The Extras - The Origins of Warner Archive Part 2

Episode Date: November 7, 2021

This is part 2 of "The Origins of Warner Archive" with film historian and Warner Bros executive George Feltenstein.   If you haven’t yet listened to part one,  I highly recommend that you first listen to episode 15, "The Origins of Warner Archive."  We pick up from the end of that first year and the challenges that lay ahead once the initial batch of good film masters was released.  The work of preservation and remastering for DVD was an expensive and laborious task, but ultimately rewarding for the fans. Concurrently, Warner Archive’s pioneering efforts in communicating directly with the fans via social media created a dialogue that informed the preservation and explained to fans the reasoning behind the releases.  On the technology side, the release of the dual-layer DVD-9 allowed for the Warner Archive’s expansion into saturday matinees, television series, and catalog animation, increasing the profits for the fledgling unit.  Eventually, the Warner Archive slowly moved into Blu-ray, fulfilling the original vision for high-definition releases.  Through it all, the Warner Archive has been run by a small, dedicated team within the larger Warner Home Video division that consistently focused on quality releases that were then embraced by the fans and brought profit to the studio.  And finally, George takes a brief look ahead to 2022 and some of the exciting new releases the Warner Archive hopes to bring to the fans. The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. In today's episode, Warner Brothers executive George Feltenstein tells us part two

of the history of the Warner Archive. If you haven't yet listened to part one, I highly recommend that you listen to episode 15, The Origins of Warner Archive. We pick up from the end of that first year and the new challenges that lay ahead for the Warner Archive. So, George, in our previous discussion of the origins of the Warner Archive, you took us through the very successful launch with the spokesperson, Debbie Reynolds, and then a very well-received first year where you launched literally hundreds of titles. But then you started to run into some issues in that second year. Tell us about that transition. Well, the whole way that we were building the business was to try to fill in the holes and blanks of things that had been released on VHS, but weren't available on DVD. And where there were good quality masters in existence that were on the shelf that we could make available to the consumer through this new mechanism.

And bring incremental revenue into the company and more profits is always a good thing. So the first year was more of a success than anybody could have ever dreamed. And as we're heading into year two, we were in a little bit of a bind. And that is that I had made a commitment with this business that we would never release a film that wasn't in the proper aspect ratio. If a film was widescreen, we would certainly not release a pan and scan version, and we wouldn't release a non-anamorphic 4x3 letterbox version that basically creates like a postage stamp on a 16 by nine television. If you know what I mean, because you got black on the top and the bottom and the sides and

doesn't look good. We needed anamorphic 16 by nine masters and Warner Brothers started mastering in the 16 by nine format in the mid-90s. I'll say around 1994, 1995, when 16 by 9 televisions were basically just starting to appear in the market. They were not high definition, but they were 16 by nine widescreen. So they were really set for the future, but they weren't catching on. However, the Warner folks, and I was not with the company at the time, were starting to think ahead to the need for 16 by nine, but not thinking that far ahead to when by definition would come along. Now, conversely, Turner, which had not yet been bought by Time Warner, was not doing

any mastering in 16 by nine. This is in the mid 90s. If a film was widescreen, they did it in a four-by-three letterbox. And that served the market as it was then. I, years later, questioned an executive who was with Turner and moved to Warner Brothers. And that was at the time that I was arriving at Warner Brothers. And I said, why was there no mastering done at 16x9?

And he said, we knew high definition was coming. So why have to do it twice? Let's wait until the high definition is here. And that's when we would make the move to 16 by 9, which I thought was a very wise business decision. But what it left me with was a conundrum because there were literally over a thousand films that were made by either MGM or RKO to a small degree that were in the Turner Entertainment

Company library, which became part of Warner Brothers as of October 1996 with the purchase of Turner Broadcasting. There were all these films where there were no 16 by nine anamorphic masters. If a film was in letterbox for, let's say it was a two, three, five aspect ratio letterbox, it would be a letterbox inside a four by three square. So if you're watching it on a 16 by nine television in 2010,

it wouldn't look very good. So I didn't know how we were going to solve this. And we made an arrangement with Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging to start remastering these films for DVD release. remastering these films for DVD release, we were very proud about that because it was a big step. It was a big financial commitment. And looking back retroactively, I wish we had had the support to be able to do these masters all the way to Blu-ray perfection. But we didn't have the budget to do that, and we couldn't even think about Blu-ray at that point. And ironically, there have been films where we have remastered them twice because we did a remaster to DVD specs that was acceptable, but the masters still had, um, we, we cleaned them up a little bit. We spent very significant amount of money on them and those masters were done quote unquote in high definition, but they were not intended to be viewed that way.

