Lost BLUE VELVET footage found

The story of the flaming nipple...

Congratulations, Darren!

Yes, great news - wonder if this will be available here (U.S.) as well as the U.K.

Looks like it's on the US Blu-ray coming out next Tuesday.

Blu-ray.com review of BLUE VELVET

Thanks, Rob, I have this on preorder but had no idea the "lost footage" was included. I wonder if anyone looked around that warehouse for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

This post has been edited by Wade Sowers on Nov 4 2011, 01:04 PM

I've yet to go Blu. Does this really not have a DVD counterpart? I can't find one on Amazon.

As good a time as any.

Thanks, Bill!

Congrats indeed! Marvelous.

So, getting back to an old topic, any word on the DARK SHADOWS movies, Darren? Maybe tied in with the Burton film?

Folks at Warners have agreed, in principal, to the restoration project- both films are slated to be released a few months after the Burton/Depp film hits video, a stipulation the producers of that film made, reportedlty.

The details on the restoration need to be worked out and finalized.

Also good news. Thanks for the update.

Looking at the Special Edition DVD that preceded this Blu-Ray, I notice it has a 10+ minute deleted scene montage. Now, the Blu-Ray has the 50+ minutes of newly found footage, plus ninety seconds of outtakes... but not the montage from the standard disc.

So, did they really just find 40 minutes of new material, and this new feature includes the deleted scenes from that montage? Or did the Blu-Ray dump some of the excised footage in favor of other excised footage? Has anybody gotten their Blu-Ray and can compare? Do we have to have onto our old DVDs for that feature?

I searched a couple sites (the linked review, DVDBeaver) but nobody seems to have checked.

John:

The "montage" on the old DVD consists of still frames from some of the deleted scenes set to music, hence its short running time. They didn't have the actual footage on hand back then- said footage having been 'lost' and all at the time- so they relied on stills taken during principal photography set to music. As such, they did not "find new material" so much as they* finally tracked down the actual deleted scenes as they existed in 1986 as opposed to mere still frames for this new Blu-ray.

Vincent

* By "they" I mean Darren, BTW, who I consider to be the real hero here.

This post has been edited by Vincent Pereira on Nov 11 2011, 12:55 AM

I have to agree with Vincent about Darren being the real hero here -- without his tireless work, the world would never get to lay its eyes on important, much-rumored but never-seen footage from a true classic of modern filmmaking.

Yup, the R-rated footage from GHOULIES 2!

Why, what were you guys talking about?

(So seriously, about that GHOULIES 2 footage I've heard rumblings about...)

The Ghoulies 2 R footage does exist. It was transferred when it was re-mastered in HD back in 2002 and put at the end of all our masters. No one has opted to make any use of it, so far.

I transferred the brain scooping from Deranged from the producer's only extant print, about a year ago as well. It was in pretty terrible condition, but Post Group were able to work some minor miracles on it. Still not perfect, but acceptable.

If these ever end up on Blu-ray, all they need to do is drop the alternate sequences in. No fuss no muss.

LOL!

Sadly, I'm intrigued.

Darren,

Are you permitted to go into detail about exactly what was in that warehouse in Seattle? Just negative, or were workprint outtakes there as well? Any insight into how Lynch went about deciding which scenes were worth reconstructing (since I read that some of the deleted scenes- i.e., the discovery of another ear in Dorothy's bathroom- are not included)? Also, any chance said warehouse might house other mid-80s DeLaurentiis outtakes (i.e., the "X" gore footage from MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, MANHUNTER and EVIL DEAD 2 outtakes)? I'm just fascinated by this whole endeavor and wonder what other treasures might be out there with a little detective work.

Vincent

It's kind of an elaborate story-- I'll post something in detail when I get the chance. I did an interview with Mr. Lynch on the recovery of the deleted scenes, which I'm told will be posted either to his site or the Fox/MGM site in the near future.

I'll throw out a few pieces of info, though... The Seattle facility isn't where everything had been originally stored, it is part of a huge project we've been doing for the last few years, where every piece of production material (unused neg, audio, production and post-production paperwork, etc.) is logged and inventoried in detail. All of the Blue Velvet material had been pulled from many different storage places around the country and sent there as part of this project. Huge amounts of material that wasn't on previous inventories was found among this material, including all the post-production and editing paperwork (lined script, nagra audio and take logs, code books, breakdowns of what scenes were in various cuts - the longest being 3hrs 28mins.) dailies prints... and the rosetta stone- all of the cut workprint trims- about 106 small pieces or rolls in about 90 boxes... I examined each roll and had them transferred to HDSR in roughly the order they would have been in the film- some were a bit choppy as sometimes a scene was trimmed down bit by bit, then finally removed in its entirety, so it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle... We all realized that the scenes were great, but a bit rough, and it would be ideal to be able to edit all these from scratch. And in a luck of timing, all the inventorying of each piece of the original neg had been completed, which made all of this come together. The workprint trims and all the editing paperwork were the keys, otherwise it would have been impossible. I have to give credit where it's due here and give Brandon Schaeffer a nod- he was our man at the Seattle facility, and he and his team are the ones that found the materials we were looking for, based on the clues I found. They also assembled the raw takes that I requested and shipped them down to LA for transfer, etc.

Lynch and his team (editor Noriko Miyakawa and sound engineer/designer/editor Dean Hurley- angels both of them) looked at all this material (it was about 80mins of stuff) and ticked off on a list I gave them, which scenes he wanted all of the daily material from, and which he didn't... Ultimately, what we didn't have transferred for editing was pretty miniscule- I think the lab scene with the doc and Jeff- and some trims from the bedroom scene with Dorothy and him. Raw takes for everything else was made available. All of Lynch's circled takes for each of the scenes he wanted, and a few N.G. (no good) takes in a few instances just to have more to work with.

Mr. Lynch doesn't really like to explain his motivations, but he ultimately decided not to include a few scenes. I know his editor assembled all of the scenes and showed them to him, and he indicated which he wanted to drop, and really didn't elaborate beyond that... I had a feeling that the police station scene would never make it in- the breakdowns had shown that each time they cut the movie down that scene was in or out. It would fluctuate each time, so clearly there was some ambivalance, and given it's kind of the Simon Oakland Psycho scene, it probably shouldn't have been there.

Since the Seattle location wasn't a DeLaurentiis warehouse there wouldn't be anything in there from Evil Dead or Maximum Overdrive... Most of the rights for Manhunter are owned by Studio Canal (Canal Plus), who I was told several months ago found all of the raw takes and daily material on Manhunter, BUT none of the needed editing paperwork and none of the cut neg used for the 'director's cut' scenes. I followed several possible leads to help them out, but to no avail. I have a feeling that Mann has it and is just unaware of it, since he was deeply involved in the re-edit for TMC or Showtime (can't recall which...).

This post has been edited by Darren Gross on Nov 11 2011, 08:44 PM

For the deleted scenes and outtakes section, the original neg was scanned at 2K resolution (only the needed shots from the final edit list, of course) at Deluxe, color-timing and some minor visual effects done at Fotokem, additional Smoke and Revival work done at Deluxe. Dean Hurley created the 5.1 mix at Lynch's studio and layback and some small tweaks were done at Chace.

P.S. All of the original camera neg, audio is logged and the needed paperwork has been located and is ready to go for WILD AT HEART. I'm hoping that if the Blue Velvet Blu-ray does well enough, I'll be able to have Lynch oversee a re-edited deleted scenes reel. He said he'd be interested, but these are not inexpensive projects... Time will tell!