To all my clients, friends and family, thanks for a great 2012. Representing many of the movies I went out to see this year are - going clockwise from the lower left - an Engineer from "Prometheus", Merida from "Brave", the Amazing Spider-Man, James Bond from "Skyfall", Tinker Bell from "Secret of the Wings", Captain America from "The Avengers", Kitniss from "The Hunger Games", Batman and Catwoman from "The Dark Knight Rises", Barnabas Collins from "Dark Shadows" and Ted. Thanks too to Normal Rockwell.
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Two weeks ago, it was announced that Disney will acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. from George Lucas for $4.05 billion. I learned about the news when I heard my ABC7 iPhone app ping the headline. My immediate reaction was excitement, and then I went straight to the internet to learn what the exact details of the purchase was. I quickly discovered the two videos below featuring the two men at the core of the announcement. They pretty much said in the videos all I wanted to know about what led to this amazing announcement. Then, I wondered about those new movies they mentioned. As of this time, all we know for sure is: • It takes place after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. • The story treatments were written by George Lucas, and assumedly not beholden to an adaptation of the popular Heir to the Empire trilogy of books written by Timothy Zahn, the first stories licensed by Lucasfilm relating events taking place after Jedi. • Michael Arndi is currently writing the screenplay based on his "40 to 50 page treatment" of George’s ideas. • Episode VII will be released in 2015. That’s it. No casting has yet been done – only rumors and fan dreams circulating. No director has been hired, but George and Kathleen are looking as the world makes bets on who will take the chair. But I will say there’s a better than 50/50 chance that the new movie will open on Memorial Day, same as the last six episodes. It’s a tradition of George’s. But even that is not a sure bet. Also, I will be sad that Drew Struzan will not be providing his signature art style to Episode VII’s movie poster. Despite being enticed to produce some new work for a series of limited edition prints, he’s retired now. I’m also a little antsy about a guy named Williams. When a rough cut of the Episode VII is ready for a composer to screen it (assuming Disney is able to stick to their schedule) and begin work on the soundtrack, John Williams will be 82. And we don't yet know who will be the film's director who will hire a composer to score the film. But obviously, a Star Wars film has never been complete without music composed by John Williams. So I hope Williams will continue to produce the music for that galaxy far, far away. When the very first Star Wars movie debuted, I was thirteen. I was a Trekkie by then, and that love for Trek was greater than for this new Star Wars movie. But as its two sequels came out over the six years that followed, I couldn't escape the magic of Star Wars. And I became as rabid about the Skywalker saga as I was with the stalwart crew of the starship Enterprise. Fast forward twenty years, and the digitally remastered "Special Editions" arrived. The adventures of Luke Skywalker, now freshly scrubbed, polished and newly detailed, returned to a world of digitally projected theatre screens. They would arrive in theatres in early 1997, but it was several months before that that I actually found myself diving back into the world of the Jedi and the Sith. That was the time I was a product designer working in the Strategic Alliance division of a company called Applause, and Taco Bell called them up to see if we were interested in pitching a line of kid's meal toys to tie-in with the Star Wars re-release. Wow. Like in every toy company, there were some hardcore Star Wars fans among us toy designers, and it became our mission to make sure we beat out the competition and win this promotion! Designers brainstormed ideas and over the course of a few weeks, passionately debated with each other to defend our toy concepts, recalling scenes from the first trilogy as reasons why they should stay in the mix. Then, money came into the picture to kill ideas outright due to cost. Finally, concepts were narrowed down and presentation boards were rendered up - which was done by hand back then, using pen and ink, colored pencils and Prismacolor markers - for the sales people to make our pitch. The pitch took place in June of 1996. Taco Bell chose some of our concepts as well as some from our main competitor Strottman for focus testing with kids. By July, the results were in and Taco Bell had decided. It would be Applause that would be making Star Wars kid's meal toys! After high-fiving each other and patting ourselves on our backs, we still had a lot of pressure on us. The toys needed to start shipping from our overseas factories by November to give Taco Bell time to receive and distribute the toys to all of their restaurants nationwide. We had four months, not the typical six or seven, to not only get the regular designing and sculpting of toy housings done for production, but we also had to allow time for Lucasfilm's licensing department to review and approve things at every step of the way. Four months for all this to happen was tight. It was decided that as much of the sculpting as possible should to done in Hong Kong where the factories can have immediate input into design the pieces for quicker manufacturing. And because this was such a high-profile license, it was felt that someone from our office should fly over there to oversee the fast-tracked sculpting to make sure they were as on-model (i.e., closely