Of all the reader suggestions for what I should do with my little film Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview, not one involved showing the movie in theaters. Yet that was the first thing that came to my mind. How old media-like of me and how new media-like of you. So we’re opening November 16th for a short run in about 20 U.S. theaters. These are mainly Landmark Theaters, but some others are now coming on and we’ve even had inquiries from Europe and Asia (keep them coming, please). The idea came to me late at night so I e-mailed Landmark owner Mark Cuban who replied in five minutes. proving insomnia has its virtues
Seeing a movie in a theater is a social experience, where most other viewing options generally aren’t. I remember where and when I saw many films that were important to me from Barbarella (it wasn’t the movie but the girl I was with) to Star Wars (it was the movie), mainly because I saw them in theaters with my friends. It’s just not the same watching on YouTube, which is exactly why I decided to start with theaters.
Those who want to wait and see the show online will probably get their chance to do so since I don’t expect a long theatrical run. There will be many ways to see this interview, but theaters come first.
And did I mention that getting a writing credit for a film opening in theaters finally qualifies me for group health insurance through the Writers Guild of America? I haven’t been eligible for group health insurance since 1994.
Other than confirming when and where the film is opening (below) I want to cover the technology involved in turning an old VHS tape into a movie fit for showing on big screens.
Triumph of the Nerds was shot on PAL Digi-Beta SP, a format very advanced for 1995 but obsolete today. It’s true digital with 4:2:2 encoding and a screen resolution of 720-by 576 lines at 25 frames-per-second (remember this was originally shot for European consumption). Taking this to film wouldn’t be that hard, actually, given the number of features that have been shot on DV beginning with the Blair Witch Project. It’s not great but it’s not bad, either. But the tape we have isn’t Digi-Beta or digital at all — it’s analog PAL VHS with only 288 vertical lines, not even Digi-Beta’s 576, much less HD’s 1080. And that’s our goal for this film — 1080 vertical lines.
Home movie footage is used all the time in feature films, but it’s usually supposed to look like home movie footage and ours isn’t. Fortunately ours was shot and lighted by professionals and it shows. The VHS dub we have was done on professional equipment and it is likely that the tape was never even played after being recorded, though there are two very obvious instances of tape stretch in the piece — places you’d normally just cut around except we’re on some media honesty kick and determined to share the tape unedited, so we’ve had to work hard to improve those stretchy parts.
Once we had the master tape in the best possible shape it had to go through any number of steps including de-interlacing, de-noising, color correction, and resolution enhancement. The last is the most interesting but it turns out the first is most important because there are right and wrong ways to de-interlace video.
Video is interlaced at all because that’s the way it had to be done in the early days of television with slow TV set phosphors (remember that white dot in the middle of your TV set when you turned it off?) and equally slow camera tubes. So an analog TV frame, whether it is NTSC or PAL has two fields that are recorded sequentially then rendered together as an interlaced signal with a line from Field A followed by a line from Field B and so on. Converting this interlaced signal to the progressive scan used on most HDTVs (and computer screens) requires de-interlacing, which most often means throwing away either Field A or Field B then doubling the lines of the surviving field.
No-can-do for us, though, because that would drop our 288 lines down to 144 lines, from which I am sure we’d never recover. And to be honest no-can-do for most other professional de-interlacing since we now have smarter ways to do it, the point being to not throw away any information.
The general technique is to first make the video look less bad and then make it look better. The former comes through de-noising (removing artifacts that are obviously not part of the original signal) and color correction (making the colors look right or, if not right then at least the way you think they look the best). The latter comes through a process of temporal interpolation that is usually called Super Resolution.
Remember your neighbor who got a home equity loan to install a home theater and how he bragged about his line doubler? How oh-so 1999. A line doubler scales-up resolution by creating new lines in the frame that are interpolated from the lines above and below. Super Resolution does much the same thing but it creates lines using information not just from the lines on either side but from all the lines and other picture elements in several frames before and after. Typically 4-5 frames are involved and if you think that we are going from 288 vertical lines to 1080 that’s about a 4X increase so we’ll need every bit of that temporal data from those extra frames.
I decided when we started this adventure on October 14th that we’d have to take a shotgun approach to tape restoration, so that’s what we have done, using three completely separate approaches in parallel.
First the folks at Red Giant Software up in Portland, Oregon helped us use their plugins for Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. We first thought we’d be using just Red Giant’s Instant HD tool from their Magic Bullet Suite, but soon learned they have separate tools for every stage of the process including de-interlacing, de-noising, color correction and more.
There’s a hardware approach to the same problem courtesy of an Orlando, Florida company called Teranex. Their $3000 box (the one we used was the Teranex Mini) sucks in video in one format and spits it out in another. A smart Teranex operator knows to do the job in several passes accomplishing the different tasks in a specific order, but the process in each case is accomplished in real time, which is astounding.
And finally, from behind Door Number Three comes MotionDSP of Burlingame, California. MotionDSP sells a $49.95 Windows product called vReveal that does most of this as well as a professional product called Ikena that does it even better for a lot more money. I understand that iKena is particularly popular with certain three-letter agencies for improving the resolution of satellite images.
Which worked best for our little film? We won’t know for a couple more days when we have a side-by-side comparison and the winner goes out to theaters. So far they all look great.
Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview cities and theaters (so far)
New York – Sunshine
Los Angeles – Regent
San Francisco – Opera Plaza
Berkeley – Shattuck
Palo Alto – Aquarius
Seattle – Metro
San Diego – Hillcrest
Denver – Esquire
Dallas – Magnolia
Houston – River Oaks
Minneapolis- Lagoon
Chicago – Century
Indianapolis – Keystone
Boston – Kendall
Philadelphia – Ritz Bourse
Washington, DC – E Street
Baltimore – Harbor East
Atlanta – Midtown
Milwaukee – Oriental
I just can’t believe that John Logie Baird dreamed up all this technical complexity. He should have bypassed it all and gone straight to digital.
