Conflicts of Interest shot change

[vacantlook]

As I sat watching "Conflicts of Interest," I noticed that at the end of the Sheridan-Londo-G'Kar meeting around time 28:45 when the shot cuts back from G'Kar to Londo and Sheridan right before the scene cuts, Londo, though his back is to us, is visably talking yet we hear nothing except some scene transition music. Curious as to why what Londo was saying was unheard and wondering if it was a problem with my DVD, I broke out my copy of "Conflicts of Interest" that I got on VHS several years ago as part of my Columbia House membership. When I viewed the scene on the VHS tape, I discovered that that ending shot wasn't the same. On the VHS tape version, Londo slightly bows his head and then looks over to G'Kar as the music comes in.

I wonder why this change between this version on the VHS tape and the version on the DVD was made.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

1) The change was probably an accident, not deliberate
2) The differnce is probably not between the VHS tape version and the DVD version, but rather between the original 4:3 presentation and the widescreen edition - which predates the DVDs.

When the created the new widescreen edition for Sci-Fi they went back to the original Super35 film for the live action shots to extract the 16:9 frame, then reassemble the shows by editing in the CGI and CGI/live action composite shots. It appears that in a couple of episodes they pulled the wrong shots when going back to the original negatives, or that mistakes were made in the final assembly. The hugely obvious ones (like the infamous "teapot" shot in "Midnight on the Firing Line") were caught and corrected during the initial run on Sci-Fi, but a number of subtler ones slipped by - even when JMS reviewed the master tapes. (I guess it is hard to be staring at the screen for every second of all 110 episodes.) Your post is the first I've heard about the error in "Conflicts of Interest" but I'm not shocked by it.

Regards,

Joe

 

[vacantlook]

I figured it was probably something like that, but didn't know for certain. I just thought I'd point out having seen it for all of the folks here that enjoy the many minute particulars of all things B5.

 

[Bester]

The hugely obvious ones (like the infamous "teapot" shot in "Midnight on the Firing Line")

What is that mistake exactly? I'm fairly blind when it comes to visual gaffs

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The hugely obvious ones (like the infamous "teapot" shot in "Midnight on the Firing Line")

What is that mistake exactly? I'm fairly blind when it comes to visual gaffs

"The hugely obvious ones... were caught and corrected during the initial run on Sci-Fi."

So this one doesn't show up on the DVDs, it was fixed long before they were created. If you didn't see the first one or two rotations of the show on the U.S. Sci-Fi Channel, you've never seen the error I'm referring to. (I really hoped they would include it as an extra on the last disc, but they didn't)

You can, however, watch and/or download an MPEG of the mistake here. It has been archived for those who missed it through the kindness of UK fan Bruce Goatly.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Bester]

Jeez...I must be more tired than I thought.

Cool link. Thank you.

 

[phoenixrising]

Ok, since Joe seems to know something about this, maybe he can answer something that has been bugginmg me.

in the credits for season 2, they show Delenn in the hybrid make-up for every episode, when i know they used a shot of her in the Mimbari make-up until she came out of the cocoon. And Ivanova's rank never changes after she is promoted to Commnader.

And in the season 4 credits, Garibaldi is listed as security chief for every episode, when it should have shifted to Zack, who's credit also remains the same.

What happened here? Someone lose the credits for all the episodes except one and they had to use that one?

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

 

[PillowRock]

The opening credit sequences have been like that ever since the widescreen versions were made for SciFi. My guess would be that whoever was footing the bill for re-builing the episodes made the decision to only do one credit sequence per season based purely on budgetary concerns.


The original problem that started the thread *might* not have been a mistake. It is possible that the particular piece of film in question had been damaged, destroyed, or lost during the intervening years. If that was the case they have purposely selected the piece of footage that they still had that seemed to fit the best.

Just suggesting posibilities here.

 

[LightNZ]

The Region 4 version shows delenn in original makeup until she comes out of her cacoon

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The Region 4 version shows delenn in original makeup until she comes out of her cacoon

All of the PAL versions of the discs have the correct credits. All of the DVD episodes appear to be taken from the hi-res masters created in 2000 and first used to create the NTSC broadcast masters for the U.S. Sci-Fi Channel, but it is evident that opening credits for the variant episodes weren't. The (presumably European) techs who produced the final PAL masters seem to have had access to the widescreen PAL broadcast masters that had been created for various European countries starting in the mid-1990s. So where there was a difference they used those title sequences. It is quite possible that the WHV techs in Burbank weren't even aware that the PAL credits existed, or there may have been technical or quality problems in mating old, converted PAL credits with the newer widescreen episodes for the NTSC version.

Regards,

Joe