Flicker Alley Mack Sennett

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:46 am

Starting a new thread for this now that it's out...

I got my set in the mail yesterday and I'm going to crack it open tonight. The first thing I want to see is W C Fields' The Dentist. I have the Criterion "Six by Fields" on both laserdisc and DVD and the set has always irked me because of the Jay Ward music from the theatrical compilation in the late 60s laid over the tops of the soundtracks. This is one of my favorite comedy shorts of all time and I can't wait to dive in. I'll report back tomorrow.

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:24 pm

OH MAN THIS SET IS GREAT!

Last night I saw W.C. Fields' "The Dentist" like I was seeing it for the first time. The aspect is full frame with the curved corners and the sound is a revelation. I've only seen this in the Jay Ward compilation version (on Criterion) and in crummy PD collections. If it doesn't have the unnecessary Jay Ward music, it's got a compressor working overtime to drag the optical soundtrack noise up to ungodly levels in-between each line of dialogue. The sound on the blu-ray is PERFECT... silent in the silences and all of Fields' muttering is in perfect balance. It's amazing how clear the dialogue is when it's presented properly.

I also watched a Ben Turpin short and the print, music, speeds and transfer were all absolutely top notch. I've never seen Sennett look so good.

Fantastic job all around! I can't wait to see more from it, but I'm doling it out to myself a bit at a time so I don't blow through the whole thing all in one sitting and not have the thrill of discovery any more.

NotSoSilent · Post by **NotSoSilent** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:24 pm

I am really enjoying this set. (Getting this along with the new Chaplin set was about as close to Christmas in August as you can get!) The first film I watched was one of my favorites - Fatty and Mabel Adrift. My six-year-old daughter watched it with me. She loves Arbuckle, always laughing simply at the sight of his image on screen. However, about a third of the way into the film she asked, "Is this funny?"

The thing I LOVE about this particular film is how restrained Arbuckle is (at least in parts of it), but that was not what my daughter expected, nor wanted. Anyway, she finished watching it with me - the house floating out to sea helped.

Regarding the set as a whole, it's fantastic. Along with the films, I'm really excited to see all the bonus materials. I quickly peeked at Sennett's 70th (or so) birthday and LOVED seeing all the stars so many years later. Very cool.

I just need a good chunk of a quiet Saturday to make a nice dent in this set. I can't wait!

sc1957 · Post by **sc1957** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 8:04 am

Browsing the booklet that comes with the discs, I notice a number of names that are familiar from this forum. Many thanks to everyone who helped out!

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:51 am

I'm enjoying this set even more than the Chaplin.

I watched a Ford Sterling comedy with James Finlayson that had the premises for a bunch of different comedies packed into one. It started out making fun of ballet dancers, then moved on to making fun of a bartender who had become suddenly wealthy... then for the finale, they pulled out a boxing ring and had them duke it out. Ooodles of fun and the music and completeness of the print made it flow from beginning to end.

The Chaplin set is good, but it's clear that this set had an unusual degree of attention lavished on it that the Chaplin didn't as much. This Sennett set is truly remarkable.

Rick Lanham · Post by **Rick Lanham** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:54 pm

My sets arrived today. Watching them will have to wait until tomorrow since the main TV was previously reserved for something I have little interest in.

Rick

Murnau · Post by **Murnau** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 8:20 pm

Got my set yesterday. Watched two shorts immediately, their quality was very good. The whole collection looks more than interesting. I haven't seen most of the movies before so I can't wait when I have time to watch more.

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 7:15 am

I've sampled a few titles and they do indeed look very good. I can't wait to make my way through the whole thing.

I don't understand why they've all had to be so heavily windowboxed though. Even with overscan on I still have to endure large black bars top and bottom. The Chaplin set uses the entire 1080 vertical pixels.

moglia · Post by **moglia** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:23 am

EddieLarkin wrote:I've sampled a few titles and they do indeed look very good. I can't wait to make my way through the whole thing.

I don't understand why they've all had to be so heavily windowboxed though. Even with overscan on I still have to endure large black bars top and bottom. The Chaplin set uses the entire 1080 vertical pixels.

You really don't understand the aspect ratio differences?

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:16 pm

I understand that all films across both sets should be 1.33:1, and I believe that is what they all are.

We're not talking about aspect ratios here.

