Episode 28 - A Massive Film Archive: A Conversation with Joe Rubin and Oscar Becher - Punk Vacation: An Unofficial Vinegar Syndrome Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hey all, welcome back to Punk Vacation episode twenty eight.
This is an unofficial Vinegar Syndrome podcast. Y'all know we
use this time to find the joy in unfettered creativity.
We have been building a podcast here in a community
dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget,
from anywhere and during any time. And I'm really excited

(01:09):
for the first time to be able to present this
message to the founder, one of the founders of Vinegar Syndrome,
Joe Rubin, who's joined with Oscar today co host, I
mean podcast favorite. So Joe, thanks so much for coming,
and Oscar, thanks for setting this up.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Sure, thanks for I guess inviting me. Please beat your
handler today.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Of course we have. We've been lucky enough to get
Oscar on twice and he last time he made me
promise that he would be the first third guest. So Oscar,
You're welcome.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Hell yeah. I was gonna say fuck yeah, but I'm
very much thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, you can say either this is a Vinegar Syndrome
a podcast, not a I don't even know what's a
good alternative, but this is it. We definitely can see
that we are here today to talk talk about the
releases for November, which is obviously huge month for Vinegar
Syndrome every year. Before we get into that, Joe, since

(02:10):
you're here, I just thought i'd maybe talk a little
bit about the journey here. So it's been really fun
to track along with you for a few years now
and to grow with y'all in a couple different ways.
We had one of the other the third co hosts
here is. Her name is Celeste de la Cabra, and
she coined the term that she sees Vinegar Syndrome as

(02:31):
the Library of Congress for smut and exploitation, and I
wanted to see how you feel about that, because I
loved it as soon as I heard it.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's accurate. I don't
know if I would use Library of Congress as a
one to one reference point, but yeah, I think that
we've made a very conscious effort to as an archive
really be like kind of the the final resting place
in a good way of as much primarily American genre films, exploitation, horror, hardcore,

(03:10):
weird regional stuff, as much as we can and but yeah,
I guess that's a nice, nice comparison.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
You know, I still see your name specifically when I'm
looking through like a Severance set or a couple of
Mando movies recently were released, where like you get scanning credits.
So I'm assuming that, just to what you were saying,
you take joy in still doing that. So do you
still enjoy, like obviously scanning stuff and going through stuff?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Scanning I don't really do all that much of, but yeah,
every time new film comes in, I love going through
it until something is either incomplete or damaged or vinegard
and then it becomes extremely depressing. But conceptually, yeah, I
mean there's there really is no greater joy than getting film.

(04:00):
Like nothing that arrived today was a mystery because we'd
gone through it when we packed it up. But the
satisfaction of being able to go through it sort of
see it again and know that it's safe and the
case of this material, it was really sort of in peril. Yeah,

(04:21):
there's it's very rewarding. There's it's it's it's not really
something that I can more eloquently articulate, but there's I
suppose in the same way that people get excited about
you know, finding arts or first edition books, yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Buried treasure.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, Well there is definitely an anthropological aspect to
what Vinegar Syndrome is doing. Right, That's not exactly the
words you used, but I mean, I think we're even
going to talk about it a little bit today on
one of the new lines. But there, y'all. It just
from day one, it just feels like one of the
commitments you have as a company is to the rediscovery

(05:08):
and restoration of films that would otherwise get lost.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
I think for me, and I can only speak for myself.
I can't speak on behalf of any of my partners.
The purpose of Vinegar Syndrome to me is not to
release studio films. We release studio films and titles like that.
The means to it end, the means to the end
or the end is that we have a massive film

(05:32):
archive of thousands of films. No, not thousands of films,
are actually no, probably thousands of films that we are
probably never going to release, and it's because we don't
know whol owns them, or we can't get the rights
to them, or they're just not commercial or marketable. But
you know, to me, everything we do, feeds should at

(05:56):
least feedback to the film archive, and so every real
lease the Keep was very successful. The excitement of the
success of the Keep means we have more money to
spend it on things that are actually endangered. And the Keep.
Sure it wasn't in circulation, but it wasn't endangered. The
negative was very well taken care of by Paramount. There

(06:17):
was never any chance that it would be lost or
destroyed or stuff somewhere where it would be left or rot. So,
you know, putting releases like that out can be rewarding
in terms of the success, but there's far greater again
for me in a reward of getting material, and that

(06:38):
even if I know that we're never going to be
able to release any of it or a very small
portion of it, it's still safe and it's not going
to be in dangered or left to be mismanaged by
someone who may not see its importance or its value

(06:59):
or it's or it's pricelessness.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
I think that shows up in a lot of ways,
especially the people that you surround yourself with. If you
think even like if you take someone like Bleeding Skull
that dedicates you know, reviews and writing about a lot
of these movies, right, But I think it's a really
critical role. And you know, I was I've been thinking
because I as I started this podcast a while ago
and now you guys been kind enough to come on

(07:24):
and as we're building this. You know, the thing for
me that's it's always drawn me to vinegar syndrome is
I've always had a little bit of that personality of
I like discovering things that are not yet popular, you know,
like it's just kind of it's just kind of been
a part of my personality. I just want to I
want to help discover something or draw attention to something

(07:45):
that's not getting talked about otherwise. And so it it
just lines up so well with what you just said.
And as we talk to I don't know, if you know,
there's a pretty active discord around vinegar syndrome. There's a
subreddit dedicated to this, and as you talk to peopleople
on there, it draws a lot of that same personality type, right,
like people like the discovery process and talking about Charles's

(08:07):
pinion or talking about Scooter mccraye, people that otherwise just
wouldn't get that same attention.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
I don't think Joe knows what discord is.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
I don't know what it is, but I've heard of it.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
They are online communities talking about.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
They're like, I mean, I don't know. I don't want
to age you, but if if you know what IRC
was back in the day, it's like kind of an
evolution of that. It's just like a live chat thing,
kind of like if Reddit could be constant in like
a literal chat. That's that's all it is. But yeah,
it's it's very active and for the most part it's uh,
it's with people who are who are very hungry for
that same kind of stuff. Obviously, I think the downside

(08:43):
to those kinds of things are that, you know, everybody
when they see releases announced, a lot of them are like, well,
why isn't it it's not catered exclusively to me. But
I think you addressed it already with saying like, getting
the studio titles and stuff is a big help to
getting the other thing.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
I know that.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
There was a post a while back that I believe
it was you that did it that was like I
want to say on maybe the Blu Ray forums, which
is that's a fine place, but you know, in regards
to like melusine and like kind of title upgrading titles
and stuff. If we can talk about like the Fireworks
Woman for a second, was that because I know that

(09:22):
people have been asking for that for a long long time.
I mean as far as I remember before I even
got back into physical media collecting, like for the last
five years, have since stuff written about it, And like,
is that something that takes that's like a more costly
thing to preserve, I guess, or is that something that
you kind of just as the elements come along you
you preserve them.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, okay, so with with material that's kind of a
different subject. So yeah, I guess with Fireworks Women specifically,
I had some print material on it, and prints is
always just a depressing thing to have. But we had prints,
and then we acquired the catalog that included Fireworks Women,

(10:10):
and the guy we bought it from sent his storage
facility inventory and had the sixteen A b rolls that
have the blow up cri. It had all of the
materials that we could possibly wanted. So then when we
went to get the stuff, we discovered we kind of
discovered a bit before the place that was storing it
had lost a lot of it. They had just lost

(10:31):
random boxes. So in some cases, well films that which
were lost. In other cases it was random reels of
films which were lost. In the case of Fireroks Woman,
the sixteen A b rolls were lost and then reel
one of the blow up was lost, so we had
reels two through four of the blow up, and then
I don't know, might have had the complete track, which

(10:51):
is guess so very depressing.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Sorry, there's a it's an interview, Jims, so.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
I'll be on to go. Okay. So we eventually acquired
the company that had produced the film, or it acquired
the film from the producers in the seventies, and the
guy who bought it from had eleven into or a
vault inventory that showed all the materials that he was
supposed to have, and then when it became closer to

(11:20):
getting the materials, the storage pail facility that he was
using informed us that the inventory that he had sent
us was wrong, and they sent us their accurate one,
which showed that a bunch of material had gone missing
because they had probably misplaced it, thrown, thrown it away,
who knows what. So in some cases it was entire films,
in other cases it was parts of films. So in

(11:42):
the case of fireff Women, we ended up not getting
the v reals which were supposed to be there, and
then real one of the blow up was also not there,
so we had reels two through four of the blow
up and we just sat on it for the better
part of a decade, because it's just it's depressing to
not have a leats three print element on a film,
especially when there's part of it and then the rest

(12:04):
of it it may have to come from prints, but
I've tried to become more lax on that in terms
of mentally distinguishing between what makes me excited from what's
in the archive perspective versus what's worth putting out regardless

(12:26):
of the material we have on it. So eventually it's like,
you know, we have fires when we have enough material
here to put it together looking at least better than
it otherwise could and complete. And so we put it
together from the real one from a print, and then

(12:46):
the other three reels from the blow up, and it's
and again, this is maybe not the direction you're looking for,
but it's still a very depressing thing to me, because
you know, I know that maybe as recent as ten
twenty years ago. All of the material for that film
was in one place, whether it was being well taken

(13:08):
care of, it wasn't, but at least it was there.
And then this place because of their sloppiness and their
just disinterest in what their actual business was, which was
storing film, allowed the most valuable material for this movie,
the original negative, to be lost. And that's just dumbfounding

(13:31):
to me. So a release like Fireworks Woman, while it's
nice to have it out, it's a depressing thing to
me because it showed it. Basically, it's a perpetual reminder
of what has.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
Been lost, not what we have right, which I think
also is worth worth addressing. I'm glad you because even
newer releases, some of them I'm sometimes surprised to see,
like when a bigger when like I guess like Shout
or something for example, like I'll see something with scan
from it interpositive and it's like a movie from the
nineties that I would have guessed there was a negative for.

