ambersons ambersons ambersons - ambersons ambersons ambersons

[blunted by community]

ambersons ambersons ambersons:

i need some help. somewhere on this board or the other board that is now at the bottom of the ocean with atlantis, there was a letter from rockefeller to welles asking him to go to rio.

this letter was dated late 1941 ir early 1942. below i posted the late 1942 letter, this is not the one i'm looking for.

i think it might have been todd beasen that posted it. i have googled it, i have searched this site with the search engine, and can't find it. any one konw where it is?

XXXXXXXXXXX

Nov. 10, 1942 Nelson Rockefeller to Orson Welles-
Dear Orson,
Thank You for your letter of Oct. 20 which I have delayed in answering in order to become fully aquainted with all of the facts involved. Please be assured that we deeply appreciate your work on behalf of our cause. Your broadcasts are excellent and I hope they will continue. Regarding It's All True, I naturally hesitate to encourage you to accept any contract that your lawyers advise against and which, as you state, may mortgage your future. However, if you want my candid opinion, the collective future of the American people is in serious danger of being mortgaged, and individual or personal sacrifices that any of us can make today that will contribute, even in a small way, to the preservation of the freedom and human dignity of the people of this country, seem to me to be a priveledge. Few people have the great talent that you have to offer, and knowing you as I do, I am confident that, in the last analysis, your own decision in this matter will not be influenced by anything other then your true desire to serve your country in this time of need.
With personal regards, sincerely,
Nelson Rockefeller

[Oscar Christie]

Dr. Teal & Mr. Blunt,

Just asked at a CGI studio about reconstructing Ambersons

"We could do it now but it is expensive."

so my question,

which makes more sense for the Quixotic fundraising,

$1 million to the otherwise soon to be bankrupt extortionist
and millions more for the rights, plus editing for a movie that may not even be that good,

or go for broke and try to raise the money to actually revive the greatest movie of all time?

[mteal]

I assume your talking about TMA and TOSOTW. Based on what I've heard, the WIND situation doesn't seem so much about inadequate funds as about bullheaded personalities that refuse to compromise because of their personal animosities. I'm kind of skeptical about the whole idea of "Quixotic fundraising" anyway. Isn't that the kind of thing that got Welles in trouble with the film in the first place?

But I do like the idea of a CGI Ambersons. I think it could work, although that strikes me as more of a "reanimation" then a reconstruction- sort of a Frankenstien version of the film. But the materials that remain from the original TMA - photos, storyboards, the original CC, Hermann's original score - cry out for something to be done, and I'd take just about any type of attempt over RKO's mutilation as it stands now. It would be a real shame if that stood as the final word on the film.

[Johnny Dale]

Do you have a count of approx. how many shots would have to be re-created in cgi?

[blunted by community]

just an opinion, but i have always felt that trying to get fake footage to match real footage is more distracting than presenting the missing parts in a way that does not try to imitate footage, it just tells you a story in a visual way.

imagine going from real ambersons footage to lets say anime ambersons, very distracting.

but if you go from footage to 3-d wire frame figures shadowed properly, or dark charcoal drawings, could be devestating, the viewer's brain uses more of it's imagination.

[Glenn Anders]

Blunted: The three methods you discuss all come out quaint and arty. The only way to do this restoration would be to use stills extant from the lost footage and bridge it with sound track or, if none of that can be found, with readings by other actors (a possibility, as Welles himself occasionally proved). In other words, it should be done the way Schmidlin re-did GREED.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

the thing with greed is that there were all those pictures from the missing scenes giving greed 2 tones - footage or stills.

now look at what you need to reconstruc ambersons - stills, storyboards, clip art taken from the film, stills taken from the film, slow-mo footage taken from the film, some original artwork, and dialogue. that's 7 sources of information trying to work as 1. it's a patchwork of stuff. harder to digest. so the restorer has to work extra hard to make all these textures jive together in a seamless way.

would be a huge difference if there were 300 stills of missing scenes, and if ambersons was silent, then all you would need is a motion platform to photograph the stills. it works marvelously having all these stills to tell the story. the stills work real well.

[Glenn Anders]

Blunted: I'll grant you a couple of points. I believe, however, that simpler is better. And I'm not convinced that there are not a lot more stills floating around from . . . AMBERSONS. Perhaps not the 600 that Schmidlin found to make his selection for GREED but a good many more than we may think. In any case, it's worth a try, I agree.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

yes, that is what i've been saying by suggesting charcoal drawings, less is more. let the viewer's imagination provide.

and schmidlin didn't find those pictures of greed, herman g weinberg did and used them in a book to reassemble greed way before schmidlin came along

[Johnny Dale]

now, be nice

[Citizen K]

There's and additional problem: music. Some of the original sound and Welles's narration is backed by alleged music by Roy Webb. Herrmann's original recordings are presumed missing, so basically a new recording of his music is needed. The rerecorded score from the 1990 CD is good but it is not synched to the film, so timing difficulties arise. Also, if one is picky, the acoustics of the rerecording are very echoey, very unlike the close-miked original recording. I haven't done any reconstruction on the film yet, but I'd imagine that trying to fit the music and the images together will not be easy unless editing/stretching either one.

How about doing the missing scenes in traditional animation? I mean in the same style as the storyboards (no Disney!), but really animated and having actors dub the lines. It would be less expensive than CGI and it wouldn't try to be seamless, but might provide more information of how characters move and what they do in the deleted scenes. Just a thought.

[R Kadin]

How about this as an approach: think like Welles and turn adversity to artistic advantage..?

Since Welles made the association with his film and Tarkington's book very apparent, visually, you could further that motif by presenting the newly-animated segments as illustrations from the novel that spring into motion and, in some instances, actually dissolve back into the original footage.

In such a case, simple line drawings might do quite nicely, complemented by a less-immediate, once-removed and "echoey" orchestral score.

[Oscar Christie]

Since most haven't seen photo-realistic human cgi yet, it's hard to picture what it's like.

I think the goal should be, before this decade is out, to revive
Ambersons using cgi.

[blunted by community]

" you could further that motif by presenting the newly-animated segments as illustrations from the novel that spring into motion and, in some instances, actually dissolve back into the original footage."

this is good.

and i have not seen cgi yet but will google it now when i depart

[Christopher]

Will somebody please explain what "CGI" means?