BTW, Bob, get this thing screened at the Harbour Lights Picturehouse in Southampton and I’ll be first in the queue for a ticket.
Good idea David – I know it well and will be second in the queue. They do good coffee too. Cheers.
what’s a queue???
Americans would call it “waiting in line”.
So Bob, I hope you’re going to include a prologue/epilogue in your theatrical release.
A little background of your own experiences with Jobs and a little of your own reflections on the industry up to that point would be as interesting to me as what Jobs had to say.
This… please include a prologue/epilogue with some insights and background. That’s a great idea.
There’s a short introduction and conclusion, yes. It’s the only time you see me, though I’m heard throughout. There are also half a dozen voiceover annotations along the way to keep the action in perspective.
Now the writing credit makes sense. That didn’t quite sync up with the statement “we’re […] determined to share the tape unedited” until I read this comment.
Augh! Whose bright idea was it to limit the screenings to 18 theaters in only 2 days in the middle of the work week?! Seriously. The closest event is 300 miles away from me, and I don’t think it is going to be possible for me to take time off and travel that distance just to see this on a Wednesday or Thursday evening. If you had scheduled it for a weekend showing, that would have been way more doable.
At least you’re on the same continent.
That’s right! I’m in Kuwait!
The list is expanding as are the play dates. If lots of people go the current theaters will be extended and more cities will be added.
Are you interested at all in hearing from or about small independent local theaters who have Blu-Ray capability and may be interested in exhibiting this? I live in Moscow, Idaho, on the Idaho/Washington border, and 8 miles away from Pullman, Washington…so, side-by-side college towns. We have a few such theaters in the area. One in particular that I think would be a strong candidate is the Kenworthy Theatre (https://www.kenworthy.org/about.html — contact information is @ the bottom of the page).
You talk about theater viewing as a social experience. Well, this is an opportunity to make it into not just a social experience, but a social *community* experience. 🙂
I guess this won’t be coming to Scotland any time soon(!), will it be released on DVD?
Hope it comes to Scotland! Or Blu-Ray.
I think Bob would have to get many different interviews, not just his own, to do the feature film. Like the Senna film for Jobs.
“Senna” is the first thing that came to mind for me. It shows both that a great documentary can be made from old TV footage and that traditional distribution can still be relevant. The buzz that was created as that movie made its way around the world surely contributed in part to its success. (Being awesome helped, but I don’t doubt that Bob’s interview is too.)
Although I’ve never been an Apple fan, I’m looking forward to this. I loved Triumph of the Nerds. Hey, it’s why I’m here reading this.
Both DVD (or Blu-Ray) and UK exhibition are likely.
Hey Bob, how about a 2 DVD set, Triumph of the Nerds and the Jobs interview? I’d love to show the Triumph of the Nerds show to my students. I had it on VHS at one point, borrowed it to another teacher and… it got eaten by the player. I’d buy that.
Also, you did a nice job on the PBS Jobs show.
Öne more vote for the 2 DVD set …
Triumph of the Nerds is on DVD, but unfortunately it is not the exact same version that aired on PBS…the 3 parts each had nearly a good 10 minutes trimmed off of each of them for reasons that have never been made clear publicly. One of the things that got cut out of the DVD version was any discussion of the “blue box” by Jobs.
(If you look hard enough, someone has uploaded the complete full original broadcast version of Triumph to Youtube…unfortunately, the video quality isn’t that great.)
If this full interview gets bundled with a re-release of Triumph, I’d love to see the *original* broadcast version of the series put on disc this time.
— Nathan
Dvd you jest, surely this should be released on iTunes movies !
Have you forgotten the rest of the world i.e. outside USA?
It’s in the first paragraph: “… and we’ve even had inquiries from Europe and Asia (keep them coming, please).”
The guy’s trying — he has an old video interview with a very interesting guy and is trying to get it into the market as soon as possible. It’s kind of unbelievable that this is all going down scarcely one month later as it is.
How would one go about it to make this happen locally (Sweden), is it possible to simply buy/rent copies for local theaters?
Yes, this is me having a build-it-and-they-will-come-moment…
Bob, when you say “1080 vertical lines”, don’t you mean 1080 horizontal lines, or alternatively a vertical resolution of 1080 lines?
Also, I think that the number of lines in PAL VHS is 576 and not 288. Although it is made up of two interlaced and out-of-sync frames of 288 lines, 576 separate lines appear on the screen.
Yeah, Bob makes the common error of confusing the horizontal lines in a video frame with the horizontal resolution, which is sometimes confusingly expressed as a number of notional vertical lines.
PAL VHS is 576i50 (two interlaced fields of 288 lines, 25 of each per second). VHS horizontal resolution is variable, because it’s analog; it depends on the quality of the tape, the recording equipment, etc., etc. 250 “lines” of luminance is a reasonable rule of thumb (and a horrible ~50 lines of chroma).
So the line “doubling” process is actually de-interlacing 576i50 to 576p25, then upsampling to 1080p25. I’d wager that *both* stages are using temporal information for best results, not just the upsampling stage.
Then you either run the projector at 25fps, or slow it down by 4% to the usual cinema 24fps.
(Presumably Bob’s keeping the original aspect ratio of 4:3, and not zooming in to some sort of widescreen ratio, which would reduce the number of source lines.)
Fortunately I’m not doing the restoration, eh?
It’s pillarboxed 1080p.