(14:07):
But I think that that kind of at this specific
level in terms of like anything from sex films to
exploitation when I think sometimes people are wondering what a
scan is because I'll see it sometimes not on the discord,
but maybe on Reddit, where people think a thirty five
millimeter print and then negative or the same thing. And
I know, Oscar, you've made those like videos, which I
think are great. They're like invaluable that you put on

(14:27):
YouTube kind of explaining the differences in the different formats.
But no, I think that's really great to know. I mean,
you're right, it's depressing, but I think that also raises
that awareness and hopefully, I mean, I know we don't
have like Scorsese level platform here to talk about preservation
in that way, but I think that it just for
people who hunt this stuff out and they wonder why

(14:50):
sometimes these things take a long time, or why the
transfers are what they are, or you know, any anything
like that, why they might vary from movie to movie.
But that said, I think even a lot of the DVDs,
I was just I forget what I put on, but
I was watching an old one of the old doubles
that you guys put out on DVD, and even those

(15:10):
like from the Negative, it looked fucking immaculate. Like it's
crazy that other companies that were doing that, that do
transfers like this don't it doesn't even look that good,
you know, So I think that's that's yeah. Like I said,
you answered the question kind of like it wouldn't even
way better direction than I would have expected, because I

(15:30):
think that kind of awareness is just so important.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
So I think a good example of what you're just
talking about, Joe and Eli, there's a I had. You know,
I've been talking to Ross over at Saturn's Core off
and on over the years, both with this podcast and
then another one I do called They Live by Film,
and he introduced me to Richard Baylor and we had
a chance to sit down and man, like I don't

(15:55):
know if you've ever met Joe, if you ever met
Richard Joe, but the joy in his voice when he
was talking about the fact that there was the company
and specifically Ross that had been like following him throughout
his career and reached out to him for you know,
an introspective and they actually had the material and he

(16:16):
created a whole program for this guy who was just
working in corporate for these movies that had been put
out thirty years ago. Like he you know, he had
a second lease on life. It was amazing to interview
with this guy and just see like how critical this
work was to him back in the nineties, and then
the fact that it's getting rediscovered now is just amazing,
Like it was just just raw joy and so, you know,

(16:38):
I think that's the one of the many benefits of
what y'all are doing, right, is these filmmakers that are
putting their heart and soul into this work, they're getting
recognition for it, and it's getting that nice release that's
equal to the keep, and they're seeing their film on
a physical disc with special features and in a nice slipcover,
like it's just so wholesome. I love it.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
I think like another yeah, totally, I think I agree
with that as well, and trying to give at least
at the very least when you put something out, you know,
regardless of whether it gets those very like much loved
hard slip covers or cases or anything, you know, really
lavish things, I think there is something to me which

(17:23):
is like very special about the fact that we'll put
something like Fireworks Woman or like you know, Mitchell Brothers
stuff on given pretty much you know, slightly different but
pretty much the same treatment as something which is like
you know, a really enormously sought over catalog gem from

(17:46):
a studio. It's this very strange, surreal thing because when
when I started here, we were doing much less of
the studio things. But I think even those in time
have really grown in ambition and we're able to take
on enormous projects now.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Like Joe's work.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
With a Good Bar was pretty like extensive and incredible
like work. Yeah, like the amount of sheer amount of
like it took years. Yeah, yeah, the licensing every like
all these things. And I think it's very important to
me because the fact that I think I said this
very early on to Joe, where he would tell me

(18:24):
a story about something that he did in like maybe
twenty thirteen or something, and I'm like, that's a story,
Like that's a really fascinating story that no one is
going to hear unless they're in this building. Now, how
do we get your stories and your brain and the
hopefully not the not too much of his brain, because yea,

(18:51):
how do we get you guys' stories out to showcase
that we're not just you know, kind of doing minimal
work or you know, we just license things and just
use the the one inch tape Master used and we
get one hundred dollars to like transfer that one inch
tape master. But again, when we have the original negative

(19:15):
here or a print or a couple of prints, don't
don't start bringing prints like and the Joe hates Prince.
I love Prince because I love film exhibition.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
But regardless of Prince, utilitarian, they serve a purpose, which
is to watch them. They are not archival, they are
not preservation elements. They and if the only thing or
the best thing left for a movie is a print,
even if it is a brand new print, that is
still incredibly.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Sad, classic Joe derailment. So going back to.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
My no, this is good, This isn't getting into the brains.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Right, Yeah, the original The original thing which I think
is just fascinating is that, like you know, when things
come in here, it's a you know in me and
Steven in some cases and Lindsay going through the material
and treating it archivally first. Then it's going to Brandon,

(20:10):
who does these incredible is an incredible scanning tech. Then
a restoration team. It's like a again I've done this
many times before.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
I apologize, Chris, but.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
It's so many different people, each treating these films as
if they're the most important thing on the planet, which
I think they are.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, all I was going to interject when you brought
up Brandon, is that I think it's important to look
to just keep in mind that, you know, we're fortunate
to be vertically integrated, but there are a lot of
people here who work on every release. You know, My
my involvement generally stops at a certain point because the

(20:50):
areas of the releases that I am the one in
charge of we're best suited for and most knowledgeable about,
ends when other people become the more knowledgeable or the
more student. So Ryan, who's my origin, my founding partner,
I guess. And when it comes to overseeing all of
the digital stuff, that's his domain. I have a basic

(21:13):
understanding of it. But he can talk circles around me
when it comes to digital things, just as okay, top
circles probably around pretty much anyone when it comes to
film things. So it's not you know, we each have
our areas of expertise and where we become more so
of the final say on how things should be done

(21:35):
and what's correct and what's incorrect.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
I love that. And actually there's one more thing. I
don't know if this is a question or just a statement,
But I my day job is in sales and marketing,
and I work for a large tech company, and I've
been trying to figure out how to do this because
I use vinegar syndrome as I think it needs to
be taught in business school. So I don't know, maybe
you're gonna tell me that's Ryan or the combination of y'all,

(22:02):
but your ability to not only understand your customer, but
serve your customer and produce new products like that. You know,
every every retailer if you want to think not. I
don't mean to put you on such a broad category,
but they're always trying to figure out how to do
new product introductions. That's like a big thing for them.
And every single one that y'all have put out is
like a slam dunk, and a lot of them sell

(22:23):
out or at least sell well or a peer two
from the outside, and I, like, I just think it's
it's this incredible case study in sales and marketing and
understanding the customer. So I wanted to give you kudos
for that. And I guess if there's a question in
this is how much of that is intentional when you
set out and how much of it has kind of
been organic as you've grown in different sub labels and

(22:46):
different you know, different areas of the website and partner
labels and just each of these decisions.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
I think it's the opposite. Nothing was intentional when we
started out, and it's become more intentional as we've gone along.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Okay, that's and I'm just curious on the on the
Melusine side, And I know that that has a lot
to do with, like with credit card stuff, and that's
that's the main thing there. But you know, when you
guys first started obviously and you probably noticed that I've
been focusing more on stuff like fireworks, women and the

(23:18):
reasons I was really drawn to vinegar syndrome originally was
because of the work you guys put into restoring like
sex films, everything from like Golden Age to like, you know,
more kind of curiosities or obscurities.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
And so how is.

Speaker 5 (23:33):
That since you've switched to Melusine, since you've had to
is that impact like in terms of how to reach
out to people or kind of do you have to
like be more conscious of raising awareness to that.

Speaker 6 (23:46):
I guess like was last.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
Tango and experiment in that when you guys put that
there because I know there was like an exclusive slip there,
and there's some stuff you can buy on Melo Scene
that you can get at Vinegar Syndrome site. Because it
really breaks my heart that people can't, you know, we see,
like I would have thought the Fireworks Woman would have
been like a huge seller right out the gate. And
I'm not saying it isn't, just to be clear, but
you know, I just know you guys have that counter

(24:09):
on the site, and so I'm just wondering if that
if you've had to rethink like how to approach the
malusine side.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, okay, so there's a lot of different things in there.
So you know what, when we started, the kind of philosophy,
to the degree that there was one, was finding lost
films and releasing them, finding films which were otherwise unavailable
or only available in really awful quality versions or cut

(24:39):
versions in releasing them. And sex films were kind of
a natural part of that. They weren't the focus, they
weren't the impetus for starting the brand, but the obvious
truth is that these were often films that had never
had any kind of good release even in the vhs
there they looked terrible or they were cutting. So it

(25:03):
was kind of a natural part of what the brand was,
but it wasn't what the brand was. So yeah, there
was if you look at the kind of year over
a year trajectory, we had a lot of them. We
had we had a fairly it was like a sixty
forty non sex versus sex, a sixty percent non sex

(25:27):
forty percent sex, and then it became kind of fifty
to fifty and then went back down to about sixty
forty and then probably about seventy thirty in favor of
non sex. And that was again, it was entirely dictated
by the market. You know, if sex films had dominated sales,
which they did a lot more than we used to

(25:50):
be able to sell a lot more of them ten
years ago. And I can actually directly pinpoints when that
that bottom sort of falling out, and it was January
of twenty seventeen. So Amazon had never allowed them, but
there was kind of an unwritten like you can put
them up on Amazon, They're not going to do anything.