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:10 pm

My guess is that they were transferred within the safe area for regular TV broadcast. On broadcast TV, they require a little margin to allow for TV cutoff. It really doesn't affect the image quality any, and it is REALLY nice to see the rounded corners on the frame that are usually cropped out on other transfers.

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:17 pm

I would have thought things like TV safe areas were pretty archaic these days. And it's still inconsistent with the Chaplin set (and about 99% of the rest of the silent Blu-ray catalog).

It certainly does affect the image quality, as the films are presented at something less than 1440x1080p. It's of course unnoticeable to most, including myself probably, but still. It's the fact I have to watch the films in the middle of a box on my big screen TV that irks me. If I had a projector it wouldn't be so much of an issue, but I don't (nor do most).

Paul E. Gierucki · Post by **Paul E. Gierucki** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 6:45 pm

Thanks for all of your comments and discussion about our project, we truly appreciate the input!

For the record, the Mack Sennett collection was produced by CineMuseum in conjunction with Keystone Films, and is distributed by Flicker Alley. The Chaplin Mutuals set was produced by our friends at Film Preservation Associates and Lobster Films in conjunction with their various associates. Their beautiful set is also distributed by Flicker Alley. We all know and respect each other, and sometimes consult or contribute to each others productions, but we are separate entities. These releases have different styles and presentations because they were independently produced by different people and companies.

The Sennett films survive in various conditions and formats. Rather than trying to fill HD screens, we elected to retain as much of the original surviving images as possible. What appears on screen is every usable pixel of every film. Some will prefer this method, some may prefer an image that completely fills the screen. I understand and respect both positions but stand firmly by our presentation choices. We hope that most viewers will also see this as the best way to view these reconstructions.

Again, our sincere thanks for all of the very kind support!

Paul E. Gierucki

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 6:53 pm

Then you telecine'ed out to the sprockets and then masked it in a hair? That makes sense.

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:36 am

bigshot wrote:Then you telecine'ed out to the sprockets and then masked it in a hair? That makes sense.

Didn't you say at the beginning "OH MAN THIS SET IS GREAT!", then you can't stop bitching for one minute and enjoy the damned thing?

And of course, here come the cinewhiner people who can't "endure" the windowboxing. Get a life.

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:18 pm

Thank you for your reply Paul. I should say that I'm not looking to crucify anyone; in the grand scheme of things it's a minor issue and it won't spoil my enjoyment of the set. I'm still not sure I understand though:

Paul E. Gierucki wrote:Rather than trying to fill HD screens, we elected to retain as much of the original surviving images as possible. What appears on screen is every usable pixel of every film. Some will prefer this method, some may prefer an image that completely fills the screen.

Here you seem to imply that by filling the full screen we would somehow have lost picture. But surely that isn't the case? You can have the screen filled AND have every usable pixel of every film visible. What I'm asking is why the films had to be presented like this:

http://i.imgur.com/hR3yNRe.jpg" target="_blank

instead of like this:

http://i.imgur.com/aGYwQtd.jpg" target="_blank

Or more importantly, why will the second volume presumably have to be the same way (or indeed, any future Blu-rays from CineMuseum)?

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 2:03 pm

One explanation (can't say it's THE explanation, but I've come across it before) is that on old film, not every frame scans in exactly the right place through shrinkage or sprocket damage. The image jitters, because some frames are a little high, some a little low. So if you transfer the image to completely fill the digital "frame" based on the perfectly-placed images, other frames will drift out of your scan frame and you'll lose a sliver of image at the top or bottom.

So, instead, you shrink the image slightly to include a bit of black on the top and the bottom so that every image, even those shifted a little up and down, are completely scanned.

Now, take your jittery film transfer, and run it through a program that shifts the images up or down to get rid of the jitter. You get a nice stable image! But you also have a bit of black at the top and bottom, because that was your "slop" area.

I'm over it. I'd rather have that than have the top or bottom of selected images missing.

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 2:32 pm

Rodney wrote:I'm over it. I'd rather have that than have the top or bottom of selected images missing.

If that is indeed the reason, then we're in complete agreement.

Paul E. Gierucki · Post by **Paul E. Gierucki** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:27 pm

The inestimable Mr. Sauer is absolutely correct, this is a part of the process for transferring and stabilizing difficult materials. (We are preparing a mini-documentary detailing this and the rest of our cleanup work for V2.) Regardless, we will certainly give these suggestions serious consideration for future releases.

