When the Joe 90 CD was released in 2006, I conducted an interview with Ralph Titterton and Tim Mallet, the men behind the release of this Barry Gray CD and all the earlier official Barry Gray CDs.
Ralph has in his possession the entire Barry Gray music library on analog tapes. Tim Mallett is the audio technician who worked with Ralph to clean up the tapes, re-mix them and create new audio masters suitable for production of the CDs.
This exclusive interview provides a great deal of information about the music source and level of effort that went into the production of the CDs.
Producer, and now author, Stephen La Rivière, recently announced that he has just completed writing a book about the 1960s years of the Gerry Anderson productions, from Supercar to Secret Service.
The book is to be titled "FILMED IN SUPERMARIONATION: A HISTORY OF THE FUTURE" and is due out early in 2009. There is no cover as yet, but it is already available for pre-order from Amazon UK for £26.99 and (probably incorrectly priced) from Amazon USA for $26.57. It is the result of 4 years of work, including exhaustive research in addition to interviews with remaining cast and crew.
The book will be full colour and available in both hardback and softcover editions. If the name of the author sounds familiar, its because he is the chap behind the wonderful "Full Boost Vertical - The Supercar Story" documentary DVD which came out a few years ago. I found that a very interesting documentary and fully expect this book to be both revealing and almost certainly controversial as it will challenge some of the "well known facts" of Anderson lore.
Not so much an official press release, than a series of teasing tidbits, the full book announcement is included after the jump.
As you know by now, the Thunderbirds Blu-Ray set has been released in the UK by ITV. The main issue for many is that the set is cropped to 16:9 ratio essentially cutting off the top and bottom of the picture, which for many is unacceptable. I don't know how many 4:3 classic movies are on Blu-Ray yet, but I can tell you that if they crop the disc of Citizen Kane to 16:9 ratio there will be an outcry. Sadly, as the fanbase of Thunderbirds is probably less than that of Citizen Kane, even if we all stand on top of our roofs screaming at the top of our lungs they won't hear. Time will tell if they hear and if they care. Anything shot in 4:3 should be kept that way and use black bars on the side to retain all the image. Its OK to crop 2.35:1 widescreen movies top and bottom with black, so there really is no excuse. Oh and don't you love the way they put Kyrano in the background? I bet they thought it was The Hood. I know I'm being anal here, but c'mon, its the cover.
Anyway...
I would like to thank the Richard (PR) for providing me with additional details on the release, which I can share with you. The show has been digitally restored and is in 1080p high definition (with 16:9 crop). In addition to the shows themselves, the following extras are included:
Disc 1: Thunderbirds Companion Disc 2: 4 original TV ads + All About Thunderbirds documentary (originally aired on BBC) Disc 3: featurette: The machines Disc 4: featurette: The Characters Disc 5: featurette: Lady Penelope and Parker Disc 6: featurette: Making of Thunderbirds (originally aired on BBC)
I could be wrong, but I think all the extras have been on prior DVD sets with the exception of the items which were recently aired by the BBC this new year. Early word is that the picture quality is outstanding, but sound has been modified/improved to a noticeable degree. Level of detail on these discs is very high. Amazing considering when these shows were made, the UK viewers were watching it on small black and white sets. What a difference 40+ years makes!
Update: Checked the price at Amazon and it has gone down to about £80, a drop of £10. Also note the average review for this set is 1 star (4 reviews). As you cannot rate an item with 0 stars, I'd say the BluRay vendors are going to have to seriously reconsider putting black bars left and right if they wish to actually sell older TV shows or movies. Hopefully this is a triumph for sanity over greed. It really doesn't matter if they give it HD treatment, if the original source is noticeably missing content, people will not stand for it. FAB.
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but The Prisoner was an ITC series and many Anderson fans are also fans of the 60s cult TV series. For that reason, I wanted to pass on this interesting bit of info. Basically, ITV (UK) and AMC (US) are doing a joint production of a new series of The Prisoner starring Jim Caviziel and Sir Ian McKellen. The show is currently in production in Namibia where they have constructed a "could be anywhere" village made up of architecture from all over the world.
They are currently in week 5 of location shooting. It will be a six-part mini series which will be a "re-imagining" of the original show, which does make me cringe a bit, but I think it will address issues of today in much the same way the original series addressed issues of the late 1960s. Don't know for sure, but it looks like it will hit TV screens about this time next year. AMC has a blog with the production diary and some photos. There are also interesting video clips here. I'm not normally a big fan on 60s remakes (Avengers movie, I'm looking in your direction), but this looks promising. Be seeing you.
Here we go again, out with the old and in with the new. Today marks the release of the Thunderbirds Blu-Ray DVD set. According to reports, the episodes are cropped to 16:9 ratio, so you get the filled screen, but lose, you know, content from the top and bottom of the screen. Its unclear how much the images have been cleaned up, but its not unrealistic to expect a fairly decent transfer from a clean source. The audio has also received the hi-def treatment and only comes in 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby, which means no mono. Not the end of the world, hopefully the jacked up explosions will be minimal.
Price on this is a bit steep, too: £90.98. It's now available for order from Amazon UK.
Word is spreading around the world that Gerry Anderson is looking to buy back the rights to Thunderbirds! As many of you will know, Gerry sold his interest in Thunderbirds a while ago. He now wants to buy them back and make a new series. This time it will be CGI (ugh), but it may be a combination of puppets and CGI. This would be similar to the way the Brains Drench TV ad (see earlier post) was done. That could be interesting.
