Zappa.com

Kind of harkens back to the days of mock stereo albums made from mono masters. Just a cheat on the unknowing public.

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"Voodoo Butter Underpants...
heh, heh... the pants that
nearly broke Tommy Mars' neck."

I'm goin' to wait for the high-end ZFT thing, with decent authoring and sonics*. There's already more than enough budget versions of this title on the market for a new generation of viewers to mistake it for a trash-type production of sorts.

*This is not going to happen before 2018, of course, but it'll feature a nice Roxy trailer, and it'll therefore be worth the wait alone

I read most of this thread and would say that the diffrence with 16.9 4.3 is what your eyes prefer from person too person remember also people going nuts thinking 16.9 was the ultimate format.
it is a rip off it goes like this Go to the cinema they want you spend loads of money watch it in widesreen at the Cinema(got to be better it's at the cinema)then bring widescreen tv out sell more copies.

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Some people like that though.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

They like one or the other yeah sure

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

From what I've gathered, this isn't a discussion of which aspect ratio is better from an aesthetic perspective. The fact is the film was shot in a 4:3 ratio, and the DVD has apparently stretched the original image to 16:9. It's a distortion of the original film, a curious choice for a director to make.

It be curious if it was not money involved
I got 4.3 vhs good too still if i buy the dvd i will play in 16.9 if 4.3 comes up my TV is that Good

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

First post. I'll make it a good one...



I haven't seen the DVD yet so I've no idea if the 4:3-stretched-to-16:9 claim is true. However, I'm almost entirely sure that 4:3 was never the intended aspect ratio of 200 Motels...

Earlier in the thread someone admonished the notion of "some moron adding a matte on both ends of the screen to make it look 'modern'". I suspect that this misses the point a little because it's pretty likely that this is exactly what happened when it was originally shown in cinemas back in 1971!

There are many examples of 'widescreen' movies originally being shot and edited at a 'full frame' ratio - with instructions given to the projectionists to 'mask off' the tops and bottoms of the screen (known in the trade as a 'soft matte') when those movies were shown theatrically.

There are also many examples of such movies subsequently being shown on TV or released on VHS in a never-intended 'full frame' format - simply because it was easier than panning/scanning (or because 'letterboxing' tended to be unpopular with complete arseholes who'd complain that a third of their TV was "going to waste").

Unfortunately, quite often those sections intended to be masked off were regarded as 'safety' by the filmmakers, and showing them without the matte can occasionally reveal unwanted stuff - like boom-mics hovering overhead. A good example of this is the Monkees film Head which reveals several such anomolies throughout (and which, despite this becoming pretty well-known, has never been issued in its correct aspect ratio, not even on DVD).

As someone mentioned before, IMDb gives the aspect ratio of 200 Motels as 1.66:1. I believe that this is correct - and that previous 'full frame' editions on VHS (and laserdisc?) have been wrong. To illustrate this fascinating suggestion, take a look at this photo:



Gorgeous, isn't it. I swiped it from someone's Flickr page. It was taken in April last year during an actual cinema showing of 200 Motels. It's at an odd angle but anyone should be able to see clearly that it isn't a 4:3 screen they're watching there.

Now, take a look at that exact same frame (give or take) as it was presented on one of the old 'full frame' VHS editions:



Note that the 4:3 version has extra info at the top and the bottom. Now, see what happens when we crop it to 1.66:1...



There y'go. Exactly the same dimensions as the screen shown in the photo taken in the cinema!

You want more evidence? Sure you do. Here's a pic of the 'steaming briefcase' scene, once again, from an old 4:3 VHS:



It took me ages to realise that the 'gag' here is that when Rance announces "Special delivery for Mr Volman...", he's supposed to be walking in front of the screen and addressing the cinema audience! A gag which is spoiled somewhat by the fact that there's a big gap just below his ankles, giving him the impression of floating in mid air. Note that the descending smoke also disappears into nothingness at that same point. Why would they go through all the bother of arranging a great blue-screen effect like that only to mess it up?

Well, they didn't. The cinema projectionists would have masked off the top and bottom of the screen. Thus rendering it...