PG

sc1957 · Post by **sc1957** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:48 pm

Paul, how many volumes are you considering?

(Just thinking about the damage to my bank account.)

EddieLarkin · Post by **EddieLarkin** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:50 pm

Thanks again Paul, your confirmation is very much appreciated.

Paul E. Gierucki · Post by **Paul E. Gierucki** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:04 pm

It really depends upon the success of Volume One, Scott. I would be open to doing more than two if people are interested.

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 6:17 pm

LouieD wrote:Didn't you say at the beginning "OH MAN THIS SET IS GREAT!", then you can't stop bitching for one minute and enjoy the damned thing? And of course, here come the cinewhiner people who can't "endure" the windowboxing. Get a life.

Holy cow! What's your problem. I wasn't complaining. I am just interested in the technical aspects of telecine'ing films with a special aspect ratio. Normal sound framing crops silent aperture. To get the whole image, they have to expand the area that they scan.

s.w.a.c. · Post by **s.w.a.c.** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:19 am

Mine showed up this morning just as I was getting ready to go to work...mustn't.......open.......the set.......

sc1957 · Post by **sc1957** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 9:06 pm

Watching the films in this set led me to pull out my copy of Mack Sennett's Fun Factory and do a little reading. I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't opened that book since I first read it.

Smari1989 · Post by **Smari1989** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:24 am

As for me, I still haven't got around to watch the Sennett-set, merely because I still don't have a BluRay-player....I intended to get one, but it turns out that my TV-set is too old to be able to install such a thing (mid-90s)....so that will have to wait a bit. Oh well, I'm still enjoying the Chaplin-Mutuals. And judging from the booklet, the Sennett-set looks damn great. Looking forward to watch it, eventually.

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:30 pm

bigshot wrote:
LouieD wrote:Didn't you say at the beginning "OH MAN THIS SET IS GREAT!", then you can't stop bitching for one minute and enjoy the damned thing? And of course, here come the cinewhiner people who can't "endure" the windowboxing. Get a life.
Holy cow! What's your problem.

I've been trying to figure that one out for a long time. I do say he needs to get his pejoratives consistent. He started with "weasels", now he's on to "cinewhiners". How about people who personally insult those who, while praising a release even, point out issues they've noticed that might be able to be fixed or improved in future releases? Get a life indeed. I would point out that, while calling attention to perceived issues in DVD releases isn't in violation of board rules, I'm pretty sure personal insults and name-calling is.

"I'd like to complain about people who hold things up by complaining about people who complain. It's about time something was done about it."

s.w.a.c. · Post by **s.w.a.c.** » Mon Aug 25, 2014 6:12 am

Smari1989 wrote:As for me, I still haven't got around to watch the Sennett-set, merely because I still don't have a BluRay-player....I intended to get one, but it turns out that my TV-set is too old to be able to install such a thing (mid-90s)....so that will have to wait a bit.

Don't let the TV stop you, if it has composite (single yellow plug) or component (red/blue/green) inputs, you can keep an eye out for a Seiki blu-ray player, I think K-Mart in the U.S. has been stocking them, which lets you plug it into an older TV. Just make sure you set the resolution for 480p or 480i so it'll play on your regular cathode ray tube set. Granted, you won't get the full resolution of BD, but in many cases you'll see an improvement just from the upgraded transfers alone.

Also, the Seiki can be made region-free for DVD and region-switchable for blu-ray, if that's an added incentive, and best of all they're relatively cheap. But there are also adapters you can find at electronics shops (Radio Shack and so on) that let you plug newer digital players into older analog TVs.

moglia · Post by **moglia** » Fri Aug 29, 2014 9:44 pm

The Flicker Alley Mack Sennett is killer. Great looking and most importantly really fun to watch unlike another Silent set released on the same date.

This is the type of set one should pick up a second copy to give to a friend or family in the hope it piques their interest into the Silent Film Comedy genre. The more people that become fans the better. I really want to see more sets like this one and that hinges on sales!

Anyhow 3 huge cheers for the Sennett set and the hope we get a Vol 2!

JFK · Post by **JFK** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 11:23 am

For those wishing to show their support for a DVD version,
see this post at: silentcomedymafia.com