Those ‘250 “lines” of luminance’ are measured not across a full horizontal line, but just over the same length as the picture is high. For a normal 4:3 picture, that would result in about 250*4/3 = 333 lines. Since this is for analog signals, you need about 1/0.7 times as many pixels to resolve the lines, so the 250 “lines” of resolution of a very good VHS tape would be equivalent to about 475 pixels horizontally.
The vertical resolution obviously depends on the presence of motion, for a perfectly still image, all 576 lines can just be weaved together. Depending on the amount of motion, this can drop to 1/2.
Just to completely beat this subject to death, the vertical resolution is the number of horizontal (left to right) lines making up the picture. I think the confusion comes from the fact that in order to SEE the vertical resolution you must display alternating black and white horizontal lines. Back in the old days all TV’s for a country used the same vertical resolution since it was the standard contruct of the whole system from camera to picture tube. What varied was the bandwidth preserved by the transmission process. Perfect bandwith preservation meant that the horizontal resolution of the receiver captured all the rapidly changing pictue information (as the beam scanned from left to right) that left the broadcast transmitter. In order to see how good a receiver was, the test pattern included alternately black and white vertical lines that came closer and closer together to demonstrate the horizontal resolution which could vary widely from one set to another.
Thanks for doing this Bob!
If there’s any way we could get this film screened at the Tivoli in St. Louis, boy that would be amazing! Crossing my fingers 🙂
Amen! The Tivoli would be great.
For some strange reason the Tivoli is closed, or at least not showing any films for most of November and December.
The Tivoli is scheduled to show films for the St. Louis Int’l Film Festival between Nov 10-20, 2011.
Yes, I second (or third) the Tivoli. Also, I don’t suppose it would add anything to the film if you were to take your three results and somehow combine THEM with each other?
Lets ask the obvious question — how many people in St. Louis would like to see the interview?
I’m buying tickets NOW, if they’ll let me …
No love for a viewing in your old hometown of Charleston? C’mon…..
There are no 35mm prints. We are distributing on Blu-Ray and can only play in theaters that are Blu-Ray equipped and most aren’t. If there’s enough of a response next week we might make some prints but the cost is substantial — maybe $50K for the conversion services then $2K per print. That’s too much money for a film that is at this point a commercial mystery.
Steve wouldn’t have wanted it on Blu-Ray… 🙂
Correct. Mac owners couldn’t play it on their Macs!
Why not just create a DCP which can be used multiple times in Digital Theatre Screens instead of old school 35mm prints which deteriorate get damaged etc? it would probably be better than using BluRay in theatres too since in Theatrical terms, DCP is supplanting 35mm, not Blu Ray.
I’m on your linked in too, hit me up there if you want to talk about it more.
DCP costs money and is really intended to higher resolutions. For what is trying to be accomplished, BluRay is probably the most cost effective choice.
DCPs can be made on the cheap as well as support lower resolution video. My only thoughts were that DCPs can be played out in any DCI compliant digital screen whereas bluray is not often found in digital screeens… Anyhow make sure there is a London screening bob, I’ve been an avid follower since triumph of the nerds first screened in the mid 90s, I remember recording it on my VCR and watching it over and over again. In addition watching it back now is a real blast from the past especially because of the old adverts including the lotus domino one that was clearly placed due to the tech crowd who would watch the series
Bob,
Psyched for the footage as I loved Triumph of the Nerds and Accidental Empires.
That said, have you been to a theatre since Barbarella? The social experience isn’t what it once was. Unless you mean being gouged for snacks; uncomfortable seating, more advertising and a variety of distractions from other moviegoers. Not to mention poor equipment and sound conditions.
I’m all for you getting group insurance and a pay date from the early adopters, but I’ll be waiting for media I can consume at home,
I don’t know about the rest of the Landmark Theaters, but the one in Baltimore has great big comfortable stadium seats, serves adult beverages, and has both screen and sound that surpass anything in homes (except Spielberg’s or Lucas’s, but they don’t count).
It is even more scary to think they’ve been trying to remake Barbarella for years. One thing is for sure, it will be hard for the remake to have a worst script or worst acting.
Obviously I go to movies to make out. The decline of drive-in movies was a major blow to my social life.
Do you remember your date’s name when you saw Barbarella?
If you made out during Star Wars, you are a better man than most of us.
I like major blows in drive-in theaters.
Good news – all round! I’m not worried about being too far away to see the results in theatres because I know the more important restoration work is being done. Once fully digital, it’s permantent and viewable by all – one way or another.
Reminds me I have a “little grey box” at home which can convert all TV signals to all others. It’s a CDM-630 if memory serves correctly. I bought it many moons ago to convert NTSC VHS to UK PAL when the only option for most of my favourite films was to buy from the US. Although I don’t think it “interpolates” as such, it re-times and re-colours on the fly. Basic stuff from an analogue period.
The Super Resolution methods seems streets ahead and makes the modern pain of digital overload all the more bearable! 🙂
Thank you. Really interesting to hear the nuts and bolts (thank you for remembering your audience likes the technical parts).
Harbor East in Baltimore is a very nice venue. will be going there for it. I imagine you will mention the show dates as they approach.
You should schedule a showing in San Francisco during Macworld | iWorld. Either on your own or as part of the event.
Great to hear that it’ll be coming soon to a theatre nearby!
Minor geek-nit: Slow phosphors weren’t the problem. Instead, interlacing was developed to reduce the bandwidth for a given resolution and frame rate. Interlace was a brilliant solution in the 1930s (and it wasn’t due to Logie Baird — sorry, my Scottish friends!), but we’re sure paying for it now.
Correct: not Baird. Even JLB’s final, “high definition” trial service was 240p. It was the other BBC parallel trial service that used an interlaced signal (405 lines, but effectively 377i).
Baird did demonstrate a three-field-per-frame interlaced signal in the late 20s, but that was in order to transmit colour!