...perfect!

In the old Dutch Making of 200 Motels documentary we see shots of TV monitors relaying the images being recorded. Note that these often have strip of tape at the top and bottom of the screen...



One must presume that these were placed there as a guide for the cinematographer - so that he could make sure that all the action took place within that rectangle.

Make sense? Good. How all this squares up with a 16:9 DVD which may or may not actually be 4:3 (stretched by default across the screen until you press the appropriate buttons) is anyone's guess. Maybe, given that it's the format most well-known to fans of 200 Motels, a 4:3 presentation is the best option. Probably better that than an actual crop to 16:9, which would be even more severe.

Hello, by the way.

Hello sotcaadotnet, welcome to this place!

Very interesting observation, i had immediatley to run and put my DVD into my PC and did this snapshot at the same scene (1min, 39sec). Apparently it is in 4:3 (I described my copy in earlier posts in this thread, it is available in germany nowadays in normal plastic case). Your proof (that there is too much too see on top and at the bottom) is really very convincing. Maybe the version of Tony Palmer now is in the way, the movie was intended: wide screen ("the wide screen is errupting"...). I think we can trust Palmer, that he is one of the living persons, who knows the most about, how the movie was intended to be. If so, his release seems to be very recommendable, probably the first release in the correct aspect ratio.
Hope, you will share much more of your interesting observations and suggestions in this forum soon, cu

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god, what a cheap bubble machine!!!

This is somewhat like the Avatar discussion. Who cares about the visuals, what about the story?

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

This is a screen shot from the Tony Palmer DVD. I think this makes it clear that it's 4:3 stretched. Okay, there's a tiny strip missing across the top but there's still significant video showing below Rance's feet. And, if you compare it with the pic in sotcaadotnet's post above it definitely looks stretched.

I haven't stretched this myself, this is a picture from the screen of my laptop. It's the standard DVD player on a MacBook Pro. Interestingly enough, when I get the DVD info it says the aspect ratio is 16 : 9 which is 1.78 : 1 but it also says the size is 720 x 480 which is a ratio of 1.5 : 1. Hmmm ...

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

So it aint no myth then

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Excellent post, Sotcaadotnet. I know what you mean about films that are shot in full-frame with the intention of getting a crop job later. The Shining was shot that way.

Who is responsible for this? Why is the visual director Tony Palmer involved in this release and unable to care for it being done just right? Why should I buy this?

Why does the ZFT release B-quality live recordings from Frank's garbage can over and over again instead of taking care of the man's legacy? It is a pity, that a masterpiece like 200 Motels is treated this way.

Th.

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Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from this forum in 2013

It is clear that it is not the way we should watch it.
Sure you can set your player to see it better.
Yes, "It is a pity, that a masterpiece like 200 Motels is treated this way."

Still, the commentary is very interesting and maybe this release will make thinks move a little.

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I'll take a wild guess here... 720x480 is actually the standard size of a 4:3 NTSC picture - ie it's physically slightly less vertical than 'full frame' but is then stretched up to 720x540 when viewed on TV. Rather pertinently, one of the reasons 200 Motels was shot in Europe on PAL equipment was that the video picture there was less 'vertically challenged', so the quality would be that much better when it came to transfering the whole thing to 35mm.

Oh shit... Do you know what I think has happened here? Looking at your screenshot, it seems that the original 4:3 picture has actually been cropped to the NTSC 4:3 standard rather than squashed (accounting for the slight strips of info missing from the top and bottom)... This means that even changing the settings on the DVD player to show it in 4:3 will still give the incorrect dimensions!



So clearly this is an almighty great fuck-up... If the YouTube preview is anything to go by, Tony Palmer most likely planned a straight 16:9 crop - but his instructions went awry somewhere along the line. I've no doubt that Palmer knows what he's doing - but I'm far less convinced that his staff do! Hence stuff like the 'Frank Zapper' caption on the original version of the preview!

And speaking of that YouTube preview... the missing chunk between 'Penis Dimension' and 'She Painted Up...' is evident on that clip too! I've a horrible feeling this may be down to them using a damaged print (doesn't the jump occur around the time of a reel change? The sudden wobble and dirt-flecks on the Ringo section certainly suggest so...).