matched character or vehicle likeness) as possible in the hopes that they could get approved by Lucas Licensing that much quicker and production can begin that much sooner. They needed someone very familiar with the ships and characters of Star Wars. A Star Wars fan. Normally, my boss would’ve gone. But his wife was due to have their first child at that very time, so he didn't want to travel half a world away from his family. Plus, he wasn’t as big a Star Wars fan as me! So from July through the end of that year, I handled the Creative Manager duties on Star Wars for Taco Bell. I traveled to Hong Kong that week after we were granted the promotion. After our first pass at sculpts were done, I had to travel some more. This time to a place up in Northern California called Skywalker Ranch. There is where Lucas Licensing's offices were located. I visited there several times, usually with another manager and a sculptor or two, to have them review and approve our sculpts, including making revisions right on those sculpts on the spot to get them approved before we left. Then, then more trips to Skywalker Ranch followed to get approvals on our tooling patterns produced in China, then again on new drawings needed for revised bases and characters poses requested by Lucas Licensing, and then more on new sculpts and tooling patterns, before finally getting okays on our paint masters and first production shots, allowing us to finally get to pull the trigger on full production of millions of Star Wars toys. All I remember of that time is that I was living, eating and sleeping Star Wars everyday, all to make sure we got everything reviewed, approved, produced on budget and shipped on time so kids and fans across the country would be happy to see our toys at Taco Bell, with the promotion set to kick off on January 26, 1997. And we did it! And it was awesome and exciting and the folks at Lucasfilm and Taco Bell were thrilled with them and it was one of the proudest geek moments the designers at Applause ever had!
So while we wait to see what’s in store for Disney's Star Wars: Episode VII, I thought it'd be a good time to share my personal Star Wars adventure with you. Looking back and going through my stuff and researching online proved to be fun for me, and I hope you enjoyed what I've shared here too.
Below are some of the sketches and drawings I did while working on this project, the only project I and my fellow Applause designers ever had the good fortune of having twenty years time to research a project so thoroughly. Glad it paid off. In fact, it led to the chance to work up more Star Wars toy designs for a film announced after this promotion to come just two years later: Star Wars: Episode I. But like that film, the experience meeting expectations were entirely different from what had happened working on the first trilogy. And perhaps it's a tale I'll share with you another time. Until then, may the Force be with you. The Muppet Christmas Carol theatrical trailer The Muppet Christmas Carol debuts on high definition home video this coming Tuesday, and it's by far one of my favorite holiday movies and movie versions of Dickens' classic novel. There are two Blu-ray Disc editions coming out this week, the standard version and an exclusive Amazon edition that adds a DVD of the film with your purchase. Now while doing my normal due diligence researching stuff about this new Blu-ray, I learned something new about the movie itself. I found discussion going on at the boards on Blu-ray.com that was ablaze many angry and upset posts from fans who wanted --- in fact, demanded! --- that Disney add back a scene to the movie that was cut from the film. There was a scene cut from the film?! Apparently, there was, and it was news to me. The scene in question involves the song "When Love Is Gone". It was included when director Brian Henson submitted his final cut of the film to Disney. But when Disney screened it, they apparently felt the scene, featuring young Ebenezer's fiancee singing a ballad as she ends their engagement, slowed the pacing of the story down quite a bit and worried that the youngest kids in the audience wouldn't enjoy it. So, Disney elected to cut it. And with the scene removed, that's how the film was shown when it first debuted in theatres at Christmas time in 1992. However, when the movie was first released on home video a year later - on VHS and on Laserdisc - the "When Love Is Gone" scene was added back in! Years later when it debuted on DVD, "When Love Is Gone" continued to appear in the newest release. The only difference was that while the Laserdisc presented the film in its full widescreen glory, the VHS and DVD versions presented it in (that really awful, icky, waste of space) Pan & Scan (or Fullscreen) format. So for years, fans of the film grew up enjoying The Muppet Christmas Carol with "When Love Is Gone" in the movie, just as the director intended, without realizing they were watching essentially the extended Director's Cut of the film, not the actual, original theatrical cut. But apparently, the same will not be the case when it debuts on Blu-ray this week. The official discussion thread for The Muppet Christmas Carol on Blu-ray.com's forum board is filled with posts from fans who are livid that the upcoming Blu-ray release will feature just the original theatrical cut, with no inclusion whatsoever of the "When Love Is Gone" scene on the Blu-ray, not even as a deleted scene. And many of those upset fans have gone so far as to post email addresses and snail mail addresses of those to contact at Disney and let know their disappointment about the omission of the scene, even tho' Disney is technically accurate when it claims to be releasing