Slow phosphors were more of an advantage than a problem, because they prevented flicker. They weren’t always slow enough, however, to prevent flicker at a refresh rate of 25 frames per second, but interlacing made it possible to show 50 half-frames per second at the same resoution. In addition, whatever small amount of flicker that remained in the slow phosphors was too fast at 50 fps to be noticed by the human eye.
Brilliant. Wonder how many movie goers will be texting on their iPhones throughout the screening … when they’re not making bootleg videos of it.
Congratulations to finally breaking into one of the most heavily policed unions in America! Now that you’re WGA listed, we’ll start seeing you at Sundance and Cannes, right?
I’m thinking EMMY or OSCAR for Best Documentary/Short.
You should do a “Making Of” video as well. In fact you should be shooting footage of all you’re doing on this. Even if it doesn’t make the theater, it’ll be nice filler for the Blu-Ray that you’re going to sell us. Because I don’t do theaters. I’d imagine a lot of people don’t any more. To get me in a theater Steve Jobs would have to be there LIVE.
In a greater sense than ever before on video, Steve IS live.
Good God, not another “Director’s Cut” and please don’t change the ending
BOB
SHOT
FIRST
Oh Jesus, is there a bigger drama queen these days than Cringely? Is anyone else sick of this thinly-veiled parody of what was once a respectable technology blog?
Sorry Robert, it’s adios time, for you and me.
Nice drama queen exit there, JasonV.
Damnit, no “like” button here… 🙂
Where’s a ‘like’ button when you need one?
Hey bob, I’m confused. Right after you had announced locating and transferring the footage, I happened to look at a feed-derived listing of PBS hosted Nova and related videos using the PC media server PlayOn. In that list was a 48 minute film described as the Lost Interview. The footage was raw, no v/o or back story, and no evident cuts except for a couple of times where the shooter had to change the tape or the battery or something. Did I stumble on an accidental public posting of the film, or was that a deliberate availability? I cannot recall if you had announced an online venue for it but it seems unlikely given your current method of distribution.
Nope, that’s a different interview done, I believe, in 1990. I knew nothing about it until another reader pointed it out. You can certainly watch that one instead of mine or that one IN ADDITION TO mine, but I’ll tell you right now that mine is almost 20 minutes longer and is substantially better. I like to think that’s because the interviewer and subject had known each other for years and I’m fairly good at my job, but of course readers will weigh-in on that starting next week.
Oh, wow. I recognize some of this footage. It was taped for the series called “The Machine That Changed The World.” It was a 5-part series that aired on PBS in 1992.
link?
http://video.pbs.org/video/2151510911/
Any chance of the film making it’s way to Ohio – say maybe Columbus? Studio 35 (https://www.studio35.com/ )would be a great venue for this, and their are a lot of people in the Central Ohio area that would see it!
Hoping…
I think we’ve added a theater in Cleveland.
Ok, I get it. The thing I saw is currently up on the PBS Nova subside under “shorts” as “An interview with Steve Jobs,” was shot in 1990, and it is not clear from the linking on that site who the interviewer is. So just a predictable coincidence.
Subsite, that is. Damn you autocorrect.
Hi Bob. This is really great. Any inquiries from The Netherlands? I think that a whole new audience will find Thriumph of the Nerds after seeing this interview. Any plans for a new documentary about computer industry today? I think it will be a great story about the companies “that don’t even exist yet”, like Bill Gates said back in 1995.
Hi Bob, Again, What needed to bring the screening to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?
It’s possible if there’s an interested theater. Send any such inquiries to me (bob@cringely.com) and I’ll get right back to you along with the guy who is coordinating Asian distribution. Thanks.
Thanks Bob!
Website is up:
https://www.stevejobsthelostinterview.com/
Had to laugh at your observation, “how old media-like of me, and how new media-like of you”….
I have to wonder what Steve would of thought of you having this interview in theaters. Obviously you both had/have colorful opinions of each other.
So..is he laughing his ass off on some cloud somewhere or mad?
Like so many others, I’ve been reading your writings for years. Attending the premiers would be some great extra press for the movie and also a great opportunity to finally shake your hand.
Since you’ve apparently moved back to the Valley, it would seem that San Francisco, Berkeley, and especially Palo Alto would not be difficult to attend.
Any plans to attend the premiers at any of the theaters?
Bob,
We need to see this in Austin, TX too! Talk to the Alamo Drafthouse, they serve beer and food too, it would be awesome. 🙂
I hope you can find a theater here in Austin, Texas that will show it.
I’ll bet the the Alamo Drafthouse will show it. Please contact them. http://drafthouse.com/austin.
Another request for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Please!
It’s not like you can just tell theaters to show something at your whim. They want it to be financially worthwhile. Fit in with their schedule…
The good part is that they are not controlled by the studios.
My guess is that you only have so much time to spend trying to manually distribute the film. With all the universities around central Florida I would think Tampa could be another great location.
“How old media-like of me and how new media-like of you.”
Your decision makes a lot more sense to me now, knowing that you’ll get inexpensive health coverage out of the bargain whether the film is a financial success or not. Considering the kind of attention it’s getting in the media, though, it certainly looks to me like people will be buying tickets.
If the interview has to be used for something commercial, I think it would be cool to see it incorporated eventually into an expanded version of “Triumph of the Nerds.” The interviews with people like Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Andy Hertzfeld — just to name a few — must also have been significantly longer than what was included in the final version of the miniseries. It would be cool to have all of that footage.
Speaking of which, Amazon.com says that “Triumph” is currently ranked #2,773 among Movies and TV products and #37 among special interest DVDs. I’m betting that’s a pretty significant sales increase.
[…] now announced that it’ll be first shown in a limited run at cinemas – complete with website. No […]
Bob,
Would love to screen your film here in Toronto Ontario Canada.
