Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series DVD
Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series Blu-ray
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) TV Guide Ad
Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series DVD
Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series Blu-ray
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I caught the very last episode in first run and was hooked. It got cancelled the next week. Dang it!
ReplyDeleteHoly crap...It's Ducky from NCIS. Awesome!
ReplyDeleteJust noticed that the rights to another '70s staple, Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of..." have been acquired for DVD release.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the few 70s SF shows that I did NOT follow back in the day. Primarily because in my area they never gave it in reruns. Even so, I'd love to see it.
ReplyDeleteI quite liked that show, although you could always tell when an invisibility scene was coming up because they used a crummy video-based chromakey effect. If this is coming out on Bluray, I'd be very curious to know if they have re-worked these effects or just left them in their SD hideousness. (I've just been reading about the new Star Trek - The Next Generation Bluray release. ST:TNG was shot on film but edited and distributed on video, so all previous releases have had an NTSC video smeariness to them, but for the bluray they have gone back to the camera negatives and where necessary re-constructed the visual effects sequences. I hope they do this for INVISIBLE MAN, but I bet they don't!)
ReplyDeleteP.S. What about GEMINI MAN, the Ben Murphy-starring follow on series? He was sent invisible by his digital watch, which made me feel special - because I was one of the first in my school to have a digital watch!
ReplyDeletePhil, I wouldn't count on any reconstructed FX sequences. First of all, with computer tools, it is possible to do almost anything, but "anything" can cost a lot of time, and that means money. ST:TNG was shot on film, as you noted, and that means everything—including the model shots. If all the FX plates have been stored as neatly as the live action footage, then it would be "easy" to re-comp all the shots with digital tools. Digital matte paintings are probably still on file. About the only thing that might need to be re-created is any animation FX, like phasers, but that is very easy with today's tools.
ReplyDeleteTHE INVISIBLE MAN is another matter. I don't know about the production specifically, but I would guess it was shot on film, like most TV shows. The chroma-key effects (known as CSO, or "colour separation overlay" in the UK) might have been shot directly on video. (I'll be able to tell when the DVDs are released.) If shot on video, then those sequences will never look any better. They could be digitized and re-composited, but even professional video formats from the '70s (Quadruplex and Type C) look terribly dated today.
Aside from re-compositing all the shots, it is possible to clean up any image with the same sort of tools used to clean up old films for digital mastering, or "wire and support removal" used in modern VFX. However, that's where the time and money come in, and I don't think this show was popular enough to warrant that kind of effort.
Have checked out McCallums other Sci Fi show, Sapphire and Steel??, possibly the best tv show I've ever seen, a true classic, I remember watching the invisible man, a big deal over here in the UK
ReplyDelete