DVDs have been recalled for far lesser quality-control evils. I wonder if that'll be the case here...

On the up-side, it's heartening to see an internet forum page boasting so many screen captures of Mark Volman's great big face!



There was a story?

To be fair, since the 'story' was effectively cobbled together in the editing suite from whatever footage they'd managed to get 'in the can', the trippy visuals and music kind of take centre-stage here. It would be nice to know that these were being presented on DVD as per the original intentions of the filmmakers, even if the movie doesn't follow the plot of the shooting script.

I'd love to get hold of that final script and give it a complete overview. Here's an attempt at cobbling together the 'complete' motel room scene - combining the dialogue as it appears in the movie with the read-throughs on Playground Psychotics and the original On The Road album...



Tony Palmer probably has this whole scene, unedited, in his tape library (along with, no doubt, the 'unusable' live-action 'Dental Hygiene Dilemma' mentioned in the CD booklet).

Masterpiece? Aren't we talking about 200 Motels?

smiley face giggle

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Absolutely!

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Nice observations, sotcaadotnet, thank you -- Of course the 'soft matte factor' is a delicate point of discussion, not only among viewers, but among directors, as well.

From what I know (almost?) all films in (roughly) 16:9 format were shot using the full film (4:3) ratio, then being chopped via 'projection matte' in the theater itself (the super-widescreen 2,21:1 and the likes being projected through an anamorphic lens, thus projecting the full size of the 4:3 film), 'cause this format is what was more or less commonplace post-1955ish (in the U.S., anyways), and what most viewers were accustomed to, and which probably was the way in which 200 Motels was shown in standard movie theaters (in the United States, that is). The gaffer tape was there to ensure nothing crucial is taking place behind the projector’s matte only, something that’s important for ‘getting the plot’ but would be invisible for a theater audience.

It’s hilarious, though, to state that the full versions (in 4:3) were kind of waste and most likely to have all kinds of mistakes in'em, since 4:3 was still first choice for T.V. and later home video releases (as was the case with 'The Shining' - from what I hear, Stanley K. was disgruntled with 'soft matte'-projection of his films anyway, since it fucked up his way of composing with the camera finder)

200 Motels works perfectly as a full screen feature, and there’s IMHO no need to succumb to questionable cinema'standard' procedures , even if it were for the fact that It’d 'save' roughly 1/3 of Cal Schenkel’s animation alone–

i'm glad to see there are others like me that are into this era of zappa and 200 motels in particular. i wish we could read the original script, i wish the movie had been made as it was originally intended (damn you jeff for quitting and fucking the movie up! ). i've pieced together the songs (200 motels soundtrack, fillmore east 71, and various boots) over and over, and i still think the movie is incomplete. i wish we could get the original movie with the making of 200 motels, and and extra stuff all on one dvd/cd. thank you sotcaadotnet for the insight.

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Okayyy, I'm confused now... The globalia/donlope site has some nice comparison grabs up of the title-caption as rendered on the DVD vs the VHS vs the laserdisc. The DVD image used is an unstretched 16:9 - and clearly a straight crop of a 4:3 print:



(Note how the crop has been arranged so that it strategically clips off the original 'Murakami Wolf / Bizarre Productions' copyright notice!)



Any ideas?



I'd actually doubt his exit made a great deal of difference to the shape of the finished movie - his scenes were pretty much filled with Martin Lickert after all (and arguably improved - I've always had a soft-spot for Lickert's camp over-the-top performance ("Oooh, I can't take you seriously!"), and the read-throughs suggest that Simmons was no actor!).



Has the Amsterdam 2000 performance ever been bootlegged? Having finally seen the sheet music for 'Can I Help You With This Dummy?', I'm rather keen to hear it!