We have enough suitable theatres and I have enough contacts to make it happen.
Let me know.
HiMY SYeD
I second that!
Would love to see this at the TIFF Lightbox, probably with a fair chunk of my coworkers.
Any chance that you might bring the film to Salt Lake City? Thought probably not, but it was worth asking anyway.
Landmark Theaters — Frontenac Plaza — St. Louis, MO please!!!!
And yet nothing about the merits of the interview or why it’s even theater-worthy. Smacks of a mad-grab for [petty] cash. Seriously, who puts an interview in theaters ? This is easily a PBS documentary, but instead, Big Egos demand theaters and group health insurance, ugh.
Why does anyone care about Steve Jobs? The second smartest person in the world after Mrs. Steve Jobs, who is now spending all the money he made frittering his short life away being a workaholic.
Ah– but he didn’t consider it to be work.
Though I agree his life was short.
Rupe
“And did I mention that getting a writing credit for a film opening in theaters finally qualifies me for group health insurance through the Writers Guild of America? I haven’t been eligible for group health insurance since 1994.”
There we have it, folks. The REAL reason he’s “releasing” this thing.
Nice one, “doctor.”
Still a technophile, after all these years … glad to see it, Robert X.
Portland, OR please.
Yes! Portland, OR
A clear ‘un-packing’ of the technical difficulties involved in going from analogue video to HDTV.
Hope it comes down to NZ sometime soon.
Cheers
So, no showing in the Research Triangle Park area or in Charleston ? Bummer. How about the iMax theater crowd?
PBS is broadcasting this and selling it right now
https://www.pbs.org/programs/steve-jobs-one-last-thing/
It’s a different one. Bob’s is called “Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview”.
So I guess you’ve forgiven Mark Cuban?
I have to admit I wasn’t always a fan of Cuban’s, but after reading his blog for the past few years I’ve come to realize he is successful because he’s smart and a hard worker.
I hope the exhibition of the Jobs interview is a big success.
Robert,
Please be sure to include closed captioning.
Thanks
I think the reason limited city distribution wasn’t suggested is because then it is limited to a subset of those interested. I know my closest theater from your list is 400 miles away. Oh well.
Bob:
I will see your movie in San Diego.
I would also buy it on iTunes when available in the future.
billykunz
Off topic, but I just have to say this, it’s been bugging me ever since the eulogies started pouring in but here goes: If Steve Jobs were a kid in school would he be drugged with ritalin for not behaving enough like a girl in class, for not thinking enough like a girl in class, for not acting enough like a girl in class? I am sick of the war on boys and the way boys are treated in the education system and even in movies, TV, and commercials. Boys are not neanderthals, … and it’s okay to think different; in fact, it’s awesome to think different. I am amazed that nobody sees the correlation between the U.S. losing it’s edge and the way the U.S. treats its boys. There, I said it. Feel free to delete or ignore but I just had to rant.
https://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_21/b3834001_mz001.htm
This country’s school systems and psychiatric industry is run by a bunch of Nurse Ratcheds on steroids. I think this is one reason that most of music and other forms of art have been so bland and predictable over the past 20 years. Most of those who were destined to be groundbreaking creative forces, were likely neutered through chemicals in their early to late teens.
When I read about Jobs putting an explosive under his teachers desk in the biography, my first thought was that he likely would have been institutionalized and drugged right then and there while destroying what made him capable of what he did.
Meanwhile, people are getting locked up for years for possession of a drug that Jobs said taking was one of his most important moments in his life. Too bad LSD doesn’t have the backing of an army of lobbyists like big pharma does.
I kind of know what you mean, but your rant is a bit over the top. 🙂
I do think we have worked very hard to bring girls up to the achievement level of boys in education, and now it’s time to turn our attention to the boys again, who are falling behind.
Let me give one example. In my kids grade school, all math problems are now formulated in prose. The boys have a hard time with this, because they are generally not as good at parsing prose as girls. What they end up doing is parsing the prose (with help) into the symbolic equation form and then solving that.
I think there is real benefit to working in symbols, for doing math. Symbols are concise, they follow different rules than spoken language, and they are ultimately extremely powerful. Girls seem to have more trouble with the symbolic representation that with the prose representation, the converse of the case for boys.
Archimedes failed to invent calculus (he came real close, working with circles) because he was using cumbersome roman numeral notation, I think it he would have nailed it if he had Arabic notation. And I venture the task would impossible if the problem was formulated in prose.
Turning all math problems into prose is basically math for girls. I don’t mean that to be pejorative, though I know that’s how it could be read. I’m merely trying to explore an issue here.
As a parent of both boys and girls who excel academically and creatively, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. None of my kids are being repressed or medicated because they think different or challenge the status quo (which they often do). I would say that it may be your particular school district, but your statements about boys being punished for “not behaving enough like a girl in class” more likely speaks to the real issue. I don’t see a gender issue at our school, and belive that SteveJobs would still excel in today’s environment, or even in the unfortunate conditions of Edison’s childhood.
[…] Link via I, Cringely I decided when we started this adventure on October 14th that we’d have to take a shotgun approach to tape restoration, so that’s what we have done, using three completely separate approaches in parallel. […]
As a local Bay Area Peninsula resident just 20 minutes from Palo Alto,…. I want to thank you for making this film interview of Steve Jobs, finding the lost part and sharing this film to the world to see. I am really looking forward to opening night Nov 16th in Palo Alto Landmark Theater. Steve Jobs is truly the Einstein of the modern world. Steve will be missed.
What are the chances of your lost interview getting on PBS?
