Amazing Find original ATARI Movie film

[mr-atari]

Thursday Night I went to my local junk auction, and it was the estate of Leon Kasparian. Mr. Kasparian apparently had tremendous experience in film and movies, and the auction house was selling his collection of projectors and sound equipment. He also had an extensive movie collection.

One of the 35mm film spools was labeled "ATARI COMMERCIALS" I decided I would take a chance and purchase the film.

It has Several commercials on it, What I have identified so far are the fly (Yars revenge) Dig-Dug and E.T.

I notice a reference to a 2007 Sale of this same reel on ebay but nothing since. Could some of you all chime in about rarity of this item? Also if they are common can you tell me what all of the commercials are that are on the tape, so I don't have to look through it by hand?

Thanks for your help!

[stargate]

I have no idea, but certainly a cool find !

[Greg2600]

I personally don't know all the commercials, but probably most are on YouTube at this point. That said, those are all taken from old, old video tape. My guess is yours is some type of 35MM master? I'd think the quality would be very good! As for the value, that's hard to say. I've found old film like that to be disappointing in how much they are worth. I have newsreels and sports films my grandfather bought in the 40's, and you can't give them away.

This guy did a fairly in depth accounting of the old commercials though!

http://www.8bitrocket.com/2007/05/31/atari-history-through-commercials-part-1/

[alec006]

If that's a 35 MM Master or copy of the master, I would transfer that to DVD as soon as possible, that's a great piece of video game history :)

[Parodius Duh!]

If that's a 35 MM Master or copy of the master, I would transfer that to DVD as soon as possible, that's a great piece of video game history :)

THIS....what you have are most likely the film master that the original broadcast master tapes were struck from. Whats the total running time of the reels? You can get these transferred for fairly cheap from a service.

You never know, just a few years ago some guy found every episode of the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Cartoon segments from Saturday Supercade, at a flea market, all on 35mm reels. Think he paid $15 for it all. Glad I got a copy on DVD while he was selling them still, quality is great and most of these episodes were considered lost forever until he found every one on these master reels. :)

[Gameguy]

Some of those old Atari commercials were shown in theaters before movies started, at least I remember reading that from somewhere.

[Collector_Gaming]

See thats the kinda stuff i enjoy finding. Stuff kinda lost history. Now its found again can be enjoyed once again!

[Sunnyvale]

Some of those old Atari commercials were shown in theaters before movies started, at least I remember reading that from somewhere.

I remember the Dig Dug commercial from the drive in theatre when I was 7ish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmFZnpnur4U

[Kitsune Sniper]

Get that reel transfered and converted to high definition!

If Manos can get that, why not Atari commercials?

[danny_galaga]

Nice find (",)

[Sunnyvale]

Get that reel transfered and converted to high definition!

If Manos can get that, why not Atari commercials?

This.

[mr-atari]

So i looked into it and looks like an hour of film is on the reel, for HD conversion they are charging 9.00 per minute. This in for sure the theatrical commercials because they are over 2 minutes each, the thing that is strange to me it there is no break in-between the spots, the tape just goes from one to the next. I do not have a projector, but I picked up a scanner that will supposedly do film on the weekend so I will try to scan a few frames and upload them here

[c2000]

I'd say get some donations rolling and get it converted!

[Vlcice]

Have you measured the gauge? 35mm sounds kind of odd to me. Shooting 35mm was expensive, so ads wouldn't commonly be shot in that format - in the pre tape era, 16mm would be more likely, especially for something produced for TV. There might have been 35mm blowups if they were shown in theatres, but those would likely have been made from 16mm sources. (And were ads of that format shown in theatres back then?)

16mm was still used for broadcast in American television in the late 70s and 80s, as opposed to video tape. You may have found reels that were shipped to TV stations for broadcast.

Have you checked if the reels you got were negative or positive? Production stuff would be negative (camera negative, internegative) used to produce later copies; if it's a positive, then it's a release print that was intended for distribution or previewing.

[Bojay1997]

Have you measured the gauge? 35mm sounds kind of odd to me. Shooting 35mm was expensive, so ads wouldn't commonly be shot in that format - in the pre tape era, 16mm would be more likely, especially for something produced for TV. There might have been 35mm blowups if they were shown in theatres, but those would likely have been made from 16mm sources. (And were ads of that format shown in theatres back then?)

16mm was still used for broadcast in American television in the late 70s and 80s, as opposed to video tape. You may have found reels that were shipped to TV stations for broadcast.