(26:10):
In January of twenty seventeen, they actually sort of take
them down, and we went from in some cases like
Taboo was selling the Taboo films we'd had the first
three out. I think that was actually the month that
we put the fourth one out, and the first three
had done tremendously well, and the fourth one was a
big flop by comparison, in large part because we couldn't

(26:31):
get it up onto Amazon, and with the decreasing sales,
it was a choice of Okay, we're going to continue
to invest our digital resources and our money into releasing
lots and lots of more titles that are going to

(26:53):
be increasingly poor sellers, or are we going to focus
on what we're seeing as in at least based on
how many units are selling. And you know, we've never
turned away from sex films, and then again it was
with Melusine. Ironically, it's actually allowed us to release more

(27:15):
of them because now it is its own dedicated site,
so there has to be two or three releases every
single month in order to keep the site fresh and
to keep it as a draw. But yeah, there's absolutely
a loss from not having them on the Veneer Syndrome
homepaid because the customer base that's going to go specifically
to a sub site is certainly much smaller than the

(27:39):
one that's going to go to the Veneer syndrome site.
And does that mean that you know, if fire when
we're on the Veneer syndrome normal site, that it would
have necessarily sold better. Not necessarily, I mean there's also
still with these films, a pretty finite number of people
who buy them, and I can generally get us within

(28:01):
a margin of one hundred how many units each of
these titles are going to sell in the first month.

Speaker 6 (28:07):
That's crave why that's a skill.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Look at it like, if you want to do it yourself,
you can just see, Okay, the new titles go up
on the first they tend to sell in the first month,
six to nine hundred.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
That's the range you're you're talking about specifically for Malou Scene, right.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
There are outliers. I mean, I'm hoping that Green Door
is going to be an outlier. You know, we'll see
thirty days from now, but it's not surprising when we
don't sell out of a limited edition on Value Scene
for many, many months. And that's also why the early releases,

(28:53):
we were doing three thousandth editions on blue ray only titles,
and a number of those have done alright, but a
lot of them are still sitting with over one thousand,
if not two thousand units and stuck. And that's why
we reduced the Women Edition quantities to two thousand. And
I'd like to go less because I would rather them
sell out quickly than just sort of languish around and

(29:14):
then filter through sale after sale. But it's again, just
from a production perspective, the cost of doing two thousand
versus one thousand is such a the two thousand price
break is so much higher that it's just not worth
it to manufacture less.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
Oh, I see, Oh interesting, Okay, yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (29:39):
Guess.

Speaker 5 (29:39):
So I actually was talking to someone else about this,
and I don't remember. I think it was actually on here.
I think it might have been the last episode, only
it's less on. But like, so, I figured there was
a ceiling with that audience because it you know, well,
we don't have to really get into the specifics of that.
But does that ceiling grow even a little bit now,
like incrementally with each with each kind of passing month,

(30:01):
with people more discovering the stuff, Because I do find
when people do discover this stuff, specifically on the on
the adult side, it is kind of an exciting thing.
And I think a lot of that just has to
do with the quality of stuff now too, because just
for tuo of being shot on film, it looks better
than ninety five percent of what's.

Speaker 6 (30:18):
Put out the day, if not more.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
But like that, does that ceiling grow even a little
bit each each each passing year now? Since Melo scene
is kind of its own thing now.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
So, I mean it definitely, it's definitely had hit some
kind of leveling point.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Uh so.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
The yeah, I mean, yeah, there's there's outliers like the
SATSO release and Gretel that was a cross listed title
as well, but that was a huge seller. That was
highest selling of all the sub label releases that month
in September. So is that because the sex film audience

(30:57):
is growing? Probably not. It's probably because Sato is a
increasingly known entity. Pink films are increasingly known subgenre, and
so the audience for that specific type of film is
inherentbly larger.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, So what is.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
The audience for Behind the Green Door going to be?
I'm hoping that it's larger than the audience for Sunner
Spreading Girls, but we'll see it.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
But that's probably a perfect segue into the Mitchell Brothers
because we kind of brought them up and we're already
on the Maleousine site, so let's just start there. So,
first of all, congrats on getting that catalog. It's very exciting.
Is this going to be come out as a separate
line or are y'all going to be putting them out

(31:46):
as part of an existing line unreleasing.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
No, it's going to be its own line. It's going
to be Mitchell Brothers Film Group. So when we acquired
the catalog, we all thought that it was kind of
important to keep it as it's own thing because it
always was they were. They put their names ahead of
their films, so it was something that just seemed natural

(32:09):
to carry over.

Speaker 6 (32:12):
And how vast is that catalog?

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Uh, it was enormous. Well, it's not really an answer,
but there's about to thirty feature films, probably closer to
thirty wo and over one hundred shortsh awesome.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
That's that's fucking great.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
A lot of special features in there too. Then that's exciting.
I hope this sells really well for y'all. There was
there was discussion in the last episode about the possibility
of y'all bringing Wakefield Pool into existence, So we're going
to put that out there. You don't have to answer
for it, but now that you're here, there was a
there was some discussion on being able to bring those
films into existence too.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
What do you oh, I guess yeah, because they're like
out of print and there you know, it's like they're
from previous DVD releases, So.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Those are going to be coming back, but from a
from someone.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Else close collaborator.

Speaker 5 (33:12):
Yeah, okay, cool, nice, that's good.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Nice, nice tip. I appreciate that. M I got it.
No no isshoes there. And then beyond the Mitchell Brothers,
that's an exciting release, there's another big release that you
kind of tease that as well. So can you talk
at all about the rest storing Behind the Green Door
and and just kind of your excitement around getting that

(33:38):
out on disc?

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, I mean Behind the Green Door was obviously the
film that they are always going to be best remembered for.
With a number of their bigger films, sadly they did
not have the camera originals. They had intermediates, but they
didn't have the everything in sixteen miter and then starting

(34:04):
with Green Door, they started blowing everything up to thirty
five milarator. So for in a number of the bigger films,
we don't have the sixteen originals, we only have the
blow ups, so the quality is slightly capped. Again, we're
going to do it as much as we can to
make them look as good as possible. But with Green Door,
thankfully we did actually have the Hemor original, so we

(34:27):
were able to work from that and again get it
looking as good as it could, considering that it was
stored in the basement of the theater for about fifty years.
But yeah, I don't know, like, what else do you
want me.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
To that's awesome? Was it a difficult restoration process or
was it in a pretty good condition?

Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was in all right condition. It definitely there were
complaints from the restoration. There's complaints about everything. Yeah, there
was some. So it was shot in sixteen reversal, and
sixteen reversal is basically like a dust magnet. So any

(35:15):
movie that is shot in sixteen reversal is going to
be dirty, dirtier than if it were shot in negative.
And you can see if you watch the old video
DVD releases there's a lot of black dirt, single frame
black dirt. That's not because they transferred a print which

(35:37):
was damaged. It's because the sixteen original, which is what
we scanned was dirty. You know, even the best handled
sixteen reversal materials are going to have more dirt on
them than this than equally well handled thirty five negative
or sixteen negative. So there was definitely proportionally more dirt,

(36:00):
lot harder to remove it. But it's certainly going to
look cleaner and better, and the color looks beautiful and
the framing is appropriate. It. Yeah, it's gonna look the
best as ever it ever has and the best it can.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
That's great, that's really exciting. I'm really happy to hear that.
And it's like a deluxe release, right, it's three discs.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
It includes a four K. On the four K, we
have the feature, a commentary track with Jared Stearns, who
wrote Marilyn chambers biography Pure, also a French duble track
courtesy of Pulse, and French translation subtitles and German translation

(36:43):
subtitles in case you want to watch it in English
but with German or French subtitles. Blu Ray has the
feature and a forty minute sort of general over historical
overview about the Bitch Brothers sort of their you know,
their story, their filmography and their significance. Piece about Maryland

(37:07):
Chambers created by Jared her biographer. Oh god, I'm definitely missing.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, I know exactly what you're forgetting. You're forgetting your
winding through episode, which is a Oscar forced me to
do a video.

Speaker 6 (37:24):
I have to I have to say those videos are
the best, man.

Speaker 5 (37:26):
I really love all those, like like that Against the
Grain documentary you guys had on like the Last Picture
Show was like if that's like crack man, it just whatever.

Speaker 6 (37:35):
I see those ones.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
On YouTube, the winding through ones, those are those are great?
So is the winding through specifically about like the obtaining
the catalog and this exact process you just talked about it.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
It's about something that probably only I care about, which
is the nuances of effect based editing in sixteen A.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
B Roles and how Mitchell Brothers used it quite differently
than most would. That's an incredible skill level.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
But but Joe, I do want to call this out
because you may be the like one of a few
people that cares about that to that level of detail now.
But but people learn, like if you go through the
Vinegar Syndrome catalog, it's essentially film school, like the special
features that you'll put on these discs are historical, they're informative,

(38:26):
like what you just said, I mean, like it's amazing
to listen to the cinematographers and the writers and the
production designers and like like they I think that it's
this is what you know. It's it's easy to say
that there's a lot of special features on the discs,
but I really love that you care about that, and
I love that, like Oscar, the way that you promote

(38:48):
the archive, like these are very important things that y'all
are doing.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
And I like to promote Joe's incredible knowledge, Like he's
the most difficult person on the fucking planet, but he's
so incredibly smart that it almost makes up for it.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Almost, So just to finish up what the package has
the third day, which is also going to be available
separately in case you decide you don't want to buy
the film, which you want to buy the soundtrack, and
it isn't a good soundtrack. It's folky, non vocal, but
folky early seventies, very San Francisco score, which I think

(39:23):
is also beautifully used in the film. Music is used
sparingly and deliberately in the film, and it's a lovely score.
And then the limited edition includes a forty page book
in the case, which reprints the short story that the
film has adapted from, as well as a liner notes

(39:45):
book in the disc itself, which has a number of essays,
again one from Jared and one that I really want
to kind of give special attention to because of the
one that I pushed through. So for whatever that's worth,
which is about and now I'm about a yank Levine Lavigne,

(40:06):
who's you know, a side character in the film, but
one that was always really fascinating to me. And I
was just chatting with one of the researchers that we
worked with regularly, Sean Langrick, and I said, you know what,
what did you ever know you ever looked into him?
And she was like, oh yeah, absolutely, Here here's all
the information about Like, oh, do you want to write
an essay about his life? And he's like he'd a