Details are sketchy at the moment, mostly consisting of brief news articles in papers around the world. The Sun in the UK, ThaIndian (Thailand) and the Melbourne Herald Sun paper in Australia have all reported on this.
They all appear to say the same thing, with little details. Gerry Anderson is the only person who can do Thunderbirds right (take that Jonathan Frakes, et al). Although I'm sure he can buy the rights, its unknown how long it will take and then how long it will take to decide on the show format and produce it. Remember how long New Captain Scarlet took from initial concept?
The sixth issue of the fan magazine Andersonic is now available. The UK-based magazine is in colour and is 40 pages long. It includes articles, photos and more. Although I am yet to see an issue (on order), the current issue looks quite interesting with the following content:
The Art of Ron Embleton - the work of TV21's Scarlet and Stingray artist.
Lord Parker's 'Oliday - Bingo! A classic episode reviewed.
Alpha Incident Log - Strange goings on with glowing rocks and Irish Cowboys...
Faith in Science - The contributions of Barry Morse and Johnny Byrne to Space:1999.
Identified Retrospective - Seven different writers share their thoughts on UFO's opener.
SHADO Test Paper - Ed and Alec's Fun Page.
Interview - Gerry Anderson discusses UFO, New Captain Scarlet... and lemmings.
Writing the Tracys - exploring Thunderbirds' popularity with writers.
Winged Assassins - what makes Captain Scarlet the odd one out?
Mission of the Darians - Mutant! Classic Space:1999 episode reviewed.
The Fall of Troy - Stingray's Forbidden Shakespearian roots.
Watching the Watchers - the arrival of the 21st Century in our living rooms.
Trap for a Rhino - New Captain Scarlet episode appraised.
The latest issue sells for the amazingly reasonable price of £2.25. Postage to UK is included. You need to add shipping if you live somewhere else.
Its Deja Vu time again folks. This time, the Doppleganger/Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun DVD release for the UK/Region 2 crowd. Looks like an identical release to the US version, in that it has no extras. However it does have a different cover. The most interesting thing is that apparently the UK studio has given up on the UK title of Doppleganger and just named it Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun as in the US release title.
Not the most catchy of movie titles, but I guess it does explain the basic premise, whereas Doppleganger is a bit more mysterious. Oh well, it was a good run while it lasted. Running time is listed as 98 minutes.
Although not the best thing Gerry Anderson ever did, it was a decent attempt at a live action "big screen movie" with pretty decent special effects and a reasonably well known cast including Roy Thinnes (TV Show The Invaders) as well as Patrick Wymark and Herbert Lom. Of course, much of this movie was a precursor to UFO, as it featured several prominent cast members including Ed Bishop and Ian Hendry. Some props and vehicles featured in the movie also ended up in UFO. Great late-night TV fare, and a pretty decent Barry Gray soundtrack.
This UK release hits store shelves 8 September 2008 for about £6.98.
While we wait for the pricey Thunderbirds Blu-Ray set to be published in the UK, a new Thunderbirds novel has been published in the US. The softcover book is entitled "Countdown to Action!" and is written by Joan Marie Verba. Although Joan is new to the world of Gerry Anderson, this marks the fifth (at least) book she has available at Amazon. I think the title is dangerously generic, especially for Anderson fare, but time will tell how good the story itself is. The book appears to focus on the formation of Internatonal Rescue, rather than on missions for IR. I just ordered the book, and will post details later, but the synopsis is as follows:
After his wife dies in a tragic accident, astronaut Jeff Tracy is left with five young sons to raise. But he turns his grief into a dream: to create an organization which will rescue people that no one else can reach. He builds a business which creates the new technology that the organization will require and earns the billions he needs to finance it. At last, he is ready to put it all together. He enlists the services of a genius to design aircraft and supporting machinery far beyond the standards of his time. Together, they find a Pacific island to use as the base for their operations. Jeff asks his five sons, now grown, to give up promising careers to build the base, operate the machines, and serve in his organization. But he finds that in order to make his dream a reality, it will require sacrifice, courage, and determination...far beyond what he, or his sons, ever expected. Can they make International Rescue a reality, and what will it take to make the fantastic Thunderbird machines go?
I guess it was inevitable, but Thunderbirds is coming to Blu-Ray disc on 15 September 2008. This will be in the UK only for now, but if past history is any indication, this will be the first of many Blu-Ray releases for Anderson productions. Right now details are very sparse, but it appears to be a box set of the entire series. Probably will be 16:9 which will inevitably mean that something gets lost. See the Stingray HD broadcast article to see what I mean.
Although its a fairly obvious first release, I was actually expecting to see the New Captain Scarlet show get the first high-definition DVD release, as it was produced in high-def and 5.1 sound. That would be an ideal candidate, as would the Thunderbirds movies. Expect little in the way of extras this time round though. One question that does come to mind is will they attempt to 'hide' the strings, now that the show is going to be high definition?
Price on this is a bit steep, too: £90.75.Pre-order it now from Amazon. That reminds me, are there any region-free Blu-Ray players yet?
2003 Archive 
When the Joe 90 CD was released in 2006, I conducted an interview with Ralph Titterton and Tim Mallet, the men behind the release of this Barry Gray CD and all the earlier official Barry Gray CDs.
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but The Prisoner was an ITC series and many Anderson fans are also fans of the 60s cult TV series. For that reason, I wanted to pass on this interesting bit of info. Basically, ITV (UK) and AMC (US) are doing a joint production of a new series of The Prisoner starring Jim Caviziel and Sir Ian McKellen. The show is currently in production in Namibia where they have constructed a "could be anywhere" village made up of architecture from all over the world. 
