The Hands of Fate have doomed this man... in high definition!
December 1, 2011 5:46 AM Subscribe
Why I'm Saving Manos: The Hands Of Fate "I’d been tipped off about an e-bay auction that no one had bid on, probably because the freight was too high. It was boxes upon boxes of 16mm and 35mm film, titles that had lapsed into the public domain, all of which had belonged to a distributor called Emerson Films. Emerson’s properties were familiar to anyone that had watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in the day, and on the list a few familiars jumped out at me. When I got home, I found a copy of Manos: The Hands Of Fate. Immediately I saw the label, which read “WORKPRINT”."
"It seems that, in a cost cutting measure, Manos: The Hands of Fate had been shot on 16mm reversal stock and edited using that same stock. From that, a 35mm blow-up internegative had been made and theatrical prints had been produced from that internegative in turn. Audiences at the time would have been watching a copy of a copy, and along the way cheap labwork had cropped the image on every side and compromised the color. A VHS transfer made from this material after 30 years of wear and tear is the version most commonly seen, and it’s no surprise that, compared to the workprint, it looks like you’re watching it through a shower drain."
A devoted fan of The Master, Torgo, and the others from the "classic" indie horror movie has found a pristine copy of the film. The eventual goal is to offer a cleaned-up and restored version in high definition.
"It seems that, in a cost cutting measure, Manos: The Hands of Fate had been shot on 16mm reversal stock and edited using that same stock. From that, a 35mm blow-up internegative had been made and theatrical prints had been produced from that internegative in turn. Audiences at the time would have been watching a copy of a copy, and along the way cheap labwork had cropped the image on every side and compromised the color. A VHS transfer made from this material after 30 years of wear and tear is the version most commonly seen, and it’s no surprise that, compared to the workprint, it looks like you’re watching it through a shower drain."
A devoted fan of The Master, Torgo, and the others from the "classic" indie horror movie has found a pristine copy of the film. The eventual goal is to offer a cleaned-up and restored version in high definition.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. -- taz
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(This is better, though.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:48 AM on December 1, 2011