OT: Oscar

filmy wrote on 3/1/2004, 12:10 AM
Ok, so here is an off the wall gripe about the oscars. Every year they do a tribute to everyone who died during the year. Bob Hope got a solo tribute as did Katherine Hepburn. Fair enough, no problems. But then they do this big set up for Gregory Peck but that turns into the full "tribute" of 'everyone'. As I am watching this I am wondering really how one gets into this tribute - I mean other than the obvious. Now last year someone died who I thought was great - someone who was a huge influence on me. And hey - guess what? The ****'n academy left her out of their little tribute!

Penny Singleton died in November 2003. For me I knew her as "Blondie" - in 28 (yes 28) Blondie films. But I bet a lot of people reading this who have never seen her would know her voice - she was the voice of Jane Jetson on all the Jetsons TV shows, TV movies and in the 1990 theatrical movie. Bogart shared his first ever onscreen kiss with her in a film called Swing Your Lady and she has a star on the Walk of Fame...for film mind you, not television. She even did USO tours. She was in the business for a long time - starting in the late 20's and going until the 90's. This wasn't someone who just did a few low budget films and than vanished...hard to think this would be an oversite. (unless the academy used the same staff who is now working on the Syracuse International Film and Video Festival)

Think about this fact alone - 28 Blondie films with the same core 3 players - Arthur Lake (Dagwood), Larry Simms (Baby Dumplin) and Penny Singleton (Blondie). When Arthur Lake passed away in 1987 he was in the little Oscar tribute.

So what the hell happened??? Did the academy think no one would notice their omission?


Comments

winrockpost wrote on 3/1/2004, 6:16 AM
I was amazed at the number of "stars" that had passed away,
of course several I thought had died long ago, and some I was amazed I didnt here about, like Donald O'Connor . Guess i need to get my head outa the edit cave a little more.
Agree Penny Singleton shoild have been acknowledged
GaryKleiner wrote on 3/1/2004, 7:15 AM
Check Who's Alive and Who's Dead.

Gary
filmy wrote on 3/1/2004, 9:13 AM
>>> Check Who's Alive and Who's Dead. <<<

Ok...and?
GaryKleiner wrote on 3/1/2004, 9:47 AM
...and risce1 can be more informed about who's alive and who's dead.

Gary
Grazie wrote on 3/1/2004, 9:54 AM
Phew! Read list . .I aint there! Will go down pub and celebrate . . Anybody wanna join?

Grazie
Maverick wrote on 3/1/2004, 11:00 AM
Out of interest, Grazie, what 'would' you have done if you 'were' on the list;-)
johnmeyer wrote on 3/1/2004, 11:04 AM
I remarked to my wife before the Oscar telecast that they would have to do something special with the tributes this year due to the unbelievable number of major stars who had died. The separate tributes for Heburn (most Oscars ever) and Hope (hosted the most Oscar shows), and the setup for Peck (head of Academy for many years) was actually a pretty good way to handle it. However, compared to tributes in the past, I thought the editor did an amazingly poor job. The clips selected were not representative, and they were too brief. That one clip of Peck in the courtroom was representative of the picture, but not of his performance in his most famous picture.

The opening with BIlly Crystal was brilliant. The Blake Edwards tribute and his speech were unusually well constructed and performed. The rest was pretty much just the usual.

Being a movie junkie, I recorded the whole thing, from satellite, using the AVI DV pass through on my camcorder, from the NTSC outputs on my satellite box. I then used Vegas to edit, and compress down to two hours and eight minutes. I then made a DVD from this.

Which brings me to a point: I've seen posts from people saying that they can put two hours onto a DVD and it looks great. I just did this with this show for the first time, and I used the Best setting for compression, and put the compression in Vegas at exactly the amount that would make it just fit. However, even though most of the awards show is just talking heads, it still looks pretty bad.

If anyone has a secret, please let me know. However, my experience is that anything over ninety minutes is going to start looking bad when compressed to fit on a single DVD.
busterkeaton wrote on 3/1/2004, 11:39 AM
King Kong 1933
King Kong 1976
King Kong is also Peter Jackson's next picture
riredale wrote on 3/1/2004, 2:57 PM
Johnmeyer:

You asked about putting 2 hours on a DVD-5. My conclusion is that it can be done, but you need to be careful about a couple of things. You and I read each other's posts all the time, sor forgive me if I repeat myself here a bit:

(1) The video should be as noise-free as possible, since noise just kills any MPEG2 encoder. If I have some obviously noisy video, I run it through the "SmartSmoother" in VirtualDub.

