The Blair Witch Challenge producer says an upcoming Blu-ray launch will lastly current the movie because it was at all times meant to be seen.
The Blair Witch Challenge producer Michael Monello says the upcoming October Blu-ray launch of the film from Second Sight will lastly “signify the filmmakers full imaginative and prescient for the movie” after years of sub-par transfers.
“For 25 years, Artisan/Lions Gate have been content material to place out a model of this movie that’s NOT how the filmmakers supposed it to look, with damaged movement and movie grain over video,” Monello mentioned. “Now that we’ve an precise filmmaker and producer authorised model popping out, I believe I’ve earned the proper to dump on a launch of the switch that Artisan did with out consulting us. In the event that they need to money seize dump it out there I can’t cease them, however I’m not going to close up about one thing I labored so onerous on being launched with a shoddy switch and the identical previous extras.“
Monello continued, “It hasn’t been introduced but, however there’s a NEW model of the unique movie popping out in October with unique new content material. and for the primary time ever the movie will look the way in which it was supposed to from the start. Again in 1999, Artisan by no means consulted us on the switch and so they… I imagine the technical time period is ‘f***ed all of it up’ and neither they or Lions Gate ever mounted it. Not even for the Blu-Ray launch. The model coming will stand as the one model that represents the filmmakers full imaginative and prescient for the movie.“
There’s one other model of The Blair Witch Challenge set to be launched in October by Imprint (which additionally contains the sequel, E book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2), however it could seem it makes use of the identical previous switch that’s been used for years. Right here’s hoping the opposite launch from Second Sight will get an official announcement earlier than too lengthy.
Monello obtained extra technical concerning the new switch on Reddit. “The movie was shot on hi-8 and 16mm. The 16mm was transferred to video, taking it from 24 frames per second to 30 frames per second (the usual for video on the time). All of it was loaded into an enhancing machine and the ultimate edited model was then ‘burned’ onto DigiBeta tape,” Monello defined. “That tape is technically the ‘unfavorable’ of the film. However in 1999, films solely had movie negatives, there have been hardly any mainstream distributed movies shot on video. To distribute the film, in addition to display screen it at Sundance, we needed to make a 35mm print, as no theaters might present video on the time, and Sundance refused to display screen video as nicely.“
Monello continued, “So the theatrical model everybody noticed was hi-8 (30fps) and transferred 16mm movie (24fps transformed to 30fps) all transformed to 35mm movie at the usual body charge of 24fps.” Monello mentioned that whereas it wasn’t excellent, it was what may very well be performed on the time, however the actual bother began when it got here time to make a house video model of the film.
As an alternative of utilizing the digibeta grasp, they took the transferred 35mm unfavorable, and transferred it BACK to video (30fps). The web results of all this transferring meant the house video model doesn’t look or really feel like video anymore, and the movement is tousled. The movie was speculated to seem like uncooked video digicam footage. We had no thought Artisan did that till we recorded the commentary monitor. After I noticed the video switch we questioned why it seemed so horrible. The crew recording the commentary had no solutions as a result of that they had nothing to do with it, so we inquired and have been advised it’s all being dealt with proper. Besides it wasn’t. That horrible switch is what was launched. And it was launched once more that was for the BD. It sucked, however we performed good troopers and didn’t make a stink on the time.
So this new Blu-ray launch of The Blair Witch Challenge isn’t some miraculously crisp 4K model of the film (nor ought to it’s), however it is going to be probably the most correct model of the film because the filmmakers initially supposed.
It was introduced earlier this yr {that a} new reimagining of The Blair Witch Challenge was being developed by Blumhouse, which prompted a backlash from the unique inventive crew because the main actors of the primary film have by no means been correctly financially compensated for the undertaking.
