‘The Other Side of the Wind’ being finished in Los Angeles for Netflix

[RayKelly]

Heard tonight from an Indiegogo contributor who received their THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND poster in the mail today.

[jbrooks]

I received my posters in the mail yesterday. It was the two different "Wind" posters in one tube -- very nice.

[leamanc]

Received my posters and I love them.

Does anyone know the dimensions of the larger poster? I want to get frames for the both of them. The smaller one is standard movie poster size, so that will be easy.

I can measure it, but with its size, that will be a two-man job, so I thought I’d check if anyone here knew offhand what it is.

[Wellesnet]

Chatted with the always gracious Bob Random as the one-year anniversary of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND's premiere nears.

http://www.wellesnet.com/bob-random-proud-other-side-wind

BTW, Wellesnet reached out to Random's co-star, Oja Kodar, for her recollections. Her nephew and representative, Sasha Welles, said he was unsure if she has seen the final cut, given she does not have internet access to stream Netflix at her Croatian home. Health and family concerns prevented her from attending premieres at the Venice and New York film festivals and she was unable to attend a screening in Zagreb offered by producer Filip Jan Rymsza.

[RayKelly]

Working on a piece marking the first anniversary of the premiere of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. Producer Filip Jan Rymsza shared with us this very rare video of the film receiving the William Everson Award from the National Board of Review.

https://youtu.be/jvwN8CkargE

[Wellesnet]

Producer Filip Jan Rymsza told supporters of a 2015 crowdfunding effort in an email today that a promised "perk" of a Blu-ray/DVD of the Orson Welles film, as well as as a coffee table book of rare photos from the 1970s shoot, "will take more time."
"I’d rather not speculate, but I’m guessing it’ll be a while. There are many factors involved, but rest assured we’re working on something special," Rymsza wrote.
http://www.wellesnet.com/other-wind-blu-ray/

[jbrooks]

Producer Filip Jan Rymsza told supporters of a 2015 crowdfunding effort in an email today that a promised "perk" of a Blu-ray/DVD of the Orson Welles film, as well as as a coffee table book of rare photos from the 1970s shoot, "will take more time."

Given the digital downloads that went out and the film's worldwide availability on Netflix, there would not be much value added in a bare-bones Blu Ray (or particularly a DVD -- this ain't 2002). I, for one, am happy to wait for the Blu Ray if there will be significant extras on it. It would be great to see some of the material left on the cutting room floor or to get some of the Welles-edited sequences in their non-truncated forms. I'm reminded of Joe McBride's comment that the full length Jaglom-Mazursky discussion would make a great DVD extra. Here's hoping it will be included.

[atcolomb]

I wonder if Criterion would get the rights to release a Blu-ray since they have released a good number of Orson's films?

[RayKelly]

Given the digital downloads that went out and the film's worldwide availability on Netflix, there would not be much value added in a bare-bones Blu Ray (or particularly a DVD -- this ain't 2002). I, for one, am happy to wait for the Blu Ray if there will be significant extras on it. It would be great to see some of the material left on the cutting room floor or to get some of the Welles-edited sequences in their non-truncated forms. I'm reminded of Joe McBride's comment that the full length Jaglom-Mazursky discussion would make a great DVD extra. Here's hoping it will be included.

Joe has made that pitch to the producers. I know Filip wants to have They'll Love Me When I'm Dead included. Welles' 40 minute workprint is a no brainer as an extra. I remember hearing at one point the New York Film Festival panel talk with Martin Scorsese would likely be included. They will surely give us A Final Cut for Orson.

[Wellesnet]

On this day in 2018: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND had its world premiere four decades after principal photography wrapped. Special thanks to Filip Jan Rymsza, Frank Marshall and Bob Murawski for sharing their memories with Wellesnet and, of course, finishing Orson Welles' film.
Read their comments at http://www.wellesnet.com/other-side-wind-year-later/

[JMcBride]

Great piece as always, Ray. You have done a yeoman job these last few years in keeping ahead of the story and keeping us all informed and enlightened on the OTHER WIND saga when most of the media dropped the ball.
You are still breaking news.
I think the news that AMPAS is preserving all 96 hours of footage is as important as the fact that Netflix finished and released the film. I had been urging that it all be preserved for posterity and am so thrilled and relieved it has happened.
David O. Selznick tried to get RKO to deposit a print of the uncut AMBERSONS at MoMA. What we would give for that.
Keep up the good work, Ray.

[RayKelly]

Legendary negative cutter Mo Henry talks about her amazing career and working on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in a hour-long podcast. | https://player.fm/series/archivists-alley/mo-henry-negative-cutting-orson-welles-restorations-womens-power-in-the-film-industry

[jbrooks]

Legendary negative cutter Mo Henry talks about her amazing career and working on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in a hour-long podcast. | https://player.fm/series/archivists-alley/mo-henry-negative-cutting-orson-welles-restorations-womens-power-in-the-film-industry

Legendary? What makes her legendary? I don't really get the hero worship. She's certainly a personable, interesting person. But a negative cutter is a technician -- not an artist. No film was ever improved by the quality of its negative cutting. Much of the discussion of her career in the press seems to incorrectly imply she was an editor. It's usually mentioned that she worked on "Jaws" -- implying that she had something to do with the artistic success of that film. She didn't. She wasn't the editor (that was Verna Fields). She wasn't even the negative cutter -- she was an assistant to the negative cutter. "Wind" -- because of the nature of the project as a reconstruction/restoration -- may be the one situation where her job was not entirely rote.

[jbrooks]

Legendary negative cutter Mo Henry talks about her amazing career and working on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in a hour-long podcast. | https://player.fm/series/archivists-alley/mo-henry-negative-cutting-orson-welles-restorations-womens-power-in-the-film-industry

One significant news item in the podcast is Henry's comment that a portion of the "Wind" negative was stored by Oja in Croatia in poor conditions and that that footage had degraded to the point that that it could not be used in the finished film.

[RayKelly]

One significant news item in the podcast is Henry's comment that a portion of the "Wind" negative was stored by Oja in Croatia in poor conditions and that that footage had degraded to the point that that it could not be used in the finished film.

In the podcast, Mo Henry says it was a bit of 35mm negative (mixed in with the workprint materials) that had decomposed in Croatia. That seems to match up with with Bob Murawski told me in October 2018:

Were there things in the workprint that you could not locate on the negative?
There actually were just a few things, like the scene where George Jessel introduces Jake’s birthday party and calls him "the Ernest Hemingway of the cinema, the Murnau of the American motion picture." We never found the negative for that. We were able to clean up the work picture. Because of the documentary style of the party scene, it didn’t matter if the work picture quality didn’t match the negative as much because it was intentionally supposed to look like it was from different formats and emulsions and styles of filmmaking.
There were a few shots in the film-within-the-film where John Dale is walking around the abandoned MGM lot where we did not find the original negative. Some things that were in Orson’s assembly we could not find the negative. So, I had to swap out different pieces. Fortunately, there was a huge amount of material and a lot of equally great stuff. I would say 99 percent of (the finished film) is from the original negative.