(40:28):
fastening with So I think that Sean's essay to me
is one of the kind of extras highlights because and
I'll go on a little tangent here, I don't like
critical extras. By critical, I mean, like, you know, if
someone wasn't alive or involved with the film and they

(40:48):
or they didn't have like a direct relationship with the
filmmakers or people who were involved in the film where
they can tell the stories of people who are no
longer alive. I don't generally care what a critic or
an academic or a historian has to say about a
movie if they're providing me with information history, primary sources

(41:12):
that they're distilling down to the ideas. Great. But and
again this is not to you know, dismiss academic writing
as a whole. I think there's some fascinating academic writing
on the film everything else, but that's not what excites
me about extras on a disc. I want to learn.
I want to learn from the people who actually made

(41:33):
the film about how they made the film and why
and what it was like, not someone who is giving
their opinion on the film.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
That's a good pot Okay, I'm glad you brought that up,
because I'm just curious, Like you know, I know some
features specifically when you get like Hong Kong films or
and maybe I just want to make sure I'm not
misreading this, but like I feel like sometimes we do
get people who do who kind of provide more context
for those Do you oversee that as well, or do
you kind of let other people kind of handle that

(42:03):
stuff since it's not as much in your in your
it doesn't excite you as much. Or are you able
to kind of just objectively know that, like, Okay, this
release needs you know, X, Y and z as like
an essay, you know, anything for like a VSA release.
I guess it's just the one that's coming immediately to mind,
because I know there were a few Hong Kong ones
over the.

Speaker 6 (42:19):
Last couple of months.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
I mean, extras as a whole is not an error
that I get much involved with. We have a number
of people who are specifically or primarily producing extras. So
of course, you know the Hong Kong stuff. A lot
of it has lately been produced by Claudia, and she
is very good at trying to find people. The problem

(42:45):
agains a lot of Hong Kong movies and Asian films
in general is it's hard to get in touch, and
in many cases people are just not available, they're disinterested,
they're dead. So we're lucky in that respect to have
a number of really really knowledgeable historians like Frank Jenning

(43:07):
and John Charles who know the histories of these films
and know the careers and lives of the people who
made them, and can speak about how these movies were produced,
how they were distributed, in some cases, how they were censored,
and do so from a position of authority. So there's

(43:31):
a lot of really great historical information that I think
comes up in the extras. Even if the people involved
with the film are no longer alive, unwilling to participators
can be found. But the extras as a whole, I'm
not the one to speak about that. That's the extras producers. Claudia,
you and Elijah, of course, are the ones who are

(43:54):
actually spending their days chasing people down to convince them
to do inner use about movies they might have made thirty,
forty fifty years ago and not thought about since.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
Yeah, and the people who made it, not just like
the Big Stars, you know. I think the Big Stars
is interesting, but you've heard many of them say the
same things about the same movies. I love Claudia's pieces
where she talks to a special effects designer or someone
who makes masks or gore effects.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Absolutely, he's so.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Good at getting like really good stories out of them too,
And because they're not oftentimes they're not the people who
really are like, oh, they're just problem solvers, you know.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Well I think that also, and this is I'm gonna
I talked to a director one of released one of
their films, but she had a very dismissive thing when
I asked about interviewing actors, and she said, you're going
to interview an actor, what are you going to ask them?

Speaker 4 (44:52):
Like?

Speaker 3 (44:52):
What did the director tell you to tell.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
You to do?

Speaker 3 (44:54):
And then you did it?

Speaker 5 (44:55):
What?

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Wow? I think that might be a bit too so,
but you know, and there have been some you know,
obviously many actors have great stories about working on the film.
But to me, I think the kind of to what
Os was saying that the many of the best interviews
come from crew people's secondary crew people because they were
they were not the ones whose opinions were being asked

(45:20):
when they were shooting or were not really being taken seriously.
They could sit back and observe, and they have less
of an ego about you know, they can they're more
apt to shit talk or kind of dish on what
actually happened that an actor may not be wanting to
talk about or may spin it away to not hurt
their prime or the director may not be willing to

(45:43):
acknowledge a problem on set because it doesn't look at
on them. So yeah, secondary crew people. I mean, I
love talking to cinematographers. Yes, cinematographers can often tell you
the best and most intricate stories because they have to
be there every single moment. Yeah, and actors come and go.

(46:05):
There are plenty of directors who are in name only
directors where other people really made the film but they
took the credit. But sind them eat them. Editors too, Yeah,
Editors are also can be great storytellers.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
So Joe, in addition to the amazing workout doing with
the Mitchell brothers, the Sato said, I'm assuming is also
going to be on Malu scene.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Right, the Sato said, is going to be on the
Vinegar Syndrome and Maloscene site because anything that is non
hardcore we can list on both sites. This is the
second volume of the Sato collection. We have many more
volumes to go. This one. The first one's three films set.
The second one is the two films set only, because

(46:48):
that's how many films we were only get done in
time deadline. But there was going to be you know
a lot more coming and yeah, I mean, what anything
specially you want to go over with this second volume?

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Well, so yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 5 (47:06):
Oh my only question in regards to the Pink Line is,
I know we've gotten two back to back Satos, So
is the Pink Line gonna I'm assuming it's gonna expand
beyond that at some point or are you are you
trying to focus on because his filmography obviously it's huge,
and a lot of Pink films, you know, they're usually short.
So is the idea usually to be like a volume
of like kind of like a couple movies per volume

(47:28):
or is that going to kind of vary.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
It's going to be two or three films per release.
And then in terms of the focus, we started with
Sato and we're really going to be focusing on Sato
for the first few Pink Line releases because we got
so many Sato films so early. But we do have
some additional non Sauto Pink films which will be coming

(47:52):
out maybe next year or the following year. But we
have quite a few releases planned under Pink Line, and again,
the majority of them we're going to be Sato, but
there's a bunch of others that we're we're working on
and also trying.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
To require awesome.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
No.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
I think the thing I'm so excited about is that,
you know, this is one thing I was trying to
talk to about the Mexican cinema as well that you'll
have put out. I don't mean to detour into that,
but just to bring it back to the pink line.
You know, other countries, just because they're not us, the
cinema the film history in these countries is pretty deep
and rich, and I think the pink line is very

(48:32):
exciting for me because you're getting to see that these
are not just castaway productions like these are high value,
high budget productions, and you're getting these beautiful releases around
that really bring attention to it. So I think the
I'm super excited about this line. I'm glad to hear
it's expanding, you know, and you have a lot planned well.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
I think also, you know, looking at not just Sato's films,
but the pink film industry in Japan in the seventies
and eighties and into the nineties, it's incredible that the
amount of just artistry that was put into these fifties
so that where you're finding camera work and editing and

(49:14):
just general creativity that is far more elaborate and thoughtful
and meaningful than in a lot of big Hollywood blockbusters.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yes, and they were given such freedom creatively, which is
so exciting, I think, in something you don't always get
in these larger productions, huge production design budgets, huge, you know,
a lot of creative freedom in the storytelling. It's it's
just such an exciting line. Maybe staying in Asia for
a bit as we move away from Alius now to

(49:46):
the main line, I know that everybody's very excited about
the Shaw Brothers set, and so this is going y'all
are going to be putting this out on vs. The mainline? Correct? Correct, Yes,
that's exciting. So it's three films and what what How
did these three films get chosen for the Shaw set?

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (50:10):
So?

Speaker 3 (50:10):
I guess in terms of my personal taste when it
comes to Hong Kong movies, I love the horror. I
think that a few countries have made weirder and more
interesting horror movies.

Speaker 5 (50:21):
Than Hong Kong.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Hell yeah, I don't know if countries the right way
to describe any more, but at the time that they
were making yeah, uh, you know, basically Italians and Hong
Kong filmmakers are like, you will not find weirder movies.
And when when we first did our when we did

(50:44):
our initial deal with the Show Catalog, we asked about
a lot of horror titles that they said were not available,
and we kind of persisted and then did a second deal.
So it was kind of like, you know, what, what
did they allow us to take? And often when doing
box sets, the idea is the whole is greater than

(51:07):
some of the parts, so we're going to take movies
that maybe a tougher cell. Not that the films themselves
are not as good, but they're just you know, they're
more obscure. They're less likely to have specific, specific excitement
around them as individual titles. And I think something that's
kind of ironic in these Shaw films is I feel

(51:30):
like we could have released all of these titles as
individual films and done or had had an equally enthusiastic
response as in a box set. But they also are
really into box sets, so that's in part why we're
doing branded Shaw lines now. They really want the Shaw

(51:51):
name out there. So you know, for these first three,
it just seemed like an interesting pairing because I always
like putting together box sets that even if there isn't
like a direct through line between the films, they speak

(52:12):
to how a theme or an idea progressed in whatever
the overarching point to the of the box is over
either a period of time or you know, the same
subject matter or type of film from the perspective of
different filmmakers. And I think in this case, if there's
going to be an overarching theme, it's you know, what

(52:35):
types of horror films? It's like, this is the introduction,
So what types of horror film were shovelers producing in
the early mid eighties. So we have an anthology Haunted Tales.
We have one of their kind of goofier horror fantasy,
just sort of throwing everything and see what works films
in the form of Sex Beyond the Grave, which is

(52:56):
also kind of a Poltergeiser buff And then we have
their just dead serious, mean approach Hell Has No Boundary,
which to me is by far the best in the sentiment.
It's one of the yeah in the eighties period. So
I think like this is going to give a good
sense of Okay, here's volume one, here's what you can
look forward to maybe in more specifically focused volumes going forward.