Have you checked if the reels you got were negative or positive? Production stuff would be negative (camera negative, internegative) used to produce later copies; if it's a positive, then it's a release print that was intended for distribution or previewing.

This is almost certainly a 35mm print for use in movie theaters. Having said that, national commercials were always and in some cases are still shot in 35mm, not 16mm. In addition, video tape (not necessarily cassette formats which really didn't see commercial use until the mid to late 70s) was in use at most television networks and stations in the early 1970s, well before these commercials would have been produced, so a television station or network would have had no use for a 35mm print.

[mr-atari]

For sure 35mm, but how do I tell the difference between a neg and positive? here are details about "The fly":

THE FLY was a commercial from Atari released to movie theatres in 1980 and shown at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back. It was the first "regular" commercial created to be shown in theatres along with other movie previews and was also one of the first commercials to combine animation with live action.

[mr-atari]

Here is a scan of the film, it is the dig dug commercial, it's up on youtube if you don't remember the scene after 30 years!
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p311/ljg17/DigDug-1.jpg

[TheRedEye]

You never know, just a few years ago some guy found every episode of the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Cartoon segments from Saturday Supercade, at a flea market, all on 35mm reels. Think he paid $15 for it all. Glad I got a copy on DVD while he was selling them still, quality is great and most of these episodes were considered lost forever until he found every one on these master reels. :)

Hoooly crap I never heard of this and want it right now, can someone help?

[JSoup]

Hoooly crap I never heard of this and want it right now, can someone help?

A bunch of, if not all, the episodes are on Youtube.

[Parodius Duh!]

Hoooly crap I never heard of this and want it right now, can someone help?

PM me I can make copies.

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Anyway, I feel that it is incredibly important you get this film reel transferred to DVD. Id throw down for a copy. Hell, Id put like $60 towards it. This is definitely an incredibly important piece of Gaming History!

[Greg2600]

That looks like finished film stock, not negatives. $9 bucks a minute is a hefty price I think. Maybe I'm wrong?

[Bojay1997]

That looks like finished film stock, not negatives. $9 bucks a minute is a hefty price I think. Maybe I'm wrong?

That would actually be super cheap assuming it's a telecine transfer with automated color correction. Generally, most labs charge $20-$25 a minute with a 10 minute minimum plus cleaning charges and charges for hard drives or whatever media you end up transferring to, not to mention shipping. The big problem you may run into is that many labs won't transfer copyrighted material without written permission from the rights holder.

[mr-atari]

That would actually be super cheap assuming it's a telecine transfer with automated color correction. Generally, most labs charge $20-$25 a minute with a 10 minute minimum plus cleaning charges and charges for hard drives or whatever media you end up transferring to, not to mention shipping. The big problem you may run into is that many labs won't transfer copyrighted material without written permission from the rights holder.

Wow never even considered that! Guess if this is a print and not the negative, then I am sunk!

Ok well then it is going on eBay because I'm not going to drop a couple grand on a projector.

[Parodius Duh!]

The big problem you may run into is that many labs won't transfer copyrighted material without written permission from the rights holder.

Theres a good chance any copyrights in regards to these old theatrical commercials have run out long ago, I doubt Atari, Namco, etc... would hang on to the copyrights for these but I could be wrong. Not like they would ever release a dvd of this stuff anyway.....Im sure you can find someone to transfer it, I mean people come to me to transfer their old television programs taped off of tv onto DVD, which is completely legal as long as it is signed off that the program is still used for private home use.

[mr-atari]

Yeah it's sad that the reality is that this stuff is history yet the copyright holder will not do anything with it and that negates others ability to preserve it! I don't have the $$ to have it converted, so I can only hope that whoever gets it on EBay will kick me down a copy on Blu_ray when they get it done.

[Bojay1997]

Theres a good chance any copyrights in regards to these old theatrical commercials have run out long ago, I doubt Atari, Namco, etc... would hang on to the copyrights for these but I could be wrong. Not like they would ever release a dvd of this stuff anyway.....Im sure you can find someone to transfer it, I mean people come to me to transfer their old television programs taped off of tv onto DVD, which is completely legal as long as it is signed off that the program is still used for private home use.

Completely incorrect. The copyright on these just like anything else Atari published or created is still very much in effect. While you may be correct that the current Atari might not care very much about a project of this type, any legitimate lab is going to require proof that the copyright holder has signed off. Frankly, commercials have continuing value in the stock footage market for films and television shows (especially with at least one Atari/Nolan Bushnell project in the works at a major studio and various cable documentary programs like Modern Marvels and others using footage of vintage technology ads on a regular basis), so the belief that this is just worthless footage outside of copyright is silly.