They were intended to be viewed only on DVD and standard definition, not unlike the compression when you're streaming something or watching something that's beamed up and down from a satellite. That can hide a myriad of things. Right. So these masters, they were not perfect, but they were a huge step up from what had been available previously. And that was something that we were very, very happy about, very proud of. And that was something that we were very, very happy about, very proud of. And we put a little red band at the top of the packaging saying, New Remastered Edition.

So this initiative was very successful, and people were really, really excited to be able to get these films. And meanwhile, this is really at the same time that Blu-ray was starting to make more of an impact in catalog. So it was kind of like a double-edged sword. We thought we were doing a favor for the consumer by making all these films available, making them available in the best aspect ratio, and they were available on DVD. At that point, the Blu-ray market was still very high-end and very, very expensive. Right.

So, George, how did you then decide what to release next? Since I started in the video business, I've been getting, and of course it changed with the move away from snail mail to email and then social media. Consumers were always requesting, when will you release this? When will you release that? This is still happening today. It's just they express it through social media or our Facebook page, so forth and so on. But at the time, people were sending in letters and doing things like that. were sending in letters and doing things like that. So we started our Facebook page in 2010 and gave consumers an opportunity to voice what they thought they might want released.

And I had a pretty good sense of what I thought would do well. And if we were going to be remastering movies, that was going to add a pretty hefty expense to our activities. Right. So we needed to be very careful that the films that we remastered were going to sell so we could continue on. Right. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. Things continued to do well. And at the same time, we also were successful in our ability to be able to use dual-layer disks so that we could have a DVD 9, which can hold comfortably.

I say that comfortably because I like a good bit rate and not having the image compromised. We could handle over three hours and change of content on a dual layer disc. So that meant the programming of television series was much more practical. And then we started to add collections of films we put together, like cowboy collections of Saturday morning matinee movies that kids in the 40s and 50s used to go to the movie theater before television, you know, and see Tim Holt and Johnny Mac Brown. So there is a fan base for these movies and the fan base was a lot older than the fan base for some of our other product, but we wanted to be the source for everybody.

Whatever your particular interest was, we were going to provide that. So we also then started releasing television series, whereas the theatrical catalog had already been very deeply mined, the television and animation catalogs had only been skimmed on the surface to the out, you know, and the original Jetsons and Top Cat and so forth and so on. But things like, as an example, Speed Buggy or Goober and the Ghost Chasers, you know, these kind of barbaric shows that lasted one season. Well, people wanted those and they became part of our mix. wanted those and they became part of our mix. And then we went into cult shows like Time Tracks, then even some major series like we did all seven seasons of Medical Center with Chad Everett and all nine seasons of the FBI with Ephraim Zimbalist Jr.

Meanwhile, we're coming out with these great movies, great TV shows, and really going deep into the library. And of course, imitation is the highest form of flattery. It actually took, I think, a year before another studio tried to do what we were doing. And within two years, every studio, I think with the exception of Disney and Paramount, every other studio had some kind of program like we had, but they did not have the same reach that we had. And they did not have the direct dialogue with consumers that we had. We were very proud and remain that way of our ability to, you know, listen to what the consumer said and the consumer could write a question on our Facebook page and find out why a certain title wasn't available or if it was in the works.