(53:23):
But yeah, it's it's Shaw horror in the early eighties,
and I think three really strong examples of the different
types of horror films that they were making.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
That's amazing. Then the speaking of the eighties, one of
the most iconic and time piece kind of movies that
came out was these goofy, little ugly characters called garbage
Pail Kids. Can you talk it all about? Where who

(53:56):
had the idea to acquire this wonderful movie and put
it out as part of the VSU line? Because I'm
excited about this. This is extremely nostalgic for me.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
It was it was entirely Oscars. I thought you were
gonna we were doing an MGM deal, and Oscar said,
here's a few films, uh, And I didn't bother putting
them into the list. And then he cried and pleted,
oh yeah, right about putting painful of films. And the
one that he was most enthusiastic about what his kid.

Speaker 5 (54:33):
Let the record state, Yeah, Dirty Work was the second
most exciting thing.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
It was actually that he actually did cry and pleat
about were Dirty Work? Mac and Me and Last Time
in Paris? But no garbage Biel kids. I don't remember
who suggested it was just Justin wants to No. I
think it was Ryan.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
No, it was Justin wanted that one. And then you
were like, I think it'll do well.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
I it'll do I have no problem, Okay, Oscar is
a problem with garbage Frail kids. I do not because
I managed the video store for about eight years and
that thing rented like crazy our DVDR like fly off
the shelves. So I have no concerns about that thing
doing well. And I think, you know, and we had

(55:20):
this conversation with like garbage trail kids, why are we
putting that out? And I like also that it was
directed by a seventy year old British guy.

Speaker 6 (55:30):
I mean, look, you're right, you're you're You're completely right.

Speaker 5 (55:33):
That thing when it plays out in a repertory capacity
here in La it fucking kills every time. It's always packed,
and it always gets a great response. I mean, there's
there's there's definitely that's like the textbook definition.

Speaker 6 (55:44):
Of a cult movie. You know, I know that word
kind of what does that even fucking mean anymore?

Speaker 3 (55:48):
But like, I.

Speaker 5 (55:50):
Think that's awesome that you guys are putting it out
as it and it's getting Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
It's the type of thing that really does very literally
beg the question of who thought this was a good idea?
Who did who? Who was it intended to be entertaining to.
And I'm not saying this in a negative way, like
I think that the film. I've watched it once in
like two thousand and six, But you know, the one

(56:15):
time I watched it in two thousand and six, I enjoyed.
I was very snobbish about it before I watched it,
and it's actually fine. Like it's a it's a creaky
set dound British children's comedy that is also tying into
forbidden to discuss product placement. It's it's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
What I'm excited for is Claudie is doing the extras
on that one, So I'm gonna get to hear about
why the fuck would anybody make this thing that I
don't like it. It's not that that's not the problem,
it's just.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
It is the problem. That's the only problem you have
with it.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
But we've called out Claudia. I meant to say this earlier,
you know, when when I had a on here, we
talked about the fact that I think the the special
features sometimes take on the personality of the producer. And
I love the discs that she puts out because she's
got that artist mindset right Like I love her background
and in kind of a museum art like high art,

(57:18):
because she brings that credibility like y'all said, you're you know,
you talk about the behind the scenes people, but she
comes at it from a very like curious perspective because
she's learning. But she's also got that that tint of
being like a creative, like an artist. So I I
love her special features.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Actually, yeah, and just from a you know, I look
at everything from how much stress do they cause me
when they arrive?

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Good? Good top gladdy cool. Well, I'm I cannot wait
to hear the reaction about garbage pel kids, but I'm
going to defend it because I like it. Then the last, oh,
I guess there's there's two were to discuss quickly than
I want to make sure we end on the new
exciting sub label, but we missed the other VS line.

(58:09):
So this is an interesting one because this is not
from the eighties, but this is actually from two thousand
and seven. Correct time crimes.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
Not so Bigelando.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, so yeah, time Crimes and since yeah, since you
brought out this is something that again we have to
give Justin credit for. This is a movie. So Magnolia,
which is one of our partner labels, Yeah, has mostly
contemporary catalogs, so contemporary being two thousands and on, and

(58:42):
this is the title that came up, and Justin came
to Ryan and I was like, Magnolia doesn't really know
what to do with Time Crime, Like, well, obviously we
want it. So it was it's I think the most
modern movie that Vinegar Syndrome has ever released.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
That was exactly my question. You know that. Yeah, Oh
go ahead, Chris, Sorry, no, no, no, I'm curious about that.
That was exactly my question. I can't imagine anything on
the VS main line that's older than two thousand, this
past two thousand, maybe I'm off.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
What am I thinking?

Speaker 5 (59:19):
Yeah, well, the fastened movies, that's it. That's the only
thing I could true, and the Prophecy movies. Other than that,
nothing else is really mines.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
I was gonna say exit stuff, but that's also nineties.
It just feels more modern. Uh yeah, you know what,
when we started again, you can see the trajectory kind
of change. It was sixties and seventies with a little
bit of eighties, then become then it became seventies and
eighties with a little bit of nineties. Now it's eighties
and nineties with a little bit of seventies and two thousands.
And now I think that the inevitable shift that I'm

(59:50):
not particularly happy about, but it's the way things go.
Is it's going to become necessary to do more early
two thousands.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Movies Ted Bundy as well.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
That was a vis Or VSL no VSA VSA. Yeah, yeah,
so yeah. I was a snob when I was younger.
I still have a snob. When I was a kid
in the nineties, I didn't watch movies from the nineties.
I saw a few, but I was watching movies from
the sixties and seventies when I was a young adult

(01:00:23):
in the two thousands, I didn't watch movies from the
two thousands. So I'm kind of on this like twenty
year back. Okay, then it becomes acceptable. So time crimes
is on that cusp, and it does make me squeamish
to think that there could become a day where Vininger

(01:00:44):
syndrome releases a movie from like twenty fifteen. I hope
that okay, but you know, as long as it still
adheres to the shot on film factor, which Time Crimes does,
and it's still genre or ideally horror. I don't want

(01:01:07):
a film elements, yeah, from a film element. Yeah. I
don't want to rule out any possibility. And again, I
think the Time Crimes is, you know, if it was
a film those ten years earlier that we wouldn't there
wouldn't have been any kind of trepidation about it because
it is a you know, a pure genre film and

(01:01:28):
I I mean, I'm excited for it. Actually, this is
actually a film that I am excited for the first
time that we became aware that was available. Like it
was like you know, right and I both like absolutely.
It wasn't even the sense of, oh, well does this
really fit? Does this make sense? What are the problems?
What are the repercussions going to be? Will people be upset?
It was No. This is obviously a film that we want,

(01:01:49):
And this is.

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
A film that I think, you know, it was at
the time that people who saw it they loved it.
A fun metric for me. And I'll just say this
really quick because I know we're a little short on time.
But like, one of my favorite things about when I
finally got back into physical media that VS did was
that you guys did a lot of Dogs of the Week,
which you know, the Ciskel and Ebert thing. A lot
of those got preserved through through VS, like The Children
and among others.

Speaker 6 (01:02:11):
That's just the one that hit me.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
But you know, this was like a movie where it
was critically well received, and I think most people you
talk to like it, and I think that it's just
a lot of people missed it or a lot of
people have been waiting for something like this to come along.
And I think it's awesome that it goes through both
ends of the equation. And to be clear about that,
I just mean, like when something was a Dog of
the Week, I think they got it wrong. I think
it's great that you guys preserved something like that because

(01:02:34):
it was something that deserved the second life. But I
just liked that it goes both ways, that it's something
that if people who saw it, they knew about it,
but they're like actually genuinely excited either to discover it
or to.

Speaker 6 (01:02:46):
Finally, you know, have it in this form.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
So we've brought up Justin a few times here, and
I don't know from my perspective, cinematograph is very closely
linked to Justin in terms of curation, just out of curiosity.
Then we'll get right into the title. But is that
generally true?

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
I think it's you know, Justin is definitely the voice
of cinematograph. We will frequently he and I disagree on
sometimes what titles belong on cinematograph, and his rubric is
in large part this is not a negative comment. If

(01:03:28):
he likes the film, he wants it on cinematograph. If
he doesn't like the film, he doesn't want a cinematograph.
Then a point of contention where there are films that
I feel are best suited for cinematograph, and Justin is
just not a fan of them, so he very strongly objects.
And then there are other instances where I have strongly

(01:03:50):
objected myself to films that I don't think are appropriate
to the brand identity, where he makes in a passion
case to Ryan and then Ryan and I was like, oh,
let's just do this, so we did.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
I think that by and large, though we are all
in agreement that the films I come out understand a
matagraph belong on that brand because they are correctly themed
to that brand.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
And I think that's a perfect segue into a close
range because that feels like right in the sweet spot
for the for the label.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Yeah, and that was a film that you know, when
I was initially thinking about, like I could this be
a VSU? And then I have remember talking to you.
Ryan was like, when's the last time you watched it?
And I said I don't know, and twenty years ago
and he's like, yeah, you should watch it again. That's
not a VSU. It went to Cinematagraph.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Nice. Well, Joe, thank thank you so much for making
this time today and for giving us insights into the
company and kind of what motivates you. A lot of
the ideas I had about who you were seemed to
really be true. And please please keep doing it for
the right reasons because it shows and we're gonna be
here kind of championing the company from from what we

(01:05:07):
can do for our pedestal.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Well, thanks for having me, and I do need to
go have your love five years. It's in your order,
all taped down.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
You don't do anything to a beautiful easy yep ogain.

