Hi Matt,
Your point is well taken.
When I was the Sound Director for MGM, we were given the task of sorting
the sound elements from the UA library because Worldwide Services had
mostly misinformation in their database. What we discovered, was that
many elements were in very poor shape and if they weren't restored,
transferred, etc., they would not be accessible the next time. These
included some very recognizable titles like "Marty" & "The Alamo", just
to name a couple. Worldwide Services complained about the cost & I was
told to stop the restoration work, only to identify the elements and
correct the database. I ultimately took the problem to the number 2 man
at MGM and was told that there was no money to save the elements. That
funding came from estimated revenues from after market release on a
title-by-title basis. It turned out that this is an industry wide
practice. No investment is made, by anyone, in maintaining what they have.
My $0.02
Corey
Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
www.baileyzone.net
On 6/19/2019 8:24 AM, Matthew Snyder wrote:
> Alex, behind your very good question is an assumption that UMG had a
> complete and detailed inventory of the contents of the building in the
> first place. There is no reason to believe that they did. They didn't care
> enough about their holdings to invest money in protecting them, so why
> would they have spent money to catalog what they had and where it was?
> Sure, one guy had a pretty good knowledge of what was there, but that's not
> the same as a paper or database trail.
>
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