Topic: Next Columbia DVD

[TAUBLAR]

This is what Shelly Jacobs (a man who is very involved with the colorization process) says to that......

You miss the point. SONY's idea is to interest a NEW generation of viewers to the STOOGES, domestic and particularly foreign, i.e., India & China, as they have all grown up on color TV, as physical comedy travels well worldwide. It's just a way to repurpose their near dead assets to maximize income, not an esoteric artistic endeavor.

[locoboymakesgood]

I'm a hardcore Stooges and L&H fan, and I like the colorized shorts for each. When I was a kid watching the colorized Laurel and Hardy shorts on Comedy Central, I thought it was the neatest thing. I always wondered when they were going to do it with the Stooges. As long as they offer the B&W counterpart on the same package, then I'm content.

Fox is releasing the 4 PD shorts on DVD April 1st, to coincide with Snow White & the Three Stooges/Soup to Nuts DVD release. Those will be colorized as well.

[Peter]

Well said Locoboymakesgood.
To Genius and Pilsner:
I would be against Colourisation if the Black & White originals were locked away, never to be seen again - but they're not!
It looks like we are finally going to see the shorts that have not been officially released as well as those that will be making their first appearance on DVD - so that can't be a bad thing.
As for getting the quantity of Columbia Shorts wrong, if you notice, I did admit my mistake later.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - here in the UK, we have not had a regular showing of Three Stooges shorts for more than 10 years (Come on, 'I'm Baggie' - back me up here).
If the only way we can get them is on DVD's containing Colourised versions as well as restored black & white versions, then what is the problem with that?
I do however hope that future releases are a little lower in price if they only include 4 shorts.
I await the responses with baited breath:)
Peter

[xraffle]

I doubt that the colorization DVDs were a success. I checked the sales rank on several online sites, especially Amazon, and the rank is pretty much the same as the b&w releases. And if Columbia is really going to colorize all their Stooge shorts, they are out of their minds. I have a feeling that this might be a rumor. I don't disagree with the fact that they will release more colorized DVDs, but I just disagree with the fact that they are going to colorize all the shorts.

[TAUBLAR]

More in reply from Shelly Jacobs, colorization advocate, posted at the Classic Horror Film Board, and reprinted here.....

*Framing any comments as "spurious" near the beginning of a text is an old journalistic parlor trick to discredit the subject matter in the minds of the reader prior to reading further, Journalism 101.

*I may have gotten my #s off by two shorts, that's academic, and not worthy of rechecking. The writer's comments re what is and isn't cost effective is mere personal supposition.

*The sales success re original projections I get directly from THE source. No, not all of the shorts have been colorized as yet, but that is the plan.

*Regardless, SONY owns 'em and if they want to colorize 'em, rotoscope animate 'em, CGI 'em, or burn 'em, that's their business, but if they got too far afield from the original content, then they will have to pay Comedy Three negotiated royalties.

* I only wish that I owned the Stooges shorts in order to repurpose myself. Yup, I tried to get 'em years ago, but were "not for sale." I had a good idea . . . at least SONY now thinks so!

[Peter]

Hi Taublar,
I've visited the Classic Horror Film Board and there's plenty of interesting stuff on it.
I tried to find the original articles by Shelly Jacobs but had no luck.
Could you tell me please which particular forum they were originally posted in?
Thanks in advance,
Peter

[TAUBLAR]

Hi Taublar,
I've visited the Classic Horror Film Board and there's plenty of interesting stuff on it.
I tried to find the original articles by Shelly Jacobs but had no luck.
Could you tell me please which particular forum they were originally posted in?
Thanks in advance,
Peter

Sure. Look under Classic Horror on DVD. Then the sub-topic, "Colorization, it won't stay dead"  for Shelly's many posts on this subject.

[TAUBLAR]

For those of you who can't figure the economics of  colorizing the Stooges shorts.....here's what colorization guru, Shelly Jacobs says......(via Classic Horror Film Forum)....

Total cost for SONY to colorize all STOOGES:

18 min. [avg.] x 190 = 3,420 min.
3,420 x $4,374 @min. hi-def colorization & misc. =
$14,959,080

meaning, in the area of only $15 million SONY gets:
1. New 95 year copyrights.
2. New appraised balance sheet asset value.
3. New worldwide audiences for DVD, television syndication, download subscription for any device, i.e., PCs, DVRs, DVD recorders, VCRs, memory cards, PVPs [Portable Video Players].
4. DVD MPEG-2 issuance, followed by another sale, BluRay DVD issuance.
5. And let's not forget the new PlayStation Portable that will play video, including full length movies, i.e., ideal demographic for STOOGES, being that millions of these units are expected to be sold at est. $250, initially, then improved with the new SONY PlayStation 3 chip, known as the CELL, rated 10x faster than your highest end PC processor of today.