Dude, that is pure GENIUS!! I agree, to put this on the Web, anybody can do that. What you are doing, is taking some very special footage, and displaying it in an ultra modern format, embracing the theatre going experience! EXACTLY what Steve would have done! Man, I’m so glad I stumbled on to your blog, ans can’t wait to see the film! :o)
I be the Alamo Draft House in Austin would have some interest in this.
Is someone looking to score an Oscar ?
I will see the film at Sunshine, and welcome the opportunity to have the social experience of a theater event of a controversial subject. Entering and exiting I will overhear discussion, join in, make new acquaintances and hear different perspectives, repair to a cafe or bar for more discussion, exchange contacts, learn, teach, share. Maybe even have the other kind of “social” intercourse. In other words, Mr. Cringely, you are a genius, and done something very generous and creative in making this distribution choice, resolution be damned!
Just saw your film advertised in the Dallas Morning News. I’m going to try to go and see it.
It’s obvious you’re a fan of Steve Jobs, Robert, but you have yet to master his ways.
You’re saying no one wanted this video released in theaters. So in response, you’re releasing it in theaters. Nice.
Jobs did this all the time using his famous Reality Distortion Field(tm) to suddenly about-face on previous statements or go against everyone else’s wishes, but his RDF was strong enough that everyone still applauded. (Seriously — re-watch the announcement of switching to Intel CPUs.)
Watching a video in a theater is not really a social experience — I don’t often(/ever) find myself discussing a movie with strangers as I leave the theater. (Most often my only interaction with random moviegoers is to wish they’d stop talking or turn off their cell phones.) Of course I discuss it with the people who came to the theater with me, but I also do that for videos/movies I see on my own. Are there any other arguments for watching this in a theater?
So when I think about paying $8-$12 to see this in a theater… your RDF isn’t strong enough, sorry.
Nice try though. 🙂
Movie theaters are those places without remotes and the ability to pause/replay that charge so much for popcorn that you can reasonably put it on your credit card, right? I remember those. I made a special trip to one that served fancy coffee in the lobby and had black faux-leather, reclining seats to see “Return of the King” in its full, nearly-3D, cinematic glory. And I remember the fun of seeing favorite cult films in shabby chic university theaters with a full crowd of like-minded individuals.
But it’s not a social experience if the theater is empty, and I live in SoCal, so I think I’ll pass.
(Does PBS have pay-per-view?)
Is this strictly a one night show? I’m going to miss it because of work. Is there a chance it’ll be available on iTunes?
I am not driving 100 miles to see this, but I will pay to download it from iTunes. Glad you are getting a group health plan. This should be a PBS special, hard to imagine with all the interest in SJ that they would not be interested, but then again, it is a four hour interview (edited down to 1.2 hours?)
Make as much off the theatrical release as you can.
I devoured every word of your VHS conversion adventure. I definitely filed this away in the “I may need that someday” part of my brain. Thank you for sharing.
I’m also very interested in watch your interview so I’ll be attending the screening on:
at:
Regent Landmark Theater
1045 Broxton Avenue (between Weyburn & Kinross) in Westwood
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 281-8223
I devoured every word of your VHS conversion adventure. I definitely filed this away in the “I may need that someday” part of my brain. Thank you for sharing.
I’m also very interested in watching your interview so I’ll be attending the screening on:
November 16 & 17, 2011
at:
Regent Landmark Theater
1045 Broxton Avenue (between Weyburn & Kinross) in Westwood
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 281-8223
Note that the Landmark in Los Angeles has expanded the play dates from 2 nights to 5 nights, from Nov. 16-17 to Nov. 16-20.
I’m interested to see a comparison of the results. Maybe you’ll post sample clips .. if the small print in the eula doesn’t say something too scary about posting comparisons?
No screenings up here in Alberta but I’ll forward this page onto a few Edmonton/Calgary theaters who might be interested in showing it.
Would be nice to have this play in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, though the only theaters there are the AMC megaplex, which I’m guessing might not be flexible enough to handle a one-off like this. Plus it’s not like we can’t drive five miles up the road to Palo Alto…
Here is a 50 minute interview with Steve Jobs you can watch for free online at the PBS website.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/interview-steve-jobs.html
Looks like the critics like the early previews of the film…
“Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview” is a must-watch, bittersweet glimpse at Jobs’ genius
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/09/steve-jobs-lost-interview-2/
Will you make it available via iTunes (or similar) for those of us who live outside the US (e.g., Australia)?
Thanx
Great job Bob, thanks for the story. And which movie theater in Romania? 🙂
Dan
Hey Bob,
Please show it in Hong Kong.
xoxo
Michelle – and the rest of the I.T class.
[…] – BTW, speaking about videos and adventures, Cringely posts today about his adventure in bringing out his long lost interview of Steve Jobs. I like how he is working […]
Hi Bob,
I’m in Aarhus Denmark with a really nice small indie theater. The home of inventor of C++. Would love to show your film here. Maybe with even a after questions discussion.
Julian
Bob,
What’s the best way to get this in theaters in more localities? Tell you about specific theaters? Tell our local theaters to contact you somehow?
I’m in the RTP area of North Carolina, and I bet there’d be a lot of folks here interested in seeing this. There are several art houses here that might carry the film, but how can we best hook you guys up?
Cringe, I want to see this film, but will have to wait ’til it is available in some other medium. I can’t justify a trip to Atlanta and a day off work to see it (I live in Charlotte).
I’m very glad you found this and also found it important to clean it up as best as possible. Steve’s a pretty profound thinker and worth listening to, no matter what field you’re in. Few people “get it” better than he did. He understood the true meaning of success as well as Earl Nightingale did.
Hi Bob
Would you consider letting the London Mackintosh User Group arrange a showing in a cinema in London?
That would be great to see that interview in London.
How interesting that, in today’s world, no one thought of cinemas.
To be honest, I can’t remember the last film I actually went to see at the cinema, but more of a point is that my daughter can’t either! And she’s 21!
