The Wheel Keeps Turning

Just when you think you have everything figured out, something comes up that puts everything upside down… in a good way.

I think history is repeating itself. And I explain.

More than a decade ago, Jac and Amy were working on the pre production for Barbazul and having rehearsals for Cage, the original title to what later on had many changes, that’s when Amy received an offer Jac couldn’t refuse… some cash for a film if it includes a now classic scene in the masterpiece of a genius.

The generous offer was accepted and we ended up shooting three films back to back, Barbazul, Maleficarum and Le Marquis De La Croix.

Cage was shelved, the script turned into Casa de Fieras, it then was merged with 69, and now the official title is 69 Année Erotique

Something similar is happening right now and it is driving us into a mad frenzy of work and excitement. I will have news about these new developments soon, very, very, soon. But it all points out that we’ll be shooting a few films back to back.

I asked about the Martyr highlight reel as you mentioned some time ago one was in the works. I think a number of folks would be interested in seeing it, but have given up on it ever being released. How about posting the deleted scenes of Natacha crucified?

wanttoknowmore

Some time ago, an international film festival requested from Jac his film on Haiti, Krik Krak, in 35 mm. The comment in the request was “to see it the way it should be seen”. Well… a 35 mm print of the film does not exist, it never did. As a matter of fact, there’s no longer a 16mm print either. There were two, one with French subtitles, the copy that went to the Cannes Film Festival, and one with English subtitles. There are three masters of that film in 1 Inch Video Tape, made for television, one in Germany, one in the UK and one in the US at PBS.

There’s a master negative in a refrigerator at the laboratory and then there’s a U-Matic version of the film in Jac’s bookcase, this U-Matic version was digitized and it is now in a hard disk. The rest are the VHS copies going around. I bring this up because something is happening in the world of cinema… The Evolution of Technology.

Martyr suffers from that evolution. That life changing film was shot at the beginning of the age of Digital Cinema in SD, with a great Canon camera that cost around $3,000 back in early 2002, the second year of the 21st century. Since then a lot changed. We are living the age of HD digital cinema where SD is an ancient system, and the way things are going, if you don’t shoot the next major film in 8k+ you won’t sell your film to Netflix.

Jac is now working with high end technology and finding out that current computers/apps refuse to recognize old material. At least that’s how he described the problem to me. However, he’ll be using one of his old computers to transfer all the material from Martyr to re-edit those segments.

The “deleted” crucifixion of Natasha scene is in the old tapes, as well as all the material that ended in the virtual editing floor, like extensive whipping scenes of Eulalia that did not make it to the final film.

Re Margot’s comment about a few posts ≠ “popular demand”… over countless years, I attempted pointlessly to chase release dates for those long ago RF films (Double Cross, 7 DotC volume 5, Martyr [Torture only] among others, perhaps those innumerable queries might count towards “popular demand”?!

The law of probabilities suggests that other fans would also have asked the same questions as I did. Perhaps they also gave up!

With few if any responses from RF, I gave up long ago! As they say, “none of us getting any younger”. I know how you feel!

Ranger1951

I guess my little comment about popular demand didn’t go that well. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. We do appreciate our loyal fans, particularly those that have been following us for so many, many years. It is because of this appreciation that Jac wants to release all those shelved projects and the old footage that was never meant to be public, but in the age of Meta reality, when every frame counts, for some reason, those materials from the beginning of Camille’s work with Jac, have some value for a lot of people.

Jac was going over some of the material he did with Camille, the early tapes, that are more like home movies than anything else, but now they have some historical value and it is in that context that Jac wants to release them. There’s a documentary feeling to them now.

Something similar to what Jac experienced in Cuba once. He was visiting one of the editing rooms, and lo and behold, Che Guevara’s father was in one of those rooms, going over some material he shot of his son, the famed guerrilla leader, in 16mm b&w film and was going to be part of a documentary title My Son Che. All those black and white 16 mm films he made of his son and family, for personal reasons, acquired great historical value. But I digress.

I had also asked about the series “Training Camille” being made available. The original material was shot using now obsolete technology so problems translating the precious footage into presentable media were to be expected.

The first offering I purchased in good faith was (Training Camille – Sessions 2, 3 and 4) contained ONLY Session 2 and 3. Even by run time, the missing Session 4 was patently obvious. After further fruitless attempts to have the situation remedied, I gave up (again)! When later Sessions were “released”, I didn’t bother with another disappointing purchase experience! Those later sessions would have been more like the content of the excellent “Via Crucis, Camille” films. Once bitten, twice shy!”

Ranger1951

After reading this comment I went to check the DVD of Camille Training Session 2,3 and 4 and I saw session 4 in the DVD. It’s there. We did not release any later editions to the Training of Camille. All the Training of Camille videos were recorded with Jac’s VHS camera, the quality of the image cannot be compared to the later Via Crucis of Camille videos. If I were to comment to Jac about this exchange, he might change his mind about releasing the other Training tapes. In any case, right now he’s very busy with two films, Seven Days (of torture) On The Cross and CruXtreme V – The Playmates.

Jac is also busy with the pre production work for three Big Production Value Films and it looks like he’s adding a FOURTH one now! But that’s material for my next post. Stay tuned!