Rewind This! Page #3

I wanna control

the mechanism of distribution."

You know, "Only programmed

on television",

right, you know.

"Only available

in movie theaters."

So when the VHS tape comes out,

for a ton of the people involved

on the manufacturing side,

it's a watershed.

But there's people

in content and distribution,

before everyone has decks

and they can monetize it,

they're like, "I don't know

if this is a good thing or not."

So this whole notion

of selling something,

where you lost control entirely,

was a new notion.

And it made major movie studios

very, very nervous.

Box office kept increasing,

so it's not like

people are staying home

and avoiding the movie theater.

It's a new bunch of people

putting new money

into home video.

And that's what's really driving

this incredible explosion

of the film industry

in the 1980's.

The guy who financed

Brain Damage for me

was a man named Andre Blay,

and he's credited

with starting this.

He had a company in Michigan

called Magnetic Video,

that was dealing mainly

with 3/4 inch tapes

for industrial use.

And he got the idea one day,

"Wow, I wonder if I

could put Hollywood movies

on half inch."

When I made the decision

to buy movie rights,

I said, "Well, I gotta go

to all the Hollywood studios."

And I wrote them a letter

saying that the

home video revolution

is about to begin.

And I could help start

this new industry.

So he writes a letter

to all the major studios

about, you know,

"C'mon, give me a film,

I'll put it on tape,

and we'll see what happens."

And no studio was interested.

They thought it was

a crazy idea,

they thought it was

a stupid idea,

They thought it would

devalue the films...

But Fox said, "Eh, fine,

let this guy do it.

If he fails, he fails.

You know, who cares?

We'll get some money out of it."

This is pre-Star Wars,

so 20th Century Fox

is probably a company

that's not doing that well.

In any case,

they hedged their bet.

They gave him films that were

at least four years old.

The Sound of Music,

and, you know,

Patton, and all that stuff.

And, uh, they sold for

an exorbitant rate.

They were like, 89, 99 dollars.

The only world we recognized

was getting our films

in the theaters.

Charlie Band was the

only one in our circle

that was thinking about

the home video market.

So what I did was I thought,

"Well, let me go

find or license the rights

to other successful

independent films.

Even my lawyer had no real idea

of how to write the document,

'cause no documents

had been written prior

to license these video rights.

You know, what is the territory,

what is the price? No idea.

It was a pioneering time

because nothing existed.

Next step, let's not sell them

the pre-recorded tapes,

let's actually rent it to them.

Andre never anticipated

the rental market.

And he said he remembers

the day he got a phone call

from a store saying,

"Hey, can I rent this?"

And he went, "... No!"

And the store says,

"Well my lawyer said I can."

And it was like, "Oh, no."

You know, so, that started it.

And, uh, the punch line

to Andre's story

was eventually...

all the studios saw how

lucrative the market was.

They all came out

with their own,

you know, label.

Except for Fox, of course.

So, Fox had to buy Andre out.

They had to buy-So he-

Whatever he bought it for, boy,

he quadrupled that, okay?

The video at that point

was kind of taking over

for the drive-in circuit.

Video was the new market

for the kids to rent

the horror films,

and the films they wouldn't see

at the mainstream theater.

Well, I definitely

don't think that

my career would have gone

where it had, without video.

My movie was released in

all kinds of foreign countries

on video.

If it wasn't for video, for me,

I know my popularity would be

much, much smaller than it is.

When videocassettes

first came in,

we jumped in, we loved it.

We thought it was great.

And, in fact, it was great.

And there were

mom and pop shops,

there were video stores

opening up all over the country,

all over the world...

that needed movies.

In the early days, the appetite

for video was so pervasive,

people could pick

the wrong location,

they could pick

the wrong videocassette titles,

they could hire surly staff,

they could have terrible hours,

and horrible policies,

and people were still

gravitating to these stores.

It was just-

there was such a hunger for it.

So the idea of having movies

that were at your disposal

when you wanted them was...

kind of remarkable.

And there was no talk of

picture quality or aspect ratio,

or any of that.

It was just availability.

So you had to kind of be aware

that as much as you wanna use

that frame right to the edge,

you wouldn't. You'd kind of...

give yourself a little

cheat on either side,

'cause you knew that

when it went to video,

the edges would be cut off.

I looked at a few of them,

I was appalled at the

improper aspect ratios.

And the lack of rich contrasts

and resolution, and, uh...

never did buy one.

And predicted

they wouldn't catch on.

Original aspect ratio

never caught on

'cause people thought

they were being gypped.

"I've got black bars on the

top and bottom of my picture!"

Yeah! That's so

you see the sides!

They ne-it never sunk in!

Now I know people that

have the widescreen TV's,

so if they watch Casablanca,

they zoom in on it

to fill up the picture!

I don't get it, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

Sometimes it looks better

than the widescreen.

If you get the VHS of

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid,

it's horribly pan and scanned

and, like, they

zoom in at times.

But it's got this

interesting aesthetic to it,

which I like

and actually prefer that.

You can't make that

camera movement with a camera,

like, it only exists in

however they used

to make the pan and scan.

So when you saw stuff like that,

you just thought, like,

"That was a weird

camera movement."

I don't know,

I-I enjoy pan and scan.

It doesn't bother me.

I don't like it when it's

completely cropped...

Like, where they just

cut it off.

Where they just

don't give a sh*t.

They just cut

the left and right off,

and then stuff is missing.

Or when they smoosh it,

I don't like that.

But I like that weird... the-

the weird ones

where it moves back and forth.

I think that's pretty good.

Oh, fantastic! Closer, closer.

The warmth, the wetness.

Unbelievable!

This is what it's all about!

This is heat.

This'll make me famous!

We gotta talk

about the VHS movement.

And I've been lucky.

I've been there

at all the innovations.

I've been here

at all the changes.

We went from a

qualitative media,

to a quantitative media.

The video concept

made it easier,

but did it make it better?

I don't know.

It was the very tail-end

of the theatrical distribution,

and it was more of, um,

video stores were just

popping up all over.

So you had a lot of independent,

adult bookstores,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes