Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

jonerik writes "Ain't It Cool News has an article on one of the more fascinating fan film projects ever conceived: A shot-for-shot remake of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" filmed in Biloxi, Mississippi between 1982 and 1988 by Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and Chris Strompolis. What's particularly amazing is that the trio began filming the project when they were twelve and finished six years later when they were eighteen. Now, fifteen years after the project was completed, word of the film's existence has gotten out and audiences who have seen it have reportedly been stunned by the trio's ingenuity, with none other than "RotLA" director Steven Spielberg giving Zala, Lamb, and Strompolis a big thumbs-up. The complete film isn't available online, but a trailer that gives a bit of the feel of the finished project can be viewed. The Austin Chronicle also has a story on the project."

Okay, I managed to snag a copy.

[pi_rules]

It's not much, and the encoding seems rather horrible if you ask me, but I managed to snag a copy before the Slashdot effect took over. Their front page seems to be loading rather slowly now.

So, if you want to watch an AMD K6/2 400mhz go up in flames on a 768kbps DSL line. Here you go:

Raider's of the Lost Ark Remake Trailer [bunchofdrunks.com]

My ISP is so going to kill me...

Re:legality

[D'Arque Bishop]

Wheres the MPAA? Now that this fan film is known, gaining mass popularity, and may become mildly successful, will there be legal ramifications for copyright infringement?

If you read the story, you'd know that not only does Steven Spielberg know about it (the guy who ran the projector at the AICN film festival it was shown at gave him a copy), he was astonished by how good it is.

I think they're safe for now.

Re:How about a DVD?

[great throwdini]

I certainly have stopped holding my breath for [Raiders of the Lost Ark] ... on DVD.

Ummm... release date November 4, 2003 [theraider.net]. You can't wait another five months?

Re:I hope someone posts it on Kazaa

[TheRaven64]

I would hate to see those kids make any money off of this.

They can't, since it's a scene for scene remake it falls under the heading of 'derived work' and requires permission of the copyright holder (LucasFilm, I presume) to distribute.

Music

[cow_licker]

If anyone cares the song that plays during the trailer is Four Ton Mantis by Amon Tobin. An excellent song.

World premiere screening

[sridev]

See show details [drafthouse.com]

Re:Music

[greentoad]

aha.. that's who it was... it was ringing many bells and I was about to go searching through my collection.

It's from the album Supermodified (Amon Tobin) - an absolutely brilliant and a hardly known piece of work.

Re:Copyright Violation!

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

The issue of what constitutes parody came up in the Penny Arcade / American Greetings discussions a while ago. Is a scene for scene remake a protected 'parody' when it does not excercise criticism ( usually humorously or mockingly ) upon the original work?

I think 'derivative work' is a more fitting appelation here. Of course, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television, but I'm pretty sure that Parody isn't a catch all term that grabs all works in this class.

Re:Download Link?

[Zed2K]

The reason you can't find it to download is because there are only a few dvd copies out there and they all belong to the people that were the main participants. There are some video tape copies given to friends and family but I doubt you'll see it online soon. I think there is too much respect for these people and what they did to spread it for free. But you never know, it may pop up eventually.

Slashdot having illegal advertising?

[spoco2]

While reading this story I got an ad:

"Star Wars Trilogy DVD $31.99 Only. Ready for delivery One shipping rate for any quantity"

which linked through to http://www.dvdoriginal.com/product/viewprod.asp?pi d=1235 [dvdoriginal.com]
Which have such wonderful nuggest such as:
"Due to the fragility and bulkiness of standard DVD case, all of our DVD titles will come in a specially designed light-weight DVD sleeve pack. This shall hold and protect the disc better than the normal case." Riiiight...
or
"Q5: Does your DVD come with inserts or booklets that normally contained within the DVD case? A: No. Our DVD consists of Disc and Cover Art only. There are no inserts of booklets. " Uuuh huh.

Erm... slightly illegal copies of the Star Wars movies... how is it legal for Slashdot (by way of OSDN) to promote such illegal products on the website?

another trailer mirror

[yack0]

http://www.talker.com/john/mov/raiders.mov

click [talker.com]

Re:Holy shit!

[Sycraft-fu]

You can do non-linear editing with VHS, it is just a bit trickey. You need a minimum of two decks, and 3 works much better. With a two deck setup you drop markers where you want it to start and stop and in what order. The unit that controls the decks then takes care of the rest. It holds the record VCR, gets the play VCR to where it needs to be, starts them in sync, records what it needs, stops, goes to the next point, etc.

Now this approach is not without problems. The biggest problem I found was with the seeking of the VCRs. Even on fairly expensive ones (like $500 at the time I think), they weren't frame accurate. So you had to fudge your cuts by about 3 frames in both directions, you couldn't get it dead on. I'm sure that $2000+ master units can seek to a single frame, but none that I've ever touched. Also, you don't really know how it is going to look till its all done, you can't really preview it since there is often a lot of time in seeking inbetween shots. YOu have to set the whole thing up, let it do the dub, tehn see if it came out ok. If not, you have to make the changes and redo the dub. Each time, of course, is slightly wearing down your master. Wrose still is if you want to use multiple cameras and tapes. The 2-deck controllers I used never understood this concept, they wouldn't prompt for tape switches. So you either had to shoot it all on one tape, or get a setup with 3 decks.

However, it is all possable to do non-linear. Just because it isn't digital, doesn't imply linear editing. Heck, before digital (and even now in some cases) you could do non-linear editing with film by simply physically cutting and taping together the segments. Same for audio. Get a 2-inch master tape, a sharp knife, some gloces, some tape and a lot of patience.

Re:How about a DVD?

[evilviper]

VCDs are lowsy quality. A step down from VHS, and VHS is already quite poor...

Laser Discs on the other hand, are better than DVDs IMHO, because they don't have the arifacts that MPEG2 (and 99% of other digital codecs) has.

I wish I could get LDs of everything, but since I can't, I've settled for DVDs.

Re:How about a DVD?

[b-baggins]

That's not entirely accurate.

Some disks were mastered with electron beams (RCA). RCA players also used a stylus, but the Phillips unit used a Helium-Neon laser.

I know it's gonna take the poor guy's site down, but here's a link [mindspring.com] to the 1977 Popular Science article talking about both players.