Just got back from Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (http://www.notldr.com/).
Night of the Living Dead (NotLD) is one of those movies that has found its way into the public domain, like It's a Wonderful Life. There's an unfortunate story to go along with that. Fortunately, since it is public domain, pretty much anybody can take the footage and do what they want with it. Sometimes that involves repackaging the original film with some asinine "extra" footage, and sometimes it involves a NotLD/IaWL mash-up, like in 976-EVIL 2.
Anyway, NotLD:R falls into the latter, cooler category. Basically, a bunch of people got together and animated a film to go along with the NotLD audio track. What's most interesting about it is that they used almost every animation trick in the book. Most of the time, it pretty much looks like an animated story board, with varying levels in the quality of artwork. Sometimes it's pseudo-rotoscoping, sometimes it's animated dolls, sometimes it's computer animation, and sometimes it's even live action. Thrown in with those techniques are a few genuine surprises that I won't spoil here.
So how good is it? Well, I don't think I would recommend this to anybody who hasn't already assimilated the original NotLD into their life. Sometimes the images on the screen become so abstract that, if you aren't intimately familiar with the original movie, you will have no idea what is going on. (Now that's a poorly constructed sentence.) However, if you are willing to venture into experimental, mostly low-budget territory, you'll definitely find at least a few things to reward you. As a film project, I recommend it without reservation. And, as I said, there are some genuinely gratifying things in this film.
I don't believe it's out on DVD yet, so if it comes around to your town, go check it out.
Thanks, that looks interesting. I'll keep an eye out. Looks to me like they're not promoting it very aggressively.
Thanks, Mofo Rising. Glad you enjoyed the show. DVD isn't out 'til April... but it's pretty loaded as we're letting artists include some of their shorts, demos, comics, etc in supplement. Wild Eye Releasing is putting the DVD out so it should be in web-stores and select brick and moder. We're also simultaneously releasing the project itself officially through Demonoid via Torrent and numerous other sites in streaming formats. So the DVD is all about owning the DVD and enjoying all the extra stuff that goes about that but the project itself will be available for people to watch it for free.
Rev. you're right... we're not taking the aggressive approach to promoting it but if you want it in your area, just have your local independent theater or favorite horror host email screening@notldr.com and we'll hook them up with a screener and free screening/ broadcast rights. The whole thing is a zero-budget/ zero-profit project... so it's by and for fans.
Also, anyone who wants in on the next project (a similar approach taken to animate/ illustrate visuals for old time horror radio dramas) should shoot mike@unseenhorror.com an email to get in on the fun.
-Mike Schneider
Organizer/ Curator of NOTLD:R
Quote from: neoflux on January 29, 2010, 06:02:45 PM
Thanks, Mofo Rising. Glad you enjoyed the show. DVD isn't out 'til April... but it's pretty loaded as we're letting artists include some of their shorts, demos, comics, etc in supplement. Wild Eye Releasing is putting the DVD out so it should be in web-stores and select brick and moder. We're also simultaneously releasing the project itself officially through Demonoid via Torrent and numerous other sites in streaming formats. So the DVD is all about owning the DVD and enjoying all the extra stuff that goes about that but the project itself will be available for people to watch it for free.
Rev. you're right... we're not taking the aggressive approach to promoting it but if you want it in your area, just have your local independent theater or favorite horror host email screening@notldr.com and we'll hook them up with a screener and free screening/ broadcast rights. The whole thing is a zero-budget/ zero-profit project... so it's by and for fans.
Also, anyone who wants in on the next project (a similar approach taken to animate/ illustrate visuals for old time horror radio dramas) should shoot mike@unseenhorror.com an email to get in on the fun.
-Mike Schneider
Organizer/ Curator of NOTLD:R
Hey Mike, before reading your reply I ran with Mofo's scoop and plugged the project on my site: http://366weirdmovies.com/weird-horizon-for-the-week-of-12910/. Feel free to drop by and add that your info, or I may update it myself later. Maybe I can get my local horror host to run it, too, but first I have to do some research and find out who he is. :wink:
That DVD sounds pretty cool. I bought a comic, "Ash-Tray," from the guys at the back of the theater, MadCap in Tempe, AZ.
Have you been able to show this to Romero? I'd love to hear what he has to say about the project.
Rev: I posted a similar comment. I also included info for the next screenings (which are The Grand Illusion in Seattle and hosted by Count Victor Von Scary on Friday Night Fright Night).
Mofo: Yes Eric is amongst the artists who submitted comics. His addition in particular features his character, the bald avenger, fending off a horde of zombies.
As far as the '68ers: none were involved in it, all are aware of it, most have received copies, I've spoken with a number of them personally... but I respect their anonymity and believe any comments they choose to make publicly is at their discretion and should come from them.
-Mike
It looks good Mike, well done. :thumbup:
Speaking as a film archivist who deals with issues like this daily, I was wondering how NOTLD ended up in the public domain? :question:
Night of the Living Dead is public domain because of its distributors. Originally the film bounced about amongst the group with different titles and varied concepts ranging from almost Sci-fi to the ghouls they ended up with. In pre-production, it was slated as Night of the Anubis but by the end, Image Ten decided to go for a more explicit/ gripping title of Night of the Flesh Eaters. They filed the copyright and had it properly labeled in the print they traveled into Manhattan to find distrobution.
