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Thread: Amazing Find original ATARI Movie film

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    Default Amazing Find original ATARI Movie film

    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!

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    I have no idea, but certainly a cool find !

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    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...rcials-part-1/
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    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
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    Quote Originally Posted by alec006 View Post
    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.

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

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

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gameguy View Post
    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

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    Get that reel transfered and converted to high definition!

    If Manos can get that, why not Atari commercials?
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    Nice find (",)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitsune Sniper View Post
    Get that reel transfered and converted to high definition!

    If Manos can get that, why not Atari commercials?
    This.

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    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

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

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    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.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vlcice View Post
    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.

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    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.

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    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!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Parodius Duh! View Post
    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?

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRedEye View Post
    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.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRedEye View Post
    Hoooly crap I never heard of this and want it right now, can someone help?
    PM me I can make copies.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    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!
    Last edited by Parodius Duh!; 12-27-2011 at 07:04 AM.

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