll just say that there are people who are excited about this project BECAUSE it has a modern soundtrack by AIR. The "old favorite" composers that some people prize are just names to this newer generation.

Word. I listen to NPR from time to time, and caught AIR being interviewed on several shows, including "World Café," plugging the film and their earlier work. One of their previous recordings, Moon Safari, has a lunar theme as well, one reason I believe that they were chosen. On the radio, the musicians were coherent, intelligent, and showed their respect and admiration for the film. They also reached quite an audience of radio listeners who would otherwise not have heard about the new restoration.

Let the record show that when I scored Bardelys the Magnificent, I scored no national (let alone international) radio interviews, despite sending out some feelers -- just a local spot on Colorado Public Radio. The Alloy Orchestra has also done pretty well along these lines, and gives good radio too.

I don't think it works to market silent films as "silent films for people who hate silent films". If the films were well restored and transferred and combined with sympathetic soundtracks like the fantastic Wings soundtrack, silent films wouldn't seem dated, but would engage the audiences in the stories the original filmmakers intended to tell. That's the best way to avoid seeming dated.

The best way to make a film look "old fashioned" is to slap an arbitrary soundtrack on it that screams "contemporary".

In this case, it's not just bad taste. It's clear that the musicians had no clue how to score for picture. The music and action bear no relationship to each other. It's as if the radio is playing in the next room. Amateurish.

Unfortunately, it renders the color version of "A Trip to the Moon" totally unwatchable. I'm hoping I can research up some way to rip the bluray and combine the track from the B&W version on the DVD with the picture of the color on the bluray. I'm guessing that it may be a bit of work, but it's the only way to reclaim the $35 I paid for this disk.

The AIR score as exclusive accompaniment is a contractual requirement imposed by agreement between AIR and the Foundations that paid a huge amount of money for this project that, not withstanding the short running time of the film, is probably the most complex film restoration ever undertaken. Some people may not like the music but others do, and it came about because the Foundations polled several leading current French film directors who recommended AIR. Certainly it is a matter of taste and there is no right and wrong.

Perhaps polling current French film directors on a choice of silent film score composers wasn't a good idea (!). Perhaps polling silent film enthusiasts (you know, the peeps that are responsible for most of the sales of silent film DVDs and Blu-rays, and make up most of the audience of silent film screenings) might have been a better idea (!). But it would be all well and good, if only there were an alternate score choice. Unfortunately, the hand-colored version is now chained to AIR.

In contrast to Bigshot's assertion, approximately 85% of the film is reproduced from the original hand colored print; the rest is filled in from the original (and marginally sharper) b&w original print from the Melies family, and computer colored. Sharp eyes can easily detect the difference between the two. I vass dere, Bigshot wasn't.

That is excellent news, sir! Thanks for setting the record straight; sounds like the documentary is a little confusing on that bit.

DVDBeaver review--Strongly recommended
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank

DVDTalk review--DVD Talk Collector's Series
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/54725/tr ... -voyage-a/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Just rip the discs and slap together a new one that makes you happy (and upload it somewhere ). It's fun, easy, and stress-relieving.