The internet and streamed movies seems to be taking over, and it’s only the BLOCKBUSTERS and HYPED that seem to make it. My reasons for not going aren’t because I can’t be bothered but more of a time and cost issue; theirs is convenience. If they do go, it’s a gang of them and then there’s distractions of the opposite sex and other gangs and the pick’n’mix……
Shame really, because a cinematic experience is just that; an experience.
Mrs Jason has just reminded me that the last film we saw at the cinema was The Lovely Bones. HAS to be seen at the pictures!
And then when grandson grows up a bit more, we’ll be off again.
I last went to a movie theatre at least 15 years ago, and I can remember the experience but not the movie. Sticky floors from past spills, dubious stains on the seats (this in a supposedly first rate mall multiplex, BTW), incredible incivility/crudity in the audience and all at a handsome ticket price. Will wait for the iTunes version or skip this one, although our area may not make the list anyway.
What is going on with the Steve Jobs Film and Landmark?
It’s like all showings in all cities have been either sold out or pulled for Dec 16 & 17. Landmark doesn’t seem to know the reason the online listing and tickets are no longer available…
What gives?
Listed as coming soon: https://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=112547
Yes, but the dates reported all over the internet were Nov 16th & 17th. Landmark tickets were available at all theaters 2 days ago for the 16/17th, now they are gone. Perhaps there has been a distribution issue? I just want to know why.
https://www.landmarktheatres.com/tickets/default.asp
In San Diego the movie is listed for the 17th at Hilcrest but there is no link to buy tickets on line.
I concur with Mike. I checked the link posted for the film for the closest theatre to my location – Portland, Oregon (mind you – three hours away to Seattle) and the Steve Jobs interview/film was not even listed.
I would possibly drive to Seattle. Portland, however is hugely technically artistic and sits at the halfway point on the West coast. Portland also has many independent theaters. Any chance of coming here to StumpTown, or at least find out what happened to the showings?
It seems you’re not keen to online, or an internet showing, at least not first showing (understandably) but how about possibly closer to the “Apple” home… release on iTunes? Rent or buy… seems like a far larger distribution pool, too?
[…] combined with the simple fact that Jobs had some interesting things to say back in 1995, make Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview–a film playing in special theatrical engagements around the country this week–a […]
Lots of announcements via Facebook on this show. Look for “Steve-Jobs-The-Lost-Interview” on Facebook for more info. More theaters. More show dates. Life is good.
What about Vancouver, BC? This would quickly fill theatres here. https://www.festivalcinemas.ca/ The Ridge, operated by Festival Cinemas, might be a good pick.
Hi Bob,
I’m Australian, and just thought I’d add to the international sentiment to see the interview. I think Steve’s best interviews were in his time at NeXT (there’s that other great one where he talks about working with Paul Rand), before he came back into the spotlight.
hi I like it very much, I hope you will soon update your work!thanks for sharing.
Interesting.
FWIW, I just bought 3 tickets tonight (Tuesday -11/15) for the 7:15 pm show here in Seattle.
Bought on-line.
[…] copies of the interview, stashed away in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with the […]
[…] copies of the interview, stashed away in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with the […]
[…] copies of the interview, stashed away in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with the footage. No one, he says, suggested a theatrical release. But Cringely […]
[…] copies of a interview, stashed divided in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with a […]
[…] copies of a interview, stashed divided in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with a […]
[…] copies of the interview, stashed away in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with the […]
Really great interview. Lots of interesting topics and fascinating insights from Steve. There was a good crowd at the early showing in Cambridge.
[…] copies of the interview, stashed away in his garage in Britain. On Twitter and his blog, Cringely asked his followers what he should do with the […]
Bob, we saw the Steve Jobs interview tonight in Baltimore. Thank you for making it available. I was struck by how his thinking on what is important with products has been so consistent over the years, and that even though he thought Apple was doomed and could never have imagined then he would be the one lead it into it’s greatest success, his thoughts he articulated in your interview was the exact formula that lead them to become the world’s most valuable company. Reading what I have of the Steve Jobs biography and listening to John Siracusa’s review of it, I really wish Jobs had picked you to write his it. Mainly because you are already well versed in Silicon Valley history and would have known what the significance of his contributions were.
Just got back from seeing the interview in NYC — it was really great seeing how a true visionary thinks. He definitely called the Graphic User Interface and Mouse, and he called the Internet.
If you want to do a phase II of this in the theaters, perhaps the Bowtie chain might be interested — they seem to have a significant number of “arts” cinemas around the (country?) — maybe that will get this into some secondary markets.
Bob, thanks for bringing this classic interview to the big screen, and especially for showing up in person to the Palo Alto screening – an unexpected treat. Steve stole the show in TotN, and it was delightful to see him uncut and in great form. I wished it were longer.
Thank you so much, Bob. I knew what I was going to see (last night in NYC) but still it was very moving to hear it in real time and remember the context of 1995. What an amazing mind, to speak so much truth and so little fluff in one afternoon. He downplayed what NeXT was up to, but now we can see that it was the future of both System software and programming environment, and obviously Steve knew that. Above all he knew quality when he saw it, and he had the most inspiring sense of the greatness we all could express through computers.
I went to see the movie yesterday. It is fascinating piece of history, which gives a glimpse into Steve Jobs’ mind. It is a must see for any person in the industry. Thank you Bob for making it possible, and releasing it for all to see!
I was shocked when back in 1995 Steve Jobs was taking about pervasive e-commerce, and the Internet being a major social structure. Just to put it in perspective: e-commerce on the web just started in 1994 in the tune of $20k/y (it includes my purchase of a t-shirt, and my roommate buying a sci-fi book), and social aspect was mostly represented by email-only newsgroups, and first awful-looking forums.
