172.42 GB
The digitizing is complete! Stella at 20 is now in the computer, backed up to a second external drive, and backed up to DVCAM tapes.
172.42 GB is how much space the source footage takes up. That translates into roughly 14 hours.
Wanna see it?
What - you thought I meant the actual video? Sorry. I don't have that kind of web space.
Also in that list you'll see Stella at 20 volumes 1 and 2, which I digitized as an editing guide.
After having watched all the footage, I can tell you there's some really cool stuff in there. There's also a fair amount of stuff that's unusable for one reason or another. That's just part of filmmaking. Off-topic conversations, bad takes, stuff that's repeated numerous times, general cacophony, and so on. Even so, I'm quite sure that I can extend Stella out to include more footage that the original version had (which ran about 90 minutes per volume).
I'm now in the process of coming up with a plan of attack for editing this. In general, I'll be following Glenn's original concept, where one volume was about the history of the 2600, and the other focused more on the programmers and some of the games they created. Where I may deviate from this some (and I just have to see how the footage will play out), is to try to clarify the chronology of events a bit more, and expand the information to go beyond the scope of the 2600, since other aspects of Atari are mentioned - most notably how the 400/800 fits into all this. Also, I want to make it clearer during the documentary who is talking at any given time (and what they did at Atari), since even after watching all of the footage - I'm still not sure.
Since the goal for this is a DVD, I'm hoping to add some interactivity to it. Not sure to what degree yet, but there will be something in there. Also, there will be new graphics to help explain some of the technical concepts being discussed (assuming I can figure out what they're talking about in the first place), and hopefully an audio commentary track with Glenn. And maybe some other stuff, as well.
One of the big plusses about going to DVD, is how everything can be organized. Besides merely splitting things into chapters that you can skip ahead to, we can create indices that will let you just play specific interviews, so if you only want to watch Tod Frye talk about why Pac-Man flickers so badly, you can do that. There are a lot of neat possibilities here to explore.
So hang in there - it will be worth the wait.
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