Speaker 6 (01:05:22):
Thanks again, Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Uh Oscar, let's talk about your baby. Yeah, so congratulations
on having a first child.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
Yes, thank you very much. Technically that would go to
my cat Jigsaw, who does tricks and ship. She's very lovely.
But yes, my first like a pet project instead of
just a pet. Good, thank you very much. Since I
came here, I I I don't come from like I

(01:05:56):
did buy physical media, but I was very sparing. I
always wanted to reward projects that I thought were really ambitious,
and you know, bringing something out that I knew kind
of took a lot of work. And that's kind of
how I came into it and came into archiving. I
come from an archival background. I try, you know, I
think they When I was training to be an archivist,

(01:06:19):
I had a weird perspective because I was really interested
in film history. But I really wanted the I wanted
to hear the stories about why films got lost or
became missing or were not more mentioned. And I think
that really drew me to Vinegar Syndrome. When I first
heard about Herschel Gordon Lewis like the lost film, this

(01:06:42):
is exactly what I'm about. And then Massage Parlor Murders
just knocked it up a punch, and you know, now
we've put out maybe like I don't know, a couple
dozen like lost films, which is just kind of mind
blowing over the course of our entire history. And just
did the ten Lost Films last year, and I was

(01:07:03):
so incredibly excited. And then I came right up against
our lovely guest who just left, Je Rubans, our programmer,
and if I don't know if any of it made
it in, but we but had all the time on
what we think is cool, what we think is interesting,
and I really respect his opinion even if it's always wrong.

(01:07:27):
And no, no, I really respect his opinion. But I
remember we would have these long, lengthy discussions about films
that each of us really liked, the other person didn't like.
Ryan didn't like it, like Brandon saw some of it
and was like kind of iffy on it. But Reviver,

(01:07:48):
which is our new sub label, is kind of like
a something that I came to everybody about, mainly because
of the fact that we run one of the largest
archives in the United States, almost purely by pulling from
the same pool of money that goes towards you know,

(01:08:08):
special features and making T shirts and random stuff that
you'd think it was a different like money pool or something,
but we're not that big, So I would always have
to really sporadically reach out. I apologize for the rmbly answer,
but the I would always have to reach out very

(01:08:29):
and very key pivotal times, like normally after a sale
if something did well or something that I was involved with,
just because I was like, look how good this did.
Also I want I need twenty thousand dollars worth of
Tuscan cans because we're getting a new collection and in
two weeks. And so I guess the initiator of reviv

(01:08:51):
is just you know, trying to bring back the that
amazing aspect of vinegar syndrome that I've always loved, while
also keeping the mystery and the actual branding of being
an archivist and looking through things that you don't know
what you're gonna find. Digging through a box or a
container that is disgusting and you don't want to touch it,

(01:09:16):
but you have to in order to get what's inside.
And then you have to put it on a rewind
bench or throw it on a scanner if it's actually
prepped for being put on a viewer and actually just
find out what this fucking thing is. So the entire
idea of the release is we're not telling you what
you're getting. So it's very much similar to like, I

(01:09:38):
love surprises, and I love like having some creative freedom
with like April Fool's Day releases and kind of like that,
but in this case it's much less for like a
a jokey like end result is something which you're either
going to be like why the fuck, it's going to
be something which serves a very speci purpose, which is

(01:10:02):
film access is the most key aspect of being a
film archive and being a film preservation company. After I'd
argue the conservation and maintenance of our materials, keeping them safe,
and the preservation making sure that they survive long after
I'm gone and dead and everybody else is dead. And

(01:10:25):
so yeah, that's what Revivor is. The first release is
really exciting. I'll give you a hint because I thought
about a really good one. Okay, I should have written
more about this in the copy, but I'm glad I didn't.
But if you look at the very first release of

(01:10:48):
Vineger Syndrome ever Lost films of hers to Gordon Lewis,
there is a bit of a connection, I'll say that,
and I think it was one of the initiating ideas
of why I wanted to choose this film. And it's
a really exciting film, so exciting that we even pull
from the dreaded thirty five millimeters release print instead of.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
It instead of as much as everybody hates it, humanity exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
And yeah, it's a really fun movie. I really enjoyed it.
And we threw in a bunch of it's a grab bag,
so basically we you know, we even spent too. It's
four K on everything on this release. Future releases may
vvery just depending on source material. Like one. The second

(01:11:38):
release has a film which I've always wanted to put
out and I finally can put it out, which has
a real so incredibly badly water damaged that you barely
can make out what's happening of it. That took its
technically took eight months of treatment and least twelve rewinds

(01:12:03):
very careful.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
It took.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
It's taken years to kind of get it to the
state where we can actually scan it. But yeah, the
first one is really exciting. It has a bunch of
a couple of weird shorts. It has an extended ELI.
Thank you for what you said earlier about the winding
through videos. I really love getting to do them and
share my unbridled excitement about film preservation and the elements

(01:12:31):
that we use and the stories behind them. And this
is an extended version of a winding through that is
going to be released. It's released with the sale, So yeah,
I'm really excited about it. And the shorts are really
fucking weird. It'll be a random if you like anything
something weird, the clap. You know, the days of Vrainy

(01:12:55):
and Pertrucci still echo onward still to this day with
her amazing work, but it definitely echoes in this first release,
and I think it's something that really serves as the
backbone of what at least I wanted to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
This release.

Speaker 5 (01:13:09):
Well, I just want to say thank you for thank
you again for doing those videos because what I had
talked about, I think I bought this up when I
was still just guesting on the show before I came
on as a co host, was you know, a big
thing from the DVD era that you guys really keep alive,
and mileage really varies from company to company. But I
think you guys really keep the spirit alive is DVDs

(01:13:30):
were the first time that features could really fucking pack
in and the big blow. One of the big things was,
especially for film students back then myself included was you
know those like Robert Rodriguez woul do those ten minute
film schools and stuff like that. And I think that
that's the most exciting part of and I think it
really can make people appreciate because sometimes people will watch

(01:13:51):
these movies without the context. They'll just jump into the
movie and be like, what the fuck did I just watch?
Why did I watch that? And then they'll be completely
turned off by it. And I think that like watching
something like what you did for the Nick Millard collection
for the vsays or you know, or for the for
the original when you guys put out that double feature
for that, I think knowing that before watching that stuff,

(01:14:14):
it's a weird thing where like you actually do have
to put the cart before the horse, because usually it
would be the other way around.

Speaker 6 (01:14:19):
You'd watch a.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
DVD of a big studio movie, you'd go through all
the special features after me like that's so cool, and
you'd appreciate the movie more and you could do that now,
but I don't think people are as adventurous that way
with these kinds of movies unless that's that's your bag.
And so I think watching these features first and then
jumping into the movie really can pay off in spades sometimes,

(01:14:40):
you know.

Speaker 6 (01:14:40):
But I don't think that's obviously for everybody. Their mileage varies.
But I think that's why. I think that a lot
of that stuff's important.

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
And it's like why the archival stuff and like what
you're talking about, I kind of both minds.

Speaker 6 (01:14:51):
By the way. I know this is a bit of
a rant as well, but.

Speaker 5 (01:14:53):
Like you know, I love the exhibition side because I think,
at the end of the day, why are we doing
this is so people can see it, and especially if
we can preserve it theatrically. I think the microcinema has
been a big, big, big boom in that lately. But
also I get that, like, you know, wanting to get
the best elements possible to have that presentation so people

(01:15:16):
on their o ED can get their money's worth or whatever,
you know.

Speaker 6 (01:15:20):
I think that I think that goes both ways.

Speaker 5 (01:15:22):
So yeah, that's that's all I wanted to kind of
add to what you were saying with the work, and
I think revivor that sounds like such a great way
of giving people who were with VS from the beginning
kind of a taste of that again, or people who
were late to the party actually, because I couldn't start
collecting physical media again probably until like post COVID, and

(01:15:43):
so it's been a constant search sometimes to make sure
I can get a hold of the pickup or something,
you know, at like a somewhat reasonable price or something
along those lines. So I think that's really cool because
I think that's for a lot of people, they still
love that discovery and they can kind of get that
while still getting you know, an urgento in four K

(01:16:04):
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
No, I think that the the title that always comes
to mind for me is like, imagine if Barbara had
a separate release, Like what y'all could have done with that,
because that's just such a fucking like you watch Barbara
and you're just like what in the world and it's
so captivating, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:24):
Barbara is a great example. I think, like it's the
kind of thing where you want to know this reason, yeah,
why it's lost and why it looks the way it does,
and like who made it? Because like Barbara's really brilliantly
written and really beautifully photographed, even though we didn't we
have the best element ever that well, not ever, but

(01:16:46):
with the best element that exists, and it's never gonna
look any better, and you know, it is what it is.
We get to actually put out this incredibly controversial, weird,
weird ass movie and for the first time ever, I did.
I know I've said this before, but I love getting
people's reactions to lost films because even if I did

(01:17:08):
slap the name on the film, it could sell on
its own really easily. Where it's like if we could
slap the name on it, I was like, everyone here
at the very end.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Was like, can we maybe not do a secret?

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
And I'm like no, because this is the you know,
the fun of this is treating the film as an
object much like you know, obviously, we can always release
it in another someone could pick it up and do
something later with it. But I really wanted to capture
that really beautiful experience and that passion when we find something.