(2) For two hours of DVD, you need to be at 600/120=5Mb/sec. The audio is encoded into AC-3, leaving us with 4.8Mb/sec for video.

(3) I use a different MPEG2 encoder called CinemaCraft. I set the minimum at 0, the maximum at 8.5, and the average at 5.8Mb/sec. I set the encoder to make three passes, which is what is genererally needed to let the encoder allocate bits most effectively.

(4) Finally, when I run the encoded VIDEO_TS folder on the PC, I look for artifacts. If I see any, CinemaCraft allows one to go back into the encoder file and increase the bitrate for just those parts showing artifacts.

I have little experience with the MainConcept encoder that is part of Vegas, but I understand that it is not only a pretty good product but is also getting better. The very inexpensive TMPGEnc encoder is also highly regarded, though in the past it's been very slow. On my "brand-new" PC (built around a K7S5A motherboard and an AMD 2000 CPU--I know, I'm about two generations behind), CinemaCraft runs at about 98% of real-time, and I will eventually get around to overclocking to see how far I can push things.
winrockpost wrote on 3/1/2004, 3:50 PM
thanks Gary ,, interesting , Uh, i think, yeah interesting
johnmeyer wrote on 3/1/2004, 5:37 PM
I use a different MPEG2 encoder called CinemaCraft. I set the minimum at 0, the maximum at 8.5, and the average at 5.8Mb/sec. I set the encoder to make three passes, which is what is genererally needed to let the encoder allocate bits most effectively

riredale,

This must be the difference. My source video (satellite) was very clean. As good as the Mainconcept encoder (bundled with Vegas 4.0d) is, I have a hunch the CinemaCraft is better.

Thanks!
busterkeaton wrote on 3/1/2004, 6:02 PM
Marquat,

I was just posting to point out that Peter Jackson's redoing it. It says it's his favorite film

OT: Anybody know who designed Jackson's tuxedo?
winrockpost wrote on 3/1/2004, 6:15 PM
Anybody know who designed Jackson's tuxedo?


Oscar Madison
kentwolf wrote on 3/1/2004, 6:54 PM
>>...If anyone has a secret, please let me know. However, my experience is
>>that anything over ninety minutes is going to start looking bad when
>>compressed to fit on a single DVD.

I did the first Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis fight via DirecTV.

It was about 2.5 hours and looked great.

I did the Tampa Bay Bucs Superbowl victory; 3, 2 hour DVD's and looked terrific going from DirecTV satellite receiver through a Canopus ADVC-100, to one my my hard drives. Looks at least as good as the original broadcast.

I will say that I let DVD-A do the encoding because, at that time, I did not pre-code the DVD assets like I do now.

I have never had a bad looking DVD yet.
Erk wrote on 3/1/2004, 11:36 PM
About those Oscar tributes.... did anybody think it a bit odd that Gregory Peck didn't get near the attention that Hepburn did? I'm no film scholar, but if not the equal Star to Hepburn, wasn't Peck in the same neighborhood? I didn't realize until this thread that they did a big one for Hope (missed that part, but it makes sense). Maybe with Hope and Hepburn both passing, they had to draw the line somewhere in the interests of time....

Greg
filmy wrote on 3/3/2004, 11:30 AM
I got this email sent to me and thought I would share it:
=======
Tribute~ It was Disappointing Aunt Penny was not mentioned on The Oscars end
of year tributes. I was actually ready for it. I know The Academy suffered
many loses this year counting up to 400 members. On the brighter side, She was
paid tribute on the SAG Awards and had many before that. One included Penny in
The daily Variety in Army Archer's column a week before The Oscars stating the
fact that she should be mentioned especially before certain other people. I
find comfort in the fact that her family, friends and fans did their best in
trying to get her included in The Oscar Tribute. All the way from England,
Australia, Canada and all of over the United States people called, wrote in, faxed
and emailed. That is one of the best tributes I can think of and I know my Aunt
Penny would be tickled about it! Penny Singleton entertained people because
she enjoyed it and she loved bringing joy to others. She entertained the Troops
and fought for better working conditions for Entertainers not for
acknowledgment, awards or Tributes. Aunt Penny did these acts because she cared for
people. She wanted things to be fair and good. She loved with all she had and in
return is loved, respected, admired, cherished and remembered by millions. That
my friends is the best Tribute of them all!
Rock on Aunt Penny!!!!! Love, Elizabeth
===========