January 15th!
That's the tentative PATRON-only early access viewing date for Apollo 8: Remastered. It is almost exactly 1 month delayed from its original target. The public release date will be January 22nd. (Initial release slip date up to Jan. 18th possible)
You may have noticed the ASTP budget did not move from last month -- I'll explain why.ON FUNDING: While we hit our original funding target for this film months ago, the early December discovery of the 65mm Panavision film at the National Archives (see the previous post to this one) led me to make something of an impulse buy -- I spent December's earnings (approx. $1,800) plus $700 of my own money from ad revenue to acquire two 4K magazines of the Apollo 8 rollout. This was kind of a last minute cost, and since making that purchase I have learned a lot more about how this special footage collection will work, going forward.The GOOD NEWS is -- it's actually the cheapest per-runtime footage available at NARA. I'm a bit shaky on the history, but the team that found it made all 182 items' ProRes 4K video files available to NARA so that they could preserve the reels and not constantly send them out to this vendor or that vendor for scanning. So, unlike your typical 16/35mm reel, which requires a vendor to go in, pluck -- process and scan, etc -- NARA already has 4K digital files of these reels. (Only 720p scans available on their website, however...) So what happens is -- I will pay my usual vendor to go in -- retrieve the files, put them on a hard drive, and send them to me.They are charging me $1 per GB. I put in a request for three random magazines to test the waters -- and it was 213 GB (for 3 video files!). This averages out to something like $12,900 when increased to 182 items (the entire set). That's a lot of money -- but it only spans Apollo 4 through Apollo 13, and those videos are going to be strung out over the next couple of years as I try and maintain some level of subject variety, etc. Dividing that figure by six, which is about the number of projects it could cover (Early Apollo, Apollo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) -- you get a figure of around $2,166 per project, which is essentially cheaper than we've been doing already. So that's the long-term plan -- and as always, when 4K files come in, they will be made available to the relevant support tiers etc etc.
So, to summarize: The existence of the Panavision film will add approx. $2,100 cost to six specific projects that all span the early and mid Apollo program. This cost is offset by the fact that I already have entire onboard film and TV material. None of this information is relevant to Apollo-Soyuz (the next project) or Venera (the project after), but any surplus money will essentially be put aside into the "Panavision" jar. I'm still scratching my head on how to visually display this on each status board for the sake of transparency -- there's several budgets to track, now!
ON SCRIPT: I finished it two days ago, and I really like it! I've got some really refreshing angles on some old and famous stories -- and I decided to add a section covering Lunar Orbiter, since that's a program whose story is essential to Apollo planning, and doesn't get much love. It will be similar to how Ranger was covered in the Mariner video.
ON FOOTAGE: Got everything I need -- plus amazing 4K rollout footage! Thanks to all of you again -- just a note, but seeing this community pool its resources together and being able to flex our financial weight, meager as it is (compared to the Discovery channel, for example) -- towards acquiring AAA grade material is fantastic. And now that I have a NAS data server up and running, all of it will be backed up big time.
ON EDITING: I need to record the narration itself, and capture sequences from digital software. That will occur before Jan. 5 -- principal editing will begin in earnest the day after, and I expect that process to be completed and rendering to begin on Jan. 14.
If ANYTHING happens between now and then, or if some part of this process progresses slower than expected, I am allowing up to a 3-day delay in the schedule and possible Patron release on the 18th. That date of the 22nd for public is firm, however -- it's the day before I move to Philly.
Reds to yellows, and yellows to greens -- I'll see you all in just over two weeks. Thank you so much for continuing to support this effort, and for remaining stalwart when weeks go by with no update. You are all the best, and these videos are just as much a product of you as they are of me. Time to bring it home.