Great, Dave - we can't wait to see you in a couple weeks. I love the detail and honored we can help celebrate your dad's 100th.
One more factor - we want to provide time for Robert and/or Ben to tape the special introductions. But the other reasons you list are also part of the thinking (especially trying not to interrupt key programming, which is often a challenge).
This is an ongoing issue - believe me, we all cringe when a film comes on that isn't properly letterboxed or the wrong version is played. And I know it seems like it should be an easy fix when a better version is out there but it can be complicated. Sometimes we don't know ourselves the version that was sent to us isn't letterboxed until a couple of days before air (and it's too late to get a replacement). Sometimes that company that sold us the tv rights is different than the company that put it out on home vidoe and obtaining the home video version is a challenge (we are very fortunate to be able to access Criterion versons when that's the situation with their films). And sometimes we make mistakes. I do apologize and we will keep trying to do better. And whenever this happens, even it's too late for a specific airing, we try to upgrade for the next time. I also agree that it's particularly frustrating that this was the situation during a Jack Cardiff festival. We appreciate the comments.
You are correct, once again we made a mistake. There was a miscommunication about how the cartoons were to be scheduled (who, specifically, was supposed to enter them into the scheduling database) and so they were left off the schedule completely. Once again, this is emabarrassing for us, especially because we were excited to play these cartoons in this specific context. Mistakes like this happen, although I acknowledge it seems like they've happened too much lately. It is not unreasonable to want an explanation. I'm sorry.
So much great stuff, as always. We're definitely following the challenges and using them as inspiration for programming on the channel. I know I learn something about films - and see some real fun ideas - every time there's a new challenge.
When it plays later today it will be the shortened version - as you suggest, we've been planning on the longer version but that's not what was sent. We're trying to get it for the airing in March.
Just a note and a reminder - we are not going to be shy about stealing some of these ideas. It's so impressive to look through the entries. A lot of the them we've considered in the past or are even planning to do already, and so many others are just great and fun but had never been contemplated. It's free consulting for us, I guess, so don't be surprised to see some of the themes show up in future months.
This was a technical problem, we're trying to figure out what happened. I apologize.
The issue with almost all of those films is the availability of acceptable materials to play. There are several that we'd scheduled only to be told later that materials didn't exist (not only do there need to be film elements, but they need to be transferred to video). There are also some on your list below that might be ok and we can look into those.
Just one note on the theatrical documentaries - we tried for over a year to figure out who owned the rights for those. We even hired someone in France to work on it, but there was never enough confidence in who owned the films to be able to license them - in fact the reason the schedule was late coming out was we were trying until the last minute. Since it is his 100th birthday, the feeling was this was a rare opportunity to honor him and remind people what an important filmmaker he was, but I certainly respect people who disagree with the programming decision.
The reason for the change is that we originally thought Warner Brothers had the television rights to the films (as well as the home video rights), but they don't.
Thank you for the list. I know we've tried for many of these before, but there have been materials issues. But we will try to look into it and see what's possible.
What? I just saw a Yarus commercial on TCM!
We figured it out, somebody typed a "Z" instead of a "2." That's it. I promise.