I'd actually doubt his exit made a great deal of difference to the shape of the finished movie - his scenes were pretty much filled with Martin Lickert after all (and arguably improved - I've always had a soft-spot for Lickert's camp over-the-top performance ("Oooh, I can't take you seriously!"), and the read-throughs suggest that Simmons was no actor!).


come on, he (jeff) knew ALL the music. i think that had a lot to with it, more than just reading the lines. they couldn't do the entire groupie opera! notice that the only songs they recorded with martin are all new songs (never payed live before) i do think martin was the best "actor" of the bunch though. but the movie would've been different had they been able to play all the music, myabe it wouldn't have so much orchestral filler and parts that make no sense

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Two Hundred Motels is a masterpiece largely because it exists and there's nothing else that tries to do what it did. It's practically the only film I bother watching and I don't even watch it that often. 200 Motels and Mean Girls are definitley the greatest films ever made.

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Nelda baby, Nelda baby surf along with me.

I am lost here now.

Most films in those days were shot on film in a format that gives roughly 4:3. Theaters then applied a matte to give 1.66:1 or 1.8:1. It was always not entirely in control. When Kubrick released, e.g., The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shot on DVD, he demanded that they were released in 4:3, thereby showing everything that was on the celluloid. He was not happy with the cropping to wide screen that went on rather randomly in theaters.

So, in principle, the recent cinematic screening of the film could be a cropped wide screen showing as it was usually shown in theaters. From what I read here, it seems that the DVD stretches to widescreen, which, of course, is completely unacceptable. But can one not play it in 4:3, and then perhaps see it all? What the artists' intents were are difficult to guess. But they must have known that it would be cropped in theaters.

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"Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself" - FZ
http://www.myspace.com/kirnehness

I'm assuming that Kubrick simply had a problem with the aesthetics of widescreen generally then! And fair play on him for demanding the full 4:3 for DVD releases if that was how he originally composed the picture. The point here - illustrated by the Volman/Rance pic with the gap beneath Rance's ankles - is that 200 Motels was most likely visually composed in advance as a 1.66:1 movie.

I'm kinda with the cinema purists on this one. If a movie is released on DVD there should at least be an attempt to present it as an accurate reflection of the original intentions of the filmmakers (and obviously, that includes Kubrick's open-matte wishes!).

The problem with this DVD release - going by the screenshots of the animation sequence and the Volman/Rance scene - is that the original 4:3 picture has been slightly cropped, and then stretched to 16:9. Aside from, it seems, the titles - which the above pic suggests is a straight crop to 16:9 as an excuse to remove the old copyright info from the screen.

Gonna finally order a copy tomorrow anyway and give it a test-drive. I already have two copies of the PAL VHS and half a dozen different downloaded captures of the NTSC so I may as well complete the set!



There may be something in that, certainly, but I'm not convinced it was the main reason for dropping the Groupie Opera. Pretty much all the reports I've read suggest it was more a matter of running out of time and money as the production went on. Scenes were being furiously deleted from the final script as the week of filming progressed - so by the end of it they'd have had one good eye on filming whatever they could in order to construct an end-result which made some kind of sense, even if it wasn't what was initially planned.

Annoyingly, the lead-in scenes to the Groupie Opera did make it to the movie. 'What Will This Morning...' would have kicked it all off. Perhaps more curiously, we get to see Mark Volman in drag (as a 'version' of Groupie Janet) at the Fake Nightclub. Jeff had long since quit by the time they set up that shot - and it seems a little unlikely they'd have gone to all the bother of dressing Volman up like that if they hadn't still been planning to shoot the subsequent scenes of his dialogue with Howie (in the Penis-mobile and all).

We don't know how those scenes would have been set up of course. The giggly rehearsal in the VPRO documentary has Ian Underwood playing the 'Do You Like My New Car?' vamp on keyboards in the background while Mark and Howie go through the routine in the car - but would it actually have been a full-band performance when it came to filming the real thing? Even if that was the case I'm sure Martin Lickert, for all his musical shortcomings, would have been able to follow along. A straight blues vamp for 'What Kind of Girl...' and one repeated bassline (for the most part) for 'Do You Like...?' - it would have certainly been easier to learn than 'She Painted Up Her Face' for instance.



If the full thing had been shot as intended it would probably have been about three and a half hours long!

Yeah, I know. Bliss!