The 4% commentary slowdown, plus other A&E extras

Hi all,

I'm sure we've all heard (endlessly) about how UFO is 4% slower in
America than it is in the UK, which affects how fast people talk and
the pitch of their voices. Since the Gerry Anderson commentary track
was recorded for a 50 minute PAL episode and was now being used on a
52 minute NTSC episode, I was curious how this was accomplished --
did he now simply finish his commentary 2 minutes before the episode
ends? Or did A&E add some gaps in the commentary so it was still
more or less correct? Or did they simply slow down the tape so he
talked slower & the pitch of his voice was lower.

I'm sad to say that the last option was chosen -- comparing the UK
and US discs, on the UK discs Gerry seems quite normal, with some
pep in his voice. On the US discs, he talks as if he was slightly
drugged, and it's enough to lull the viewer to sleep. So I suspect
that there is going to be more than one reviewer who points out how
sleep-inducing Gerry's commentary is, not perhaps realizing that A&E
slowed down the original audio, and that Gerry's original commentary
wasn't that bad.

I think it would have been best if A&E had played the commentary at
the correct speed, but added a few bits of silence here and there to
keep everything in synch. But alas, this probably would have taken a
few minutes of extra work, and wasn't done... <sigh>

Also of note is that on the UK discs, Gerry's commentary is played
over the music & effects track, so there is no competing dialog in
the background. On the US discs, the commentary is played over the
final mix, so you can hear dialog in the background.

Also, on the "SID outtakes", this is perhaps not the best way to
describe it. The first section sounds like Mel Oxley's session tape,
going through all of SIDs lines for an episode (or two?) Most of
this dialog *was* incorporated into the finished episode, so cannot
really be described as an "outtake". Better to describe it as an
original audio element.

The section section is definitely an outtake however, as they've
electronically processed the voice in a way that was never heard in
the series.

And yes, the so-called "publicity photos" are indeed just screen
grabs. One has to wonder what happened to all of those wonderful
behind-the-scenes photos that appeared on the UK discs. Did Carlton
not send these photos to A&E? Or did A&E not receive them in time to
meet the July 30th release date?

Marc

--- Marc wrote:
>
> I'm sad to say that the last option was chosen -- comparing the UK
> and US discs, on the UK discs Gerry seems quite normal, with some
> pep in his voice. On the US discs, he talks as if he was slightly
> drugged, and it's enough to lull the viewer to sleep.

Marc,

that's an interesting question I've hadn't thought of. So thanks for
pointing this out! Sadly A&E decided to make it wrong in this case
(IMO).

> Also of note is that on the UK discs, Gerry's commentary is played
> over the music & effects track, so there is no competing dialog in
> the background. On the US discs, the commentary is played over the
> final mix, so you can hear dialog in the background.

Most interesting!
I'll have to check this one (and also on the SUB-SMASH commentary).

Thanks, Marc!
Christian

--- In SHADO@y..., Christian "memorymetropolis" wrote:
> [from Marc:]
> > Also of note is that on the UK discs, Gerry's commentary
> > is played over the music & effects track, so there is no
> > competing dialog in the background. On the US discs, the
> > commentary is played over the final mix, so you can hear
> > dialog in the background.
>
> Most interesting!
> I'll have to check this one (and also on the SUB-SMASH commentary).

...and checked it. You are right, Marc, it's the music & effect track
on IDENTIFIED, but on SUB-SMASH one can hear the final track (with
the voices). Sadly, because there is few of the commentary to hear
from Ed, so it would be interesting for the customers to hear the m&e
track only in his pauses.

Christian

> Did Carlton not send these photos to A&E? Or did A&E not receive
> them in time to meet the July 30th release date?
>
> Marc

Hi Marc,

Scott Bosco should be able to answer that for you. He is
the "consultant" for A&E's ITC releases. He should also be able to
answer why A&E took the easy way out with the speed of GA's
commentary. Seems from his own review you have a link for that he was
quite bored with GA, not only with the speed, but also the content.

Ole