And, you know, we would occasionally run into something where we'd start on something and find out there was something wrong with the film and then not be able to come out with it. And then people would get all angry and say, but you promised, you know, well, you can't keep everybody happy. You know, well, you can't keep everybody happy. But now talking about the business, as we're getting six months away from the 13th people that wanted it, was when we tried and succeeded to do what I thought we'd never be able to do at the time. And that was Blu-ray. Because when Blu-ray was introduced around 2006, 2007, the motto of Blu-ray was the look and sound of perfect. And the idea was that with standard definition, if there was like dirt on the master or scratches or damage, standard definition could hide a myriad of sins. High definition exposed those

flaws without taking any prisoners. So if we were going to put movies out on Blu-ray, just as I insisted that we put things out in proper aspect ratio, our Blu-rays had to be aspect ratio, our Blu-rays had to be top-notch, highest quality, no dirt, no speckles, no scratches. And we started in 2012. Our first three releases were Gypsy, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Death Trap. And we moved very slowly into Blu-ray because we had to find the right masters and we didn't have the budget at the time to master from scratch and give the consumer a class A master with the very, very best quality from the beginning. What we were doing at that time was taking what were ostensibly A-level masters that

had been done for DVD, and they were in high definition, and they were done with substantial budgets, but they needed to have additional cleanup work done. And we did that work. And our Blu-ray business really, really started to take off when we started to reinvest in the business. We always reinvested in the business. But we started to remaster from original film elements from scratch, from the get-go, and create beautiful masters. And the title selection also broadened, and our ability to bring films out that I didn't think would be possible became possible.

So 2016 was kind of the breakthrough year for Blu-ray and we released Hitchcock films on in Blu-ray, um, Count on the Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne in John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, an outstanding restoration. It was just some of the films that we released in 2016. And we've only gone up from there. George, the whole Warner Archive initiative has been quite different from how other studios have gone about releasing their catalog. Maybe you can tell us a bit about that.

Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Whereas most studios have chosen to sub-license their catalog titles to little boutique companies. Warner Archive is the little boutique company that Warner Brothers owns. I should say Warner Media owns to be accurate to the day. We created our own boutique label. I call it the boutique within the BMO.

I call it the boutique within the behemoth. And because we had developed various efficiencies of process, we kept learning. And eventually, we were even able to do animation and do things like we put together a tech savory collection of restored cartoons that blew people away. And we will be releasing the third volume in that collection. It's just one disc, but the cartoons look unbelievable. Volume three is coming out October 5th. So I don't know when people will be listening to this, but probably by the time they hear it, it will be available. We also did the same with the color Popeye cartoons. And we went back to the original nitrate negative. And we have done a great deal more of releasing Blu-rays where the source element is a 4K scan of the original camera negative

because we've been synchronizing our efforts with the preservation and restoration department. So if they were scanning the original negative and working on a restoration, and working on a restoration, I was there by their side guiding it through. Only we would take it to the next step instead of a raw scan. We would do the color and the cleanup work and the audio work to create a wonderful release. So now as we approach the end of 2021, we have, I think, over 350 Blu-ray releases. And they've really been a good representative of the gamut of what our library represents and all the cool stuff that's in it. And each year has been better than the year before. We've always been profitable and profits increase every year. And this is in an era where people are saying, well,

physical media is dying. Well, for these kinds of films and short subjects and television shows or whatever it is, we have found the audience and been able to connect with the audience. And, you know, 2019 was a phenomenal year. 2020 was the best year we ever had. And I think we're very well positioned for 2021 to be even better than 2020. And that's despite the fact that the pandemic threw, of course, the whole world into a horrific dizzy. And somehow we've managed to continue to provide the product to the people.

the product to the people. And it is beyond gratifying to me when I read the reviews and people are talking about the wonderful quality of the work that is represented in these discs. And I have to give credit where credit is due. The reason for this are what I call the wizards of ours. And they are the colorists and scanners and all the other employees at Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging who are so expert at their craft that they help make these masters so beautiful. And the discs are really something I'm extraordinarily proud of. Another thing that I think is worth mentioning is how the Warner Archive has had such a significant impact with such a small team within Warner Home Entertainment. This has really been kind of the shocker, I remember when someone from a competitive studio came to visit us for lunch, you know, and at the time we were up on the eighth floor of our building. And they thought that the floor underneath us was where our, you know, several dozen employees were. And they realized that there are basically three of us.

We've always had a tiny team, but dedicated and passionate and really listening to what the fans want. And it's both gratifying and frustrating. Gratifying because we've made so many people happy. I myself am a rabid disc collector, and I know what I want, and I know what other people who have different interests than I want. And some of our very best special releases have been films that aren't things the main business. And the reality is it was sometime about five, six years ago that you stopped seeing older films on Blu-ray in stores. Very, very few of them were available in stores. They're available on Amazon. They're available in mail order. And that's a really important part

of the whole Warner Archive story that, frankly, I should have mentioned earlier. And that is, we started distributing our product only through the Warner Brothers shop, which is now long out of business. But within the first year, we were doing business with almost every dot-com e-tailer that there is, whether it's Amazon or BestBuy.com, whether it's Amazon or BestBuy.com, Walmart.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Bull Moose.com, TheAbalique.com, MoviesUnlimited.com. I should mention everybody, right? I don't want to shortchange it to ShopTCM.com and Critics' Choice Video. TCM.com and Critics Choice Video. All the dot coms lined up and became customers of Warner Archive.

And it's been run totally separately from the main mothership business. to the rest of the company, because when we create these new masters, they eventually also are seen on HBO Max or TCM or both or on other streaming services or on other television outlets. I mean, these become new assets in modernizing our library. And this is a critical thing that needs to happen. And it's something that I'm fiercely devoted to because film preservation is at the core of my being and making sure that these things become available is equally as important. George, as we near the end of 2021, what's ahead for the Warner Archive?

Well, thankfully, 2022 could be the best year of the Warner Archive's history yet. We are in the middle of formulating plans. We're actually in the middle of working on titles for the first few months of the year, some of which are going to make a lot of people very, very happy. And, you know, we have a lot of different groups to make happy.

We have our animation fans, and we have our DC fans and we have our classic movie fans and we have our 80s movies fans and they're all passionate about what they like. You know, we have a big piece of the Golden Harvest Hong Kong film library and we've done two of those so far for Blu-ray. And there's a demand that we do more. And we're going to be hopefully doing more of that in 2022. And we're working very, very much hand in hand with the preservation and restoration team. I am part of all of those different teams. The only thing that concerns the library,

I have my hand involved and work with colleagues for everybody's benefit and the benefit of every division. So I'm hoping that we can make a lot of people's dreams come true with what we have in store for 2022. Well, I know I'm looking forward to 2022. And as Warner Archive shoulders more of the load of releasing the physical product, I think it's only going to raise the importance of the work that you're doing, both from a preservation, but also from a distribution? I hope so, because we really are proud of the fact that we listen to what the fans have to say, and they answer us with their support financially and the success of these releases. And when we see the success of one kind of release, it paves the way for more of the same. Well, thanks, George, for filling us in on the history, the origins, and then the

continuing history of Warner Archive. It's been very enlightening. That's my pleasure. Thanks, Tim, for giving me the opportunity to share all these background stories with your audience. I want to thank George Feltenstein for joining the podcast today to tell us the rest of the Warner Archive story. I've seen firsthand from my time working with George just how important he is as the leader and driving force behind the important preservation work and curation of the Warner archive releases and your continued support in purchasing the DVDs and blu-rays will ensure that he can continue to bring even more gems from the vaults of the Warner Brothers Library. I'm also a big supporter of the Warner archive work and releasing TV seasons and documentaries that might not otherwise get a physical release so that you can finish out your collections. that might not otherwise get a physical release so that you can finish out your collections. And if you're enjoying having George on the show, be sure and subscribe so that you don't miss any of his future episodes. For those of you interested in learning more about what was discussed in the show today, there will be information on the website at www.theextras.tv.

Also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at The Extras TV or Instagram at TheExtras.TV to stay up to date on the latest episodes and for exclusive images and behind the scenes information about the episodes and upcoming guests. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to The Extras with Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed the extras is a production of otaku media producers of podcasts behind the scenes extras

and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.