VIII Cover Art Released News Posted by John Hoare on 9th December 2005, 20:29 This is actually genuinely upsetting. Each DVD Details article from here on in will be the last one ever. Until the Movie release, of course. Stop laughing at the back there. I’m still convinced it will happen, so fuck off. So the cover art for VIII, then. And excellently, we get the first version of the art, which was then dirtied up for the final version, along with – wait for it – A MOVED AND RECOLOURED HANDRAIL. The sad thing is, I find this genuinely interesting, and spent rather a long amount of time comparing the two. Intriguingly enough, if you click on the piccy, you can see that the list of extras on the back has been blurred out. What exciting surprise have they got lined up for us, then? Anyway, read the article for more interestingness about the cover, booklet and the picture discs. Great stuff. Although is this as interesting as a release simply entitled Their Pants Down? I doubt it. There’s also been some interesting nuggets of information from Andrew on the Webboard – apparently, there is a possibility of a Dwarf release on UMD next year. (A format designed for the PSP – see the link for details.) Again, I have to say I’m not convinced by the idea – I just don’t think the future is buying the same releases in different formats. Let’s face it, DVD wouldn’t have been such a success if there hasn’t been such a thing as special features. But we shall see if I’m talking BOLLOCKS or not. Another interesting nugget from Andrew was about rejected DVD cover colours: “Considered but rejected across the series were: black, yellow and grey. After that we got stuck.” You can kind of see why they didn’t go for black or grey – I think you could have had a classy VII black cover, which I also think would have suited the series (and not for a snide funeral joke, either) – but it wouldn’t have stood out as much on the shelf. Yellow definitely would have, though – anyone got any suggestions for how they could have used that? For any series?
But they DID use grey! (on Just The Shows v1) And, let’s face it – no “colour” stands out less than beige (IV). Yes, plenty of shows use black, but there’s a reason for that – it’s hard to make black look “wrong”. On the other hand, it’s impossible to make yellow look right, so TG they skipped that.
Count the amount of times I use “interesting” in that news article. Go on, count them. I must, you know, learn to write.
Yellow was what I was always setting my heart on for the canary diving bell in Series VIII but you can’t have it all I suppose. Am still baffled as to why they went for that picture of Kryten on the back of the dvd…
I actually like that picture. But these days, whilst never thinking its nearly as good at 1-VI, I’m appreciating VIII more and more – particularly silly, over the top stuff. Partly because there isn’t enough silly, over-the-top comedy around these days.
Don’t feel bad, John. I was genuinely interested in the movement of the handrail myself. Is it just because I’ve been spending so much time around here? I GENUINELY DO NOT KNOW.
Wait! On the cover…the final episode is titled Only the Good and not Only the Good… The ellipsis which implied continuation has been removed. What can this MEAN? (Other than poor proofreading?)
It’s only seeing them listed on the DVD that I realise that… VIII ONLY ACTUALLY HAS ONLY FIVE STORIES IN IT. THAT IS COMPLETE AND UTTER BOLLOCKS. Also, I only have until February (or whenever the release date is, I’m too pissed to check now) to write my “Going through series VIII and finding the actually, you know, *funny* bits in it” article. Better get my skates on.
Grey was what I still think series 1 should have been done in. Grey as in either military or ocean grey rather than Just The Shows grey. This would have kept the red cover for a different series, VIII perhaps.
“Am still baffled as to why they went for that picture of Kryten on the back of the dvd…” Yes I’m not sure why they didn’t go for the convict line-up of the crew for the back.
TOS isn’t working. But you can create a great frames within frames with frames thing there if you so like because the “not fucking working” error screen has a link on it to the TOS front page. Each attempt at doing this creates a new frame within the last one. TIME WELL SPENT.
And in case you’re wondering, Rimmer’s face on the front cover of that DVD means: “Oh fuck here I am in another series. I thought I jumped ship a while ago – maybe I dreamt that bit?”
“VIII ONLY ACTUALLY HAS ONLY FIVE STORIES IN IT. THAT IS COMPLETE AND UTTER BOLLOCKS.” What do you mean it’s complete and utter bollocks? It’s true isn’t it?
AND – you know, the RED DWARF site wasn’t working yesterday and you could do FRAMES WITHIN FRAMES. Surely this is fascinating?!
Something about inside the Series VIII booklet: On one page they had two groups of extra chapter points. One was titled “Back in the Red Xtended”. I couldn’t read the other one though. What was it?
Anyone else hoping one of the blurred special features turns out to be a featuerette on Howard Burden? It’s our last chance for one and it would be a real shame if we didn’t get it…surely I’m not the only one who thought he was one of the most interesting contributors to the documentaries. (And in documentaries that are very interesting indeed, that is a large accomplishment.)
Yeah, it would be a perfect time to wheel out Howard. I remember a while ago rd.co.uk had a feature on Howard’s designs for series VIII, with loads of artwork and the like, and that was excellent. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t make it on to the DVD, anyway. Anyone good at reading blurred text?