the original theatrical cut. Now, Disney and Muppet fan that I am, I don't actually own a copy on DVD. I passed on getting any of the DVD releases because I saw that "Fullscreen" notice on the back of both titles, and I am just not a fan of the Pan & Scan format. But I have seen the film several times over the years and even own a rare original CD copy of the soundtrack. And I was looking forward to finally owning it on Blu-ray. But I'll be honest, with all the brimstone and fire being spewed at Disney from rabid, admittedly uber-geeky, diehard fans online, I've pushed the pause button on buying it right away. I wondered, "Would I prefer the extended cut on Blu-ray or would I be fine with the theatrical cut on it (for now)?" And of course, I couldn't think it through without watching the "missing" scene in question. So here it is. So if everything I've read so far is true, this scene will be missing when you buy the Blu-ray Disc this Tuesday. Instead, those watching the original theatrical cut will apparently reach a jarring transition as that scene is edited out, perhaps someplace after the dialogue scene between young Ebenezer and Belle outdoors at the park. But again, it is the version that Disney first released when it went out to theatres. Like I said, I have the soundtrack, so I'm very familiar with that song, having played it more times than I've actually watched the movie. And being the collector-type guy that I am, it probably goes without saying that I'd prefer to have the scene included, as a deleted scene at the very least. At this point, I haven't yet found a review of the new release online to offer anymore insight. But rest assured I'll be looking forward to reading those reviews. And maybe you will too. Or not! :) P.S. - While doing research for this blog, I came across a great video explaining the difference between Widescreen and Pan & Scan or Fullscreen format. I linked to it up above, but I felt it was too good a video not to force feed to you. Even as we adopt the widescreen format flatscreen TVs, I still read about folks annoyed by the black bars on the top and bottom or sides of movies they watch on DVD or Blu-ray. Here's why that happens, and why I absolutely love widescreen and understand and accept the black bars thing. Learn and enjoy! Today begins a new series I'll be writing from time to time highlighting new and unique Blu-rays releases, in today's case, retailer exclusives. This series was inspired last week after creating and sharing the info sheet you see on the left. I did for my Disney friends, particularly those tending to aspiring Disney princesses. These Blu-ray titles come in special storybook packaging, meaning the case itself is a Disney read-along storybook, but each would only be available from one retailer. So I shared the infographic to make sure my friends were aware of their options in case they'd prefer these versions to add to their Disney video collection over the standard versions would could be bought from any store or online retailer. Friends voiced their appreciation, some telling me they added the dates on their calendars to make sure they wouldn't miss them. Then, I realized I could do this for other future retailer exclusives that come out on Blu-ray. I look up this stuff for myself anyway, so why not share it? It would be a great regular feature to write about. So here goes! But first, a bit of background. How I Got Blu I started buying Blu-ray Discs in 2008. That was the year I took the big financial plunge and invested in both a new 37" Samsung HDTV and a PlayStation 3 (PS3). I remember vividly the Christmas season before while out shopping at Best Buy for presents seeing one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies playing on several HDTVs on display inside the store. Those flatscreen demos did their job. They got me intrigued and finally hooked on the notion of upgrading my home entertainment experience from age-old standard definition to high definition. Several weeks of online research uncovering the difference between 420p, 1080i and 1080p (including many visits and much debt owed to Blu-ray.com's FAQ page) plus a call into Chase Visa to request a reduction of my annual percentage rate to further encourage me to charge more $$$ on my Disney Visa (a reduction Chase granted!) paved the way to this silly little habit I now embrace: building my Blu-ray collection. What To Blu My first Blu-ray Disc Now geared up for high def at home, I continued my search on the web for more movies to watch on Blu-ray. Remember, this was the infancy period of Blu-ray. And Blu-ray Disc had just then only won the war it fought against another high definition format, HD-DVD. Studios had been releasing titles on one, the other, or both formats, and for such a risky investment until a clear winner was declared, the number of films that were released on either format then were just drops in the bucket compared to the number of titles released today, when consumers have learned much more about Blu-ray, become comfortable with all the inherent techno-babble, and the cost of HDTV coming down. I ended up visiting two websites a lot during this time, High-Def Digest and Blu-ray.com. Their most important assets were the Blu-ray Disc reviews, and I pored through them often. First I looked for films out on Blu-ray that I was familiar with or had seen. For the few titles out on Blu-ray that I owned on DVD and was willing to upgrade, I traded in my old DVDs at my local FYE for store credit to offset some of the costs to buy them on Blu-ray now. (By the way, this habit of upgrading your DVD copies to Blu-ray is known among Blu-ray enthusiasts as "double-dipping", and we put it out there just to say we're both