[Greg2600]

Even the thought of copyrights would scare most studio's away, that is true.

mr-atari, you might want to consider posting about this on AtariAge.com's forums. There are several long-time members of the hobby there who don't read this forum, and they might have the ability to transfer the film as well as make you an offer for them.

[JSoup]

That would actually be super cheap assuming it's a telecine transfer with automated color correction. Generally, most labs charge $20-$25 a minute with a 10 minute minimum plus cleaning charges and charges for hard drives or whatever media you end up transferring to, not to mention shipping. The big problem you may run into is that many labs won't transfer copyrighted material without written permission from the rights holder.

Which is a good reason to find a film or art school with a lab equipped to do the transfer and make sure a student does it. Either they won't care about the copyright or will do it on the premise that it's 'for educational purposes only'.

[Gameguy]

That looks like finished film stock, not negatives. $9 bucks a minute is a hefty price I think. Maybe I'm wrong?
That sounds like a lot, but it's really not if you think about it. There's so many old films or TV shows that aren't available on DVD due to supposed lack of demand, but if it would only cost a couple thousand dollars or less to transfer a movie you have to wonder why nobody bothered with those films yet.

[mr-atari]

Even the thought of copyrights would scare most studio's away, that is true.

mr-atari, you might want to consider posting about this on AtariAge.com's forums. There are several long-time members of the hobby there who don't read this forum, and they might have the ability to transfer the film as well as make you an offer for them.

Thanks for the Tip Greg, it is so exciting to see the frames of the film and so disappointing to watch them in the cruddy youtube quality that they exist in today.

[JSoup]

So, any progress on this?

[mr-atari]

So, any progress on this?

I am going to be listing the film on eBay this weekend, after I split it up, I was able to find a medical projector, no sound to review the film.

[ASek]

So were these listed on eBay? I did an Advanced search, but I disn't get any results for this. Does anyone know what happened with the film?

[ASek]

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Mr-Atari? I've tried contacting him through the Forum, but no response. I'm working on the upcoming "Atari: Game Over" documentary being produced by Lightbox Films for Xbox and we've been looking for 35mm copies of Atari Commercials for use in the film. If anyone knows Mr-Atari, or a collector with copies of these commercials, please send me a Message or Email.

[JSoup]

I imagine you've already done this, but try on AtariAge.

[Greg2600]

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Mr-Atari? I've tried contacting him through the Forum, but no response. I'm working on the upcoming "Atari: Game Over" documentary being produced by Lightbox Films for Xbox and we've been looking for 35mm copies of Atari Commercials for use in the film. If anyone knows Mr-Atari, or a collector with copies of these commercials, please send me a Message or Email.

Yes definitely ask on Atari Age, not necessarily for him, but others there might also have copies of commercials to use.

[ASek]

Yes definitely ask on Atari Age, not necessarily for him, but others there might also have copies of commercials to use.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did post in the "Wanted" section of AtariAge, perhaps there's a better place post this kind of query, let me know.

It's a shame that Mr-Atari doesn't seem to be checking his messages, as we offered to cover the cost of the digital transfer and pay his time and effort. Moreover, we would have provided him with a digital copy of his own which is what it seems he was really after from the start and he could have kept the film and still sold it on eBay, odd.

[Gameguy]

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Mr-Atari? I've tried contacting him through the Forum, but no response. I'm working on the upcoming "Atari: Game Over" documentary being produced by Lightbox Films for Xbox and we've been looking for 35mm copies of Atari Commercials for use in the film. If anyone knows Mr-Atari, or a collector with copies of these commercials, please send me a Message or Email.
Did you just PM him or did you email him too? His email seems to be made available as a way to contact him through his profile. If you just sent a PM, it's possible he didn't get a notification for it. Plenty of users don't check the forum anymore so they wouldn't know about any PMs waiting for them.

[ASek]

Did you just PM him or did you email him too? His email seems to be made available as a way to contact him through his profile. If you just sent a PM, it's possible he didn't get a notification for it. Plenty of users don't check the forum anymore so they wouldn't know about any PMs waiting for them.

Yep, sent him a couple emails. My guess is he uses a secondary email that he doesn't check very often. It's either that, or he made the whole thing up... :evil:

[JSoup]

Or the movie just isn't a priority for him. It happens.

[ASek]

Or the movie just isn't a priority for him. It happens.

Gee, hadn't occurred to me, thanks for the insight.