>I tried sharpening it in Photoshop. No good. My personal feeling is that it’s just place-holder text anyway as titles and content haven’t been confirmed yet. It was probably just blurred out so fans didn’t take whatever insignificant text they threw there to be gospel. Why do I even care? I don’t know. But I do.
>It’s the real text, but we wanted to hold the content announcement until later Andrew, you forgot to mention “Thread Dwarf,” the Howard Burden docco…
“Yes I’m not sure why they didn’t go for the convict line-up of the crew for the back.” Or the Dibbbllliesss Ressservvvoiiir mutttterrrfrrreeeeakkkkinnn Dogggggggggssssssss send-up!!!!!!!! That would have been perfect, right????? RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!!????? Little Green Bag. Wouldn’t it be cool if it couldn’t be cleared for the release, and instead they had to use the theme tune from Space Cadets.
>I remember a while ago rd.co.uk had a feature on Howard’s designs for series VIII, with loads of artwork and the like, and that was excellent. I think you’ll find that’s still there in the Image Bank…and that it’s only four images, two of them Canaries. We have veryt little design art for costume. The thing with Howard Goodall was that we really hadn’t covered his music in any way before – so there was loads to cover. Also, Howard’s great at talking about the thinking behind his stuff. With the costumes, Howard Burden’s been in and talked about his work across all series – and, believe it or not from the way it’s edited, he actually finds it tricky to discuss ‘the process’. He’s much more comfortable discussing the end result – which wouldn’t sustain a doc of its own, especially as it would repeat a lot of what’s in the main docs. Still, I agree – the man’s been a real highlight of the docs. If we ever do Series I and II I’ll be bloody sad to lose him.
>Howard Burden’s been in and talked about his work across all series – and, believe it or not from the way it’s edited, he actually finds it tricky to discuss ‘the process’. Interesting. He actually comes off as pretty confident on the docs, but I fully believe you that it must be down to the editing. Ah well, I had a feeling I was being a bit hopeful on that. But thanks for the reply. Now I won’t be saying, “What were they thinking?” when a doc is missing from the DVDs.
Actually, here’s a question, Andrew, sparked by something you’ve just said. Why is it that Howard Goodall was not featured in the episode-by-episode documentaries? Not that I’m complaining…I’m perfectly happy with him in a feature of his own. Was it a scheduling issue, or was it actually a decision to keep his input separate?
> Why is it that Howard Goodall was not featured in the episode-by-episode documentaries? Not that I’m complaining…I’m perfectly happy with him in a feature of his own. Was it a scheduling issue, or was it actually a decision to keep his input separate? It’s a good question – I was just wondering the same thing! There isn’t really one answer. As you know, we all found our way with these DVDs, they didn’t arrive fully-formed. Thinking about it, there’s a money/time issue. We had a along list of potential interviewees for III and IV, many of whom we couldn’t talk to because every subject is another hour of studio time, a couple of house of tape loading and logging, then adds stacks of time to the edit as you try to weave 14 threads together. Also, I think I had this assumption that someone who wasn’t on the set and interacting would have trouble being informative AND entertaining. And Doug’s thing has always been that these docs be both – and he’s dead right. In fact, yes, that was probably a large part of the thinking – like the costume and FX, people who work away from the main set are SO much harder to cut in. It’s hard to keep them from feeling separate, to keep the docs cohesive. (Having Mike Tucker AND Pete Tyler this year was wondeful, because they cut with one-another and really help keep things moving. But that’s a rare example where we chose to spend time/money getting, basically, the same story from two people – obviously that’s not normally cost-effective.) Still, as we got better at this, by V and VI, we started looking at gaps in the work to date – and Howard G was a bloody huge one. God bless him he was incredibly generous with his time and energy – the final product is one of my favourite extras. The music is more or less the only area I think the docs left uncovered, aside from maybe the make-up – of which Robert obviously takes the bulk, along with the rest of the cast – and the editing/sound tech stuff. But, again, those two are areas where it’s hard to say much that joins up, and that’s genuinely entertaining (as opposed to ‘interesting’)…
>We had a along list of potential interviewees for III and IV, many of whom we couldn’t talk to because every subject is another hour of studio time, a couple of house of tape loading and logging, then adds stacks of time to the edit as you try to weave 14 threads together. The more I learn about stuff like this the more respect I have for those hours in the edit suite. It’s also very interesting that you had to creatively edit things so that input from people who weren’t on the set doesn’t seem out of place. Very interesting nugget, if I may say so. So…when do we get a documentary on how the documentaries were made?
There’s one on the Beatles Anthology DVD set. I’d buy it – cheaper than the VHS set was (about 50% cheaper) plus the Beatles are way better than Red Dwarf anyway.
>the Beatles are way better than Red Dwarf anyway. I agree wholeheartedly. Also, Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups are better than dogs, oak leaves are better than rust, and clouds are better than Anne Frank.