stupid but passionate about the need to re-buy the better version of something we love. Wait until I post a blog about my years buying and re-buying Star Trek on home video - Sheesh!) But except for Disney films, which supported the Blu-ray Disc format during the HD format war and thus released a fair amount of their titles on Blu to help the cause, there wasn't a lot of my favorite films out yet on Blu-ray that first year, particularly my genre and geek favorites like Star Trek (Paramount chose to debut the original TV series on HD-DVD first; it didn't come out on Blu-ray until a couple years after) or Star Wars. So I looked at other titles that were fairly unknown or previously unseen by me, those which rated very high by reviewers in their video or picture quality (PQ), because frankly high definition video was the eye candy that I fell in love with. And that is when I learned of the term "blind buy". Blind Blu Buying My first Blu-ray digibook I started looking through what folks talked about on Blu-ray.com's discussion boards. There, I found many others new to Blu-ray diving in to watch whatever movies was out on Blu-ray at the time and posting their armchair reviews about their PQ. I obviously felt a kinship with these other people who've embraced Blu-ray, so I was very interested in what they shared on the boards. Those who took a chance to watch a movie without ever having seen it before coined the phrase blind buy, that they would blindly select a movie to buy and watch it with the hope that it would turn out to be a good choice, telling on the boards what they thought about the Blu-ray either way. To fill my appetite to regularly use my new PS3 and watch new stuff in HD on my new HDTV that first year I owned it, I ended up doing the same thing, blind buying Blu-ray movies. Some of those early purchases included films and documentaries I'd never seen before like Baraka, How the West Was Won, Band of Brothers, and the documentary series Planet Earth. Because of the feedback from the boards and reviews from the home pages, I chose these almost purely because of the high praise their PQ received. Turned out that I loved these choices, and I was more than pleased to discover that not only was their PQ excellent, but their content overwhelmingly entertaining too! Limited Blus: The Retailer Exclusives My first SteelBook case Now I learned other Blu-ray Disc details during my time as a Blu-ray collector, including the main reason that's inspired this particular premiere blog entry. As the popularity of Blu-ray Disc grew, some U.S. retailers were given the opportunity by studios to offer unique, limited edition versions of more popular titles and make them available only through their chains. These retailers were mainly Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Amazon and for a time FYE aka Sam Goody aka Suncoast Motion Picture Company. And as a collector who enjoys unique packaging and bonus material, I discovered I needed to pay really close attention to what "retailer exclusives" might be offered in addition to the standard versions that every store in the country would sell, because I just might prefer getting one of these retailer exclusives that include an extra bonus disc of material or include a unique action figure or coming a neat new packaging appropriate to the movie than just a plain ol' plastic Blu-ray case. Just like the Disney storybook packaging I discussed at the top of this article. So whenever there's a new title coming out that I "must buy", I make sure to do some due diligence and see whether any of the store chains listed above are offering their own exclusive. This week, there happens to be a number of retailer exclusives coming out for one popular family film debuting on Blu-ray that may also be worthwhile choices for some early bird Christmas shopping. What a perfect opportunity to showcase retailer exclusives for you! E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial debuts on Blu-ray Disc & DVD on October 9, 2012 Standard edition Combo Pack E.T. is debuting on Blu-ray Disc this week. Now to be candid, I own E.T. on DVD and I don't really go back and re-watch it very often, altho' there were a few of times I pulled it out because I was assigned an E.T.-related design job. But in looking over what retailer exclusives there were for this title, I was surprised to find as many as I did. And I have to admit a couple naturally caught my eye. Amazon's exclusive features a replica of the spaceship from the movie. Press a button on the side and not only does the top split open to reveal where your Blu-ray Discs are located, but a ramp in the bottom half slowly opens to reveal E.T. standing on it. Plus it actually lights up and even plays John Williams' "Flying" theme from the movie. Here's a video of it in action. But if you want to get it, I think it might already be sold out. SteelBook cases are made of metal with plastic trays fitted inside to hold the discs. They're very popular with collectors, but it's a popularity I don't share. SteelBook is a patented design too, and collectors know that. There've been knockoffs produced that aren't true SteelBooks but similar-looking metal media cases. But the difference only matters to SteelBook fans. Most likely, you don't care a hill of beans or Blus about it either! But if you want your E.T. Blu-ray to come inside an authentic SteelBook case, Target is the only place for you to go. Best Buy's retailer exclusive of E.T. comes inside a digibook. A digibook is essentially a hardcover book, and the Blu-ray Discs are contained inside, either located on plastic trays mounted on either or both of the front and back inside covers or within specially-designed, reinforced