(01:17:45):
I mean, technically speaking, this film. It's so difficult to
talk about a film. When I am not able to
talk about the film, I really fucked myself over here,
but I need to give credit to the great Elizabeth Purchell,
who is the one who tipped us off about it
this print under an alternate title, and I'm like, it's

(01:18:09):
because of the fact that people trust us that we're
able to put this kind of stuff out, And frankly,
at the since the very beginning, I once again with
what you said, Eli, I'm very I'm very happy, like
very proud of like the amount of work that we've
done to kind of like showcase, like literally explained to

(01:18:30):
people how much I really like come at this as
the point of view of even on my worst days,
I'm working at a really cool company, and I work
with the coolest people, the smartest people ever, experts in
their field who I respect the shit of their opinions
of Steven Morwitz brilliant, Brandon Upson incredible, Joe Rubin real
weirdo but brilliant, No Brian great, but in all these incredible,

(01:18:57):
really brilliant, smart people, and I get to learn from
them and geek out and frankly the fact that sometimes
they were not patting themselves on the back for the
fact that we were going through this Sissifian like never
ending process of trying to restore anything that we thought
was cool and never telling the story about it, and

(01:19:19):
like it kind of meant that even though the film
was being shown oftentimes like you didn't know how much
work Brandon put into it. I know how much how
difficult it was to restore something from the Nick Millard collection,
which is it took me three months to go through
the thing because of the fact that he was really messy,

(01:19:43):
Like he was incredibly messy. But his films are so
incredibly beautiful. They're like really really well put together, and
they're tiny little gems of like not just I like
things when they are multiple birds being hit by a
sing stone and that beautiful home movie aesthetic while also

(01:20:04):
making really interesting outsider art. And I'm a really big
proponent of just trying to, you know, highlight the things
which are difficult. And Nick Millard's films difficult. A lot
of the films that I want to put that are
because somewhat backburnt, because we have like eight totally planned

(01:20:28):
out that I want to do. The more difficult ones,
which are going to be going to be like the
passion projects for this are going to be like really difficult,
like reversal nightmares that we're going to have to really
piece it back together because it's you know, what we
have is such a nightmare. But but yeah, thank you,

(01:20:50):
thank you again. It's a very kind thing to say.
And yeah, I'm glad we're going to keep doing that,
and all of the revival releases will have a winding
through and will have very in depth extras.

Speaker 5 (01:21:01):
So I'm glad to hear that, because I also think
it's just it's I would imagine working at a company
like that that has a fan base that's very passionate,
which also means they're also extremely online. And I don't
know personally, you know, I think I know Justin's pretty active,
but it can be you know, if I was in

(01:21:23):
your shoes or Joe's shoes or anybody for the most part,
a lot of people there.

Speaker 6 (01:21:27):
I would be so offline because I you know, you
do all that work.

Speaker 5 (01:21:31):
So it's it's just worth, like Chris says, you know,
it's worth calling out because I think a lot of
times people can take that for granted because and I understand, look,
people are spending money and things aren't getting cheaper these days,
but like at.

Speaker 6 (01:21:43):
The same time, it's not like you guys exclusively.

Speaker 5 (01:21:47):
Save that kind of hard work for these things. That's
just the stuff that's worth calling out the most, because hey,
like when you guys do studio stuff, I've really banged
the drum on this too, even if it's something that
like is a movie that I don't care for or
or like, or a movie that I'm like kind of
medium on at best, Like you know, Jade, I kind
of find myself weirdly hypnotized by it. But while I'm

(01:22:08):
watching it, I'm like, why the fuck am I watching
this again? Some you know what I mean, Like it's
a weird yeah, and so but you know, you guys
put all this work into giving this other version too,
and it's not like you're just putting features to put
features on there, or like, you know, just to get
the movie out because that's the one that's going to
move the most units, like it's still getting or you know,
like you did with Dirty Work, like you got the

(01:22:30):
R rated cut of that in there as well, and
I know that was a passion project for you, But
that's like these are also projects that like if they're
getting four k's, they're gonna move.

Speaker 6 (01:22:38):
But the fact is you guys still put.

Speaker 5 (01:22:40):
That work equally into something like that or Sleepless or
Ruby or you know, or you know anything else that's
come out in the last few months. And I think
that's that's really an incredible thing to do.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
We'd try, and I think it's a lot of balls
to juggle and I but you're right. I'm chronically I
use I'm on Facebook almost exclusively to speak to my
best friend and collaborator who does who edits the winding
through videos and has to and make sends me clips

(01:23:17):
of me stuttering and looking like an idiot. And that's
basically why I use Facebook, and I try not to
because there's just so many projects which I just want
them to kind of like have this miraculous takeoff. But

(01:23:37):
we know. The good news is when I and the
other people who are doing the actual film preservation work,
I think every one of us is like, not really,
we do the exact same thing where we put our
blinders on and we just don't. It's not even that
we don't want to see the positive things that I
think people say and think, which there's a lot of. Really,

(01:23:58):
I think like people who are like, oh yeah, dirty
work should have been put out are rated caught it
from the beginning. Technically I should say dirty or cud
because I'm not but the but like, so there's a
lot of positive. But I think the people who are
in the reads, it's such a physical job what we do,

(01:24:21):
we're like I always like to consider myself like I'm
a custodian of film history, where like I just as
much as I want to dig into the response, whether
positive or negative, I can't do it. Justin's much more
on the front end where I think he really is
like excels at that kind of thing, and so I'm

(01:24:45):
very much glad that he does that instead of instead
of me or Joe for that matter, or whatever his
fake name is on Facebook when he chimes in on things.

Speaker 5 (01:24:58):
Yeah, I mean, hey, you know he did that on
the Blu Ray forum where he talked about the maluscene
sales and stuff. And I think that's that's important to
jump in once in a while, you know, I get it.
I think that's the right way to do it, is
just pose as a lurker until it's time to uh,
until it's time to go in the phone booth and
change into the Superman outfit or whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
But like I think that's Uh, that's the right way.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
To do it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:18):
Lions, is it John Lyons?

Speaker 6 (01:25:20):
It's his fake name, I believe, so, I believe that's it.
I actual couldn't remember it until you said it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:25):
I know all the Ruben lare I know all the
Ruben Laard mules, all my insults to him. Uh no, no,
but yeah, yeah, but that's that's basically it. But yeah, yeah,
those are the releases. There's a pretty good ones and
then there's uh garbage pail kids.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Uh uh look, I think Oscar we Uh there's a
lot of discussion this year. I don't know how close
you are to it, but there's a lot been a
lot of discussion online of like is the spirit of
VS still around?

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
Just because as you get up market, naturally, people are
gonna start talking about those kind of things, right like,
oh there's another Hollywood release or whatever. And I think
that the fun thing for me is and I think
Eline I talk about this a lot. You know, there's
every month there's usually something that feels like old school Villas,
but then you just have months like September, October, November

(01:26:22):
boom boom. It's just like holy shit, Like I don't
know there's been so just like banger after banger after
banger coming out, it just feels right in the sweet spot.
And I think the revivor line for me is exciting
because it gives people a chance to kind of put
their money where their mouth is and that if they
want to, if they really really just want the old stuff,
like that's what they want, Like, here's the chance, right,

(01:26:44):
Like it's gonna be exactly like if that's what they
care about, Like, here's the chance, Like go support it
to make sure.

Speaker 4 (01:26:51):
You can do it more right, Absolutely, And I thank
you for telling me. I can't believe they didn't fucking
say this too. Part of my entire We all sign
on tracks and stuff like that when when an employee
is going to be taken over, like doing a kind
of like what like a managing a sub label or
something like that, because a lot of people just pitch

(01:27:12):
into VSA or VSU or you know, everybody just kind
of like helps a tiny bit. But with this one,
it was written into the contract like like every after
the cost of manufacturing, everything goes to the film market.
So that means that when people by a revival release,
not only are they supporting that classic spirit of vinegar
syndrome that I fell in love with and that I

(01:27:34):
think many people complain about when we release Dirty Work,
a lost version of Dirty Work. But like, we're literally
putting the money back into this. And I think it
came about because we're moving to another location and we
have to move one of the largest film collections archivally

(01:27:57):
stored film collections each gone through Entius and cans. I
think around five thousand cans have been done from two
thousand twelve through twenty twenty about that was around five
thousand reels that have been canned. I believe that's correct,
and in the last five years we've done thirty five thousand.

(01:28:21):
In terms of fully inventorying and getting new collections. Continues
to grow in terms of being able to do that
in terms of Lindsay who helps me in the like
manages the database, but it's it's Brandon who's able to
kind of like jump in and scan these things which
are new releases. And it's Joe who purchases a little

(01:28:43):
bit too much film Okay, I'll say that, but like
Joe who kind of like is a really great acquisitions
person and brand curator in terms of his tastes which
are really fucking weird. Doesn't like dirty work, or didn't
for a while. But I'm not going to keep talking
about But yes, so, like long story short of it,

(01:29:07):
if you are supporting that, like you know from the
ground up idea of Vinegar Syndrome should be a place
for discovering new things and literally supporting the one thing.
I think that makes us the coolest and most unique company.
And I'm saying that as a person who's not cool,
not unique. I think this is a cool and unique

(01:29:29):
company because of the fact that we have a film
ark type. It's built into our entire brand, built into
our name in Vinegar Syndrome. If we're not doing this,
then we are part of the problem and we are
just another distributor. I think for me it's really important
and will be continue continue to be important as we
literally just release lost films or things that are looked

(01:29:52):
so terrible on the last commonly available version. Each each
release is going to have a lost film you've never
seen any anything like what you're going to see. I
think the second one is going to blow people's fucking mind.
The third one, I'll say this, They're going to be
a bunch of bunch of things, and they're not going

(01:30:14):
to be necessarily like features made. I'm pretty okay, I
can lock it down, but the uh and you know,
and so all of them are going to have different
themes and they're going to have this just basic vibe
where you get a press play and the moment you
press play, you're you're either going to love what you
see or hate what you see. But you know without
a doubt that after you see it, you're going to

(01:30:36):
be one of the first people in the world to
have seen it. And to me, that's something really special
to be able to share with people.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
I think that's a perfect way to end the episode
as well, Oscar, because I think that's a very nice
way to sum up a lot of what Vinegar Syndrome
is in general. Not that you know, it's the first
time people have ever seen Playroom or Schizo, but it
might be the first time that a lot of people
have seen it, and it might be the first time
that it's been on disc in this format, and it

(01:31:04):
might be the first time that you're getting to dig
into this movie, right, So I think there's something in
that that range true for y'all and the reason I'm
excited to do this and the reason why I'm so
excited Eli and Celesti on this journey, and we're all
kind of trying to build this community here because I'm
going I'm only gonna say this once because I know
it's kind of a y'all are better than them, but

(01:31:28):
building this. People talk about Criterion as if it's like
this gold standard, and the thing that I love about
Vinegar Syndrome is that the community that's found y'all is
treating it in the exact same way of like this
is the gold standards of exploitation of genre movies. And yeah, anyways,
I just want to keep celebrating it. So thank you
for being so involved with us too.

Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
Yeah, of course, And celestis fucking awesome. I think there's
no person that I'd rather give very frank takes on
sex films like I think so us takes her really
like really always well put together, and yeah, I really
respect her voice, and yeah, yeah, I'm yeah, thank you

(01:32:12):
again for having me. I think, like, you guys are awesome.
It was nice meeting you. Eli. I'm like, I wish
I wish Joe had fucking taken up less with his No, No,
I'm just kidding, but this is lovely. I think I'm
very excited. If you can't tell, I'm really nervous the thing.
The thing launches soon, so I'm like, I'm like in

(01:32:34):
like a fight or flight mode and there are a
few more things that I have to do, but go
take care of business.

Speaker 6 (01:32:42):
Yeah, well we'll let you go.

Speaker 5 (01:32:43):
It's great meeting you too, And and yeah, we're just
a few hours. I mean, I guess we'll give people
a peek behind the curtain, but it's like a few
hours before Reviver goes live. So yeah, I think I
think it's gonna be great. I think this is exactly
what he was talking about. I know it's an overused term,
but you're right, like to hear when people hear it,
they're always gonna say it's getting the criterion treatment or whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:33:02):
But I think that's a great thing to take from
what they started, because now it's like considered this thing
that where.

Speaker 5 (01:33:07):
It's like the you know, the ship kind of left
port a long time ago on whatever it is that
people want it because it's not really about discovery there
as much anymore. And I think Revivers specifically, it's like
you know, it brings back that old thing of like
when you were part of a fan club of something
and you would get these surprise packages every month, and
so I know that might be a little I hope
that doesn't come off as reductive, but it's.

Speaker 3 (01:33:30):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:33:31):
I think I wanted to be kind of like something
where I wanted to be very intimate. Like I think
there are certain decisions that I kind of made, which
are I think Chris mentioned something like, you know, we're
able to do this. This is a label that could
only kind of come up here where basically it's because
we're we have skilled scanning technicians in house, like we don't.

(01:33:52):
We're not gonna Actually two is going to have we
have to get the really water damagetry scanned externally from
a really great guy to metropost Jack Rizzo. But the yeah,
the entire goal of this is to feel really intimate.
And one of the main things that I don't think

(01:34:13):
I talked about, but they're going to be scanned from
the best surviving element. But I also in order to
make sure that I know this is counterintuitive, but I
wanted people to experience the film element as it is
with this little digital manipulation is humanly possible, and I like,
obviously put just straight on the on like the barrel

(01:34:36):
I didn't want to use. This is very controversial and
I feel like I could get lambasted, but it's fine.
I didn't want to really do much dust busting. Like
I wanted to color correct. I wanted to like change
it to how we think it should look, basically by
reading the film and making sure we follow the actual

(01:34:59):
color that is inherent within the film moment. But no,
you know, it's a piece of film, it's material, and
you're getting to see it exactly as it would have
been shown.

Speaker 5 (01:35:11):
That's I'm so glad you said that, because I've said
this on the show before, But I love that. You know,
I can watch a Radley Metzker movie in four K,
like see it in a way on an old ed
TV that just you're like, this, fucking this probably hasn't
looked this good since nineteen seventy five or you know,
whenever the image was released, or any of his other films.
But also sometimes when you're watching something I kind of

(01:35:31):
like when it's in like, for lack of a better term,
grindhouse mode. You know, where you're like watching something as
if the as if the whatever you guys scanned in
was just literally dragged because it fell out of someone's
backpack and they didn't know it was like they were
dragging it along for half a mile or whatever. I
think there's a lot of fun in that. And like
I love when you guys do those releases where there's
this you know, like the Carpenter where it just has

(01:35:53):
this great scan for the most part, but then suddenly
there's this jump in soov Yeah, or like with Bloodbeat
where the last frame is like a VHS thing and
it like it's stabilizing in a great way.

Speaker 4 (01:36:06):
Yeah, totally, And I think, yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
There are a few like interesting hurdles that I'll mean,
which is basically it all just comes. It's good because
it puts it back in my hands where it means
literally that I have weird scanning pre scanning techniques that
I only I know how to do pretty much here,

(01:36:30):
where basically it means that I can limit the dust
a little bit and stuff like that. But something which
is like this, which this initial release one Revivor one
is essentially it's a played print. It's a played release print.
It was meant for one purpose. As Joe said, it's
a utilitarian thing. It's not a preservation thing. And we

(01:36:53):
have the only copy of it in existence. And to me,
there's something special, not just in restoring it to how
we think it would look. Even to me my perspective
on it is even at the first screening, which is
what restoration is meant to be. You're meant to bring
it back to that first screening. There are pre screenings

(01:37:14):
that are not open to the public, and film is
going to be unspoiled onto the ground. You're going to
get dust on the very first when the film is
first screened, and if it's from a print, and it's
going to look different after the first screening, it's going
to look different between the queuing up of the actual
you know what is it called the setting up, the countdown,

(01:37:38):
just putting it on the actual film projector to when
the film is done, like it's it's going to be dusty.
It's going to be dirty. And I've always really loved,
you know, the DVD R era where you can see things.
We just have better technology and we have better expertise.
Now we can see a tiny bit of dust. It's

(01:38:00):
not going to bother us. We know what we're looking at,
and if we give a little bit of context like
we do on the little video which is included on it,
people will kind of know why it looks the way.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
Yeah, I'm just thinking of it if this label, when
this label takes off and becomes a huge seller. Foreal,
you can do a label where you don't even see
the print. You just nobody sees it except for the scanner.

Speaker 3 (01:38:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:38:23):
Yeah, so this is this is a label where you're
basically buying a hotware. We swear this movie is really good,
and you can give us a good just pocket.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Sixty bucks for a limited edition. No one's seen it ever.

Speaker 5 (01:38:40):
Yeah, Actually, I guess that's the last question. Well, people
will know, so I it's not like this is an
advance when we release this. But is is the Reviver thing?
Is it a finite amount where because I know, you know,
you guys do standards and you do limited Is Reviv
just a one like a one shot where it's just
going to be like three thousand copies and that's it.

Speaker 6 (01:38:58):
Or is it going to be like a standard and
a limited?

Speaker 4 (01:39:00):
Oh thank you for asking me that. So it's there's
going to be Uh, so the the limited is going
to be, yeah, a specific amountain things like it's a
small amount, smaller amounts like close to like what the
Malu scenes are like two thousands what we're going to
start on and and you know, we're keeping these accessible afterwards.

(01:39:23):
But their aspects of the first, you know, limited edition
that I think will incentivize, for instance, the one in
ten of the the inside the wrap one in ten
of them are going to have holographic variants. I am
an enormous collector of things, and I like playing cards

(01:39:47):
and this kind of stuff that always played with that
extra collectibility. To me, it's kind of like finding an
AIRCN And to me, when I was designing this whole thing,
I was like, I want these things to be able
to be put back into circular, but I want the
people who supported it first to have the chance of
getting something really cool and special that actually fed back
into this treasure hunt aspect of archiving and preservation that

(01:40:13):
you know, makes me really happy at the end of
the day when I have a good day of going
through films and finding cool stuff and finding weird stuff
that I don't know if it's cool, I think it's weird.
It's weird that it exists. But yeah, so it's we're
going to keep them in circulation hopefully, you know, and
hopefully people buy them. But the limited edition is pretty limited,

(01:40:36):
like it's very We're keeping them very like small, just
because of the fact that, to be perfectly honest, this
is something which is going to change the way the
archive functions, where essentially what it means is we get
to automatically provide access to things which we wouldn't really
be able to put on the main label. But it

(01:40:58):
also means that we are going to you know, largely
be on a quarterly, quarterly budget, where essentially that means
we're gonna have to keep putting out more and more
stuff so you know, hopefully it doesn't get stale. Hopefully
it stays. It's not gonna get stale. It's gonna be

(01:41:19):
a lost fucking film every single time.

Speaker 5 (01:41:20):
But yeah, I was gonna say, there's that that's almost
that's almost stale proof.

Speaker 6 (01:41:23):
Man's right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
That's pretty pretty tough to get bored of it.

Speaker 4 (01:41:27):
Yeah, And I think we've been trying to kind of
like make sure that we know exactly we have an
insane amount of lost films. I think I was talking
to Chris and you were basically just like you guys
could probably do that for years, and I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41:45):
Yeah, well we look forward to years more. Oscar. It's
a joy every time you come on. I we need
to get you on one time we have every once
in a while we'll do like a panel where people
are pretty open and some know some talk ship and
some some love on. Of yes, but it'll be fun
to get you on one of these panels. So you

(01:42:06):
may be hearing from me here pretty soon.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Have I ever talked shit or I don't think I've
talked ship to you? I think, but you know it'll
come out one day.

Speaker 6 (01:42:16):
That's that's how we're gonna get You're gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:42:20):
Petty, petty people of all time. We're so petty and
we love we love talking ship. I think as like
a general occupation.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
You say petty, some people say detail oriented.

Speaker 6 (01:42:34):
We'll give you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:34):
We'll give you a segment archive talks where ship talk
arrow and no, no, that's awesome. I love to do
great work, but I just I don't know why they
came up.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
First ship factory. Anyways. Anyways, all right, thank you so much, Oskar.
Have a good Halloween and I hope the sales amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:42:55):
Feel Yeah, we'll do. I'll be in my moth costumes
talking to.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
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Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
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Episode 28 - A Massive Film Archive: A Conversation with Joe Rubin and Oscar Becher

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 28 - A Massive Film Archive: A Conversation with Joe Rubin and Oscar Becher