The Walter Reade Organization negotiated a deal to show the movie uncut if it was retitled as Night of the Living Dead (because there was a film called Flesh Eaters that they had shown a few years earlier). When this title was changed by the distributor, they changed the title screen. When they replaced the title screen, they removed the copyright notice Image Ten had included on the initial title screen (and beyond that, they failed to file for a new copyright). The resulting film screened without notice and by the laws of the time it became public domain.
So all of those prints and all of the prints made from those prints were the genesis of all of the public domain copies out there. Interesting enough because they were tangible media and copies of copies... each is actually slightly different so you can trace most copies back if you really study the delay. Now the copies which were released by Elite and now by Dimension were from the earliest prints in conjunction with Romero, Russo, Streiner etc.
Now Russ in particular has petitioned on and off for the film to have it's copyright restored (and he has a good case considering it was a technicality that caused it to fall into the public domain as they had filed a copyright over the film... it just wasn't displayed on the print which was shown publicly.) The idea of things coming out of the public domain was however seen unconstitutional as it would be effectively stealing it back from the public. Copyright has since been increasingly perverted with things like the Bono Act but these potentially restored copyrights are either done for international relations and huge corporate bodies... so it's an uphill for independents to get the same kind of consideration.
So though it may be out of the public domain someday, for the time being it's still free use. This comes as a blessing and curse because by being public domain it's been able to shown and shared in ways which no copyrighted film could travel. The curse is naturally the line of people who exploit the situation for their own profit while the original cast go largely uncompensated for their work.
Because I see both sides, I largely held Reanimated to fair use practices even though it's technically still a fair use project.
Fair use is generally a question of how the work related to the original work. This is based heavily on:
- the artistic/ social/ critical/ educational value of the resulting work
- the nature of the original work
- the commercial v. non-profit nature of the resulting work
- how the resulting work impacts the commercial value of the original work
So basically... though this issue hasn't come up because of the ever changing nature of copyright and fair use polices... but for sake of argument lets assume the copyright is someday restored... under those criteria there is an argument to be made for it being fair use.
The results are released without profit and are created with artistic (and by virtue of it's approach social) relevance.
Beyond that as Mofo had put it ' I don't think I would recommend this to anybody who hasn't already assimilated the original NotLD into their life.' I've even said on the site to go see the original first as the project is a supplemental experience rather then a replacement. This means that it's existence should have no negative impact on the commercial value of the original film... if anything, something new pushing people to see the original film first should boost commercial value if it has any impact at all.
Again all of that is theoretical... because as it stands the original film is public domain... but I tend to see the public domain as 'the legal right to be morally questionable'... so respect for their work has been part of Reanimated from the very beginning.
On the flip side, as it says on the site, Reanimated is a creative commons work ( by / non-commercial / non-derivative ) which means it gets the benefits of being able to freely be shown and to travel as people ask to show it... without the risk of exploitation because it's illegal to profit from it/ modify it (outside of fair use exceptions) without receiving permission first. Outside of the frame the artists own and operate control over their original submitted artworks... so more over their work can be shown without being exploited in the forms of (merchandise etc).
Now something which should be noted is that the production photographs (including the famous Karen Cooper face graphic) are not technically part of the film which was released... and these photographs are in fact copyrighted. So even though technically Night of the Living Dead is public domain... if you ever see a copy with that image of Karen Cooper's face on the cover... they technically broken the copyright over that photograph. Also the logo graphic, poster, etc are all also trademarked. So anything which uses these things for profit without licence granted by Image Ten or their trademark operators at Fearwerx this again is theft. The issue with these things is frankly it was so wide spread and common place that by the time anyone started calling fowl... many groups sit on the 'everyone else is doing it' argument. I know it's an uphill thing to sort out the trademark and copyrighted photographs situation because like even though the film becomes public domain doesn't mean everything relating to the film does.
A noted example of this is the other mentioned example: It's A Wonderful Life... where the film is public domain but the music isn't and the only 3 stripes (where the music is a separate track on the film) are not public domain copies of that film... so to release it in the public domain someone would need to hack into the audio and re-score those scenes while trying to maintain the vocal dialog (good luck with that... it'd be cheaper to just lease the rights).
Again you'll note that our logos, trailers, posters, etc are all notably different then the original film. In fact, we do have sequences featuring the Fearwerx figures... but they were donated for us to use by Fearwerx after they saw the first works coming into the project. So again it's a lot of gray these days whenever dealing with public domain media... because there is rarely a clear document stating what it public domain, what that means, and guaranteeing those will be the same rules tomorrow... but as it stands now the lack of notification caused the film (and only the film) to become PD and though they are still trying they haven't had that overturned yet (and to be brutally honest, if it ever does get its copyright restored, very little is known about what exactly would happen if they do when it comes to derivative works... fair use or otherwise.)
I hope that helps clarify how foggy it all is.
-Mike
Just a side note. I apologize for the awkward sentences in that past post... it's a very tricky topic which has become convoluted by politicians and corporations over many years of wanting a law that gives them both complete freedom and complete control at the same time.