pages. Being a book, a digibook naturally provides the opportunity to include 20-40 or more pages of content with the purchase of your Blu-ray that you nornally couldn't get with just buying it inside a standard plastic Blu-ray case, which might come with an insert if you're lucky. However, some Blu-ray enthusiasts criticize digibooks for being a tad taller than those standard plastic Blu-ray cases, effectively ruining that perfect, even height you achieve when you stand a digibook among your neat row of plastic Blu-ray cases on your shelf. Whatever. The last retailer exclusive I found for E.T. comes from Walmart. In promotional jargon, it's what's called an "in-pack" because the premium item, in this case a plush toy of E.T., is packed inside of a larger box holding the standard Blu-ray release. Prometheus also debuts on Blu-ray Disc & DVD on October 9, 2012 In additional to E.T., there is another high-prolife title debuting on Blu-ray this week. It's Ridley Scott's summer faux-prequel to his 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, Prometheus. The only retailer exclusive I found for it will be at Target. It will include a "photo booklet," essentially a softcover pamphlet, that will be packaged with the standard Blu-ray Case packaging of the film. The material presented in the photo booklet is taken from an amazing book called Prometheus: The Art of the Film. I first flipped through this book at the San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, and it not only has gorgeous art and photographs surrounding the making of Prometheus, but also a lot of notes and concepts by Scott that further explain what he might have meant in the movie that he didn't necessarily explain in the movie. Naturally, all of these retailer exclusives are limited to what quantities each chain elected to produce. Most times, they sell out in the first week or two. Other times, you might still find them even a month later (which likely means the chain ordered way too many). It depends. There are also options to preorder online and have it shipped to your home or perhaps arrange to pick it up in person from a store location near you. I usually elect to go out and get the bloody thing in my greedy little hands on the first day of sale (which 99 times out of a 100 is on a Tuesday for DVD and Blu-ray titles). It also allows me to look through the copies out on the shelves to pick one that looks the best. This is especially important to me in cases like if it includes a slipcover sleeve (I want one that ain't dinged up!) or a premium toy figurine inside (I want the one that's painted perfectly!). It's the anal-retentive collector in me, and I make absolutely no apologies for it.
Most titles' prices may be discounted significantly the week they go on sale. This is as much to stimulate sales as better a studio's chances of getting to say a week later that "Our (insert movie title here) was the number one selling title last week!" But who cares about that. For any title, a good sale price on week one makes for a good idea to get the best price at all when buying it when it first comes out. Also note that all of these editions including the standard edition includes the movie on both a Blu-ray Disc and a DVD. So if you don't own a Blu-ray player yet, the studios thought of you (to buy their movies) as well. This time around, my votes goes to the Best Buy digibook for E.T. and picking up Prometheus at Target. I love digibooks and even generic booklets, way more than SteelBooks and plush toys. And while as a product designer, it would've been great to own the Amazon exclusive, I think that one's simply out of my budget right now even if Amazon would let me place an order for it. Of course, I could always order it from Amazon UK. And theirs includes the digibook that I love. In additional, Amazon UK even has a plussed out retailer exclusive for Prometheus as well. But let's save talking about international Blu-rays for a later time, shall we? Thanks for reading. I hope you found this helpful. Definitely more news about future Blu-ray retailer exclusives to come! Here's a video diary of my five hours waiting in line to enter Disney California Adventure on its Grand Re-Opening Day condensed into eight minutes. On June 15, 2012, I got in line at four in the morning to join those who had been waiting in line since 6:30 pm the night before! However, when I first saw this line filled with hundreds of people, it was nothing compared to what I encountered seven years ago in the same spot. That was 2005, the year Disneyland celebrated its 50th birthday. And on July 17 that year, I arrived here at three in the morning to be among the first to enter the park when it opened, and there were thousands already in line. Coincidentally, Disney used DCA to stage the long line before its sister park opened at 7 am. The video above shows the size of the line in the Promenade when I first got there and how it continued to grow over the next couple of hours. At 7am, the park's Re-Dedication Ceremony was broadcast in a live feed onto a jumbotron we could see, so some excerpts from that are included too. And from my place in line right at the main entrance, I got a nice, short piece of video of Disney CEO Robert Iger and Chairman of Parks and Resorts Tom Skaggs at the front gates opening them up themselves so we could finally come in.
I had a great time. So if you want to enjoy a special Disney event vicariously through the eyes of a Disney geek, here's your chance. Enjoy! |
All About Me
A fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, comic books, Blu-rays, Disney, soundtracks, taking pictures, theatre and...Barry Manilow! Archives
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