Bob, just got back from seeing the film tonight in Philly. So glad I made the trek — I left with a feeling, amazingly, not of sadness but of uplift, of cleanliness and clarity, from the quality of the man’s mind. One significant difference between seeing the film and reading a print interview was that I got to have the pleasure of seeing the wheels turning in his mind as he considered your questions before answering them so thoughtfully and eloquently.
I loved what he said about the tremendous amount of craftsmanship needed between a great idea and a great product — and that the process is the magic.
There was a wonderfully receptive audience there tonight — ripples of affectionate laughter at some of his little jabs, and total rapt silence the rest of the time. It was great to see it in a community setting where everyone totally “got it.”
P.S.: I give this film four mice. 🙂
I’m wondering whether there will be any theater in the vicinity of Naples, FL, where this film will be showing? I’d love to see it.
This was an awesome film. Would it qualify for Oscar consideration given the limited dates? Not sure of the specifics but you should look into it. A great documentary not only for our time but for all time. I am so glad it was recovered.
That said, I saw it on the last night in Dallas, TX. I couldn’t recommend it to friends. Broader release with more dates would be awesome if you can swing it. Thank you!!
Saw your Jobs Interview Tues. night, FABULOUS! Applause at the end, everyone in Hillcrest teary too.
After the theater run put it on iTunes please.
Thank you for asking great questions and letting Steve answer without interruption.
Bill Kunz
Wonderful movie and the speed (due to the internet) with which you got it into a theater would have pleased Steve Jobs.
But help me put please: what was that quote from Jobs in which he says something like:
“Ordinary does one thing. Genius copies.”
What was the correct quote? Thx.
“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso, but there’s no official citation. Also quoted as “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.” which I think has more wit, because it makes you to think of beginners learning to draw and leads you to expect he will say that by contrast good artists invent original ideas.
From WikiQuote: Compare: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” —T. S. Eliot, before 1920
American type designer Fred Goudy used to quote himself in print saying “The old fellows stole all of our best ideas.”
Picasso is also credited for the statement “Computers are useless; they only give you answers!” which programmers know is not true.
Thx and thx again to Bob Cringely.
But I am interested though confused about the meanings.
Not quite sure what Jobs or Picasso were driving at as “copying” and “stealing” are along the same vector: using someone else’s work as one’s own.
TS Eliot makes a bit more sense — ““Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
My own quote — garbled but that’s what I understood — is the saying runs “Brilliance invents. Genius copies”
The gist is that invention, innovation, the breathless attempt to make something new, is over-rated. Which of course was so very true of Jobs. The really great things are refinements of the work of others and that there should be no shame in copying and improving. “Kanzai engineering” if you remember the Mazda ad.
Then again, maybe I just don’t get the meaning of “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Can anyone help me? What did Jobs mean? Much less what did Picasso mean? I fail to see much clever or wise about the saying.
The reason I ask about this quote is that I am writing a book — it’s about cities — and one of the points I am making is that “starchitecture” — the hard-on for the startling and inventive — are over-rated and in fact counter-productive to making please where you want to live, rather than just taking part in “brand new.” Interesting cities are built on the repetition of basic forms but with many minor variations. You’ll see when you read the book.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
The idea is, if you copy something, you try to make it appear the same – you’re not really making it your own.
If you steal something, you take it, so you have to face the problem of how to make it yours, of using it so that something gets done. That takes understanding. It’s a bit more like using it than copying it.
Think of things like music sampling vs copying. Or a poem. Can you copy it? Sure. But to steal it, you have to actually get it.
When will you show it in Toronto, Ontario?
BTW this explanation of deinterlacing is wrong:
“So an analog TV frame, whether it is NTSC or PAL has two fields that are recorded sequentially then rendered together as an interlaced signal with a line from Field A followed by a line from Field B and so on.”
The two fields are never “rendered together.” The TV would display field A on odd lines, and then 1/60th of a second later display field B on even scanlines, and rely on the persistence of the phosphors to make them appear seamless.
While it’s true that’s the way it is designed to work and does apply to crt picture tubes, a digital display like LCD or Plasma, may store the two fields that make up the frame and then display them as though they were a single picture, even though the alternate lines are displaced in time.
Hello, Bob.
We would like to show this film at Lumina Theater on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I just sent you a message by email, so I hope you will have a free moment to respond.
Best wishes with your film.
Sandra
The BBC developed a hardware solution for this, the PAL Transform Decoder.
No need to “guess” what the colors should be, it extracts them mathematically and produces a true component result from the composite original.
https://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/pal/
Thank you for sharing this film, and for getting it to St. Louis. Very inspiring!
Roger Ebert’s given it 3 out of 4 stars
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111114/REVIEWS/111119993
Congratulations!
[…] movie. The full interview was thought to be lost for many years, until a VHS copy surfaced. With sophisticated image processing the VHS tape was used to create a movie that was watchable on the large screen of a movie theater. […]
You’re actually a excellent webmaster. The site loading pace is amazing. It seems that you are doing any distinctive trick. In addition, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve performed a great process in this topic!
Game Burner…
[…]I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Seeking a final resolution – Cringely on technology[…]…
Has there been any information released about the final methodology for the HD upscale? If not, please share it. It would be very useful to learn in detail about what software, hardware, and settings were used to get the best results. Thanks.
I appreciate your work. This information is really cool and lot informative. Keep this work up and make us knowledgeable.
The Zune concentrates on being a Portable Media Player. Not a web browser. Not a game machine. Maybe in the future it’ll do even better in those areas, but for now it’s a fantastic way to organize and listen to your music and videos, and is without peer in that regard. The iPod’s strengths are its web browsing and apps. If those sound more compelling, perhaps it is your best choice.