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I've always assumed that Mr. Stanton is FSM's official announcment/PR guy.
Yes, that's me. I've also been blessed with being able to promote all of the wonderful Tribute Film Classics releases. It's all such a great pleasure.
And it's particularly satisfying to announce something like this... when no one sees it coming.
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Ok, I just have to point out this source of amusement -- the online notes all mistakenly have the notes for The V.I.P.s from the Rozsa box.
That's just a placeholder. We'll have the actual notes up for your reading enjoyment shortly.
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Posted: |
Dec 11, 2009 - 3:36 PM
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By: |
robertmro
(Member)
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[startquote
There have been many requests for the Stothart NORTHWEST PASSAGE score. In a short time, PASSAGE will be 70 years old, and though the score certainly reflects the recording systems of the time, the sound clips are surprisingly good and will be a great treat for those of us who appreciate these old scores. What particularly surprises me about the release of this score is that it is virtually complete. That would imply that, as suspected, there might be more scores from this early period in the Warner/Turner/MGM vaults which might be accessed in near complete form. Bring on more Stothart, Waxman, Kaper, Amfitheatrof, Tiomkin, Ward, etc.
I would guess that any film in Technicolor Process Three like NORTHWEST PASSAGE where the original Technicolor separations have been preserved by the studio, should have excellent sound, because Technicolor needed high quality optical sound and music tracks to include in the black (contrast improving dye pass) that also contained the soundtrack.
The only thing that I don't know is, did MGM make the sound mix or did Technicolor?
Can an experts clear this up for me?
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I've never seen or heard of these scores so I did the best thing I could..............I ordered it!
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Posted: |
Dec 11, 2009 - 7:18 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....I would guess that any film in Technicolor Process Three like NORTHWEST PASSAGE where the original Technicolor separations have been preserved by the studio, should have excellent sound, because Technicolor needed high quality optical sound and music tracks to include in the black (contrast improving dye pass) that also contained the soundtrack.
The only thing that I don't know is, did MGM make the sound mix or did Technicolor?.....
I don't quite understand your depiction/description of the sound process, robertmro.
ALL films of this period, Technicolor or black-and-white had a silver soundtrack laid down onto the nitrate print film stock. Thus, within the parameters of each studio's recording/mixing processes, the soundtracks on all of their films would sound excellent and, within each studio, nearly the same, black-and-white or color.
The original music soundtrack recordings in this period would be laid down (within the studio) on optical soundtrack negative. They would then be mixed down, with the dialog and sound effects tracks onto new optical soundtrack negatives which would then become the "mixed" master. This studio-generated optical master would then be used (in this case) by MGM's laboratory for black-and-white printing or delivered over to Technicolor for printing alongside the Technicolor matrices. In any case, the studio did the mix.
Remember however, that this process which we are hearing on this particular CD, happened 60-80 years ago. For NORTHWEST PASSAGE, Lukas probably got digital masters of the raw material from Turner/Warner. Unless Lukas can tell us, we do not know whether these digital masters were made from the original music session optical track 35mm nitrate masters, from dupe 35mm optical track safety preservation masters, from 1/4 or 1/2 mag reel-to-reel tape dubdowns, from acetates or whatever. (In the case of NW PASSAGE we are now 70 years from the masters, whatever they were or are now.)
I am constantly amazed we have ANYTHING left from these days except the final picture, itself.
Both (original) MGM and TCFox are to be commended for saving so much of their early sound heritage. There are no other studios which have been this scrupulous with their production assets.
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And a must buy release it is too...sigh. 
