Hello. I’ve found an old artifact related to Star Wars: Episode V and I have no idea what it’s value is, so I’m relying on the “Wisdom of Crowds”. It’s b/w 35mm test footage – about 2,500 feet of it! How I obtained it, then lost it, then found it again, is a long story. But here’s the cliffsnotes version: A long, long time ago, I delivered the San Francisco Chronicle way, way too early in the morning (1980 and 3:00 am respectively). I picked up and folded my papers in a small room in the back of a building on Tunstead Ave. in San Anselmo, CA (where I was born and raised). In the back there were two garbage cans which, one fateful night, were literally overflowing with 35mm file strips, which I obtained legally by waiting until the “garbage man” (that’s what they were called back in 1980) took it to his truck. Here are a few images of what I found. I'm about to list a few strips on eBay but really have no idea even where to start the bidding. I noticed there were strips of 4-5 color frames from one of the first three actual Star Wars movies which had sold for anywhere from $0.50 to $4.00 per frame (unmounted). Considering the number of theaters Episode’s IV, V, and VI played in at their widest release, there would still have to be several hundred other copies of these same frames out there somewhere. So whatever they’re worth, shouldn’t something as rare as this, with each frame likely being the only one in existence, be worth far more? I’ve searched everywhere and there’s just nothing similar out there to compare this too, so what value do you guys think this has? Am I sitting on a goldmine, or a land mine? Thanks for your feedback. Len
WHOA Those belong in a museum. Ideas: Get them authenticated by a third party. Get them assessed. If not that effort, do research in any of a number of places that sell authenticated film memorabilia. https://propstore.com/ https://www.hollywoodmemorabilia.com/movie/movie-props-and-wardrobes/ https://www.premiereprops.com/ many more... Just having scoured several prop sites for SW77, ESB and ROTJ material, I'd recommend you should start thinking $1000 minimum for each roll. Let external forces bring that down. But don't go letting those onto ebay at like $100 each, without first knowing more about the ecosystem. (Now, if any of these ESB rolls have Ewok test footage, then you can't give them away.) For the rolls with identifying information like scene description, scene number, shot number, stage or location shot at, or date shot on, you may have some luck comparing that information to books like Rinzler's Making of ESB, any previous making of books, any old scripts that have scene numbers, and possibly if you are insane ESB Call Sheets, Daily Production Schedules, Story Boards and concept art, all things which are metered out like OPEC on sites like propstore. (My knowledge and focus is primarily ROTJ.) As common sense, reels with lead actors, iconic scenes, and iconic hardware (if you can identify those reels) are the ones to not let go of until you have confidence you aren't hurting yourself.
As an example of auction house, here is the auction by Juliens Auctions of Colin Cantwell original materials. https://www.juliensauctions.com/press/2014/colin-cantwell.html Relevant section: You might also want to contact Mike Verta (film restoration), Team Negative 1 (film restoration), perhaps Adywan and Harmy (film restoration / editing) to get ideas on best use of this resource. They might have ideas that are smarter or more meaningful than merely cashing them in. One vague recollection is that LFL has standing orders, if I am not mistaken, to destroy on sight vintage 35mm prints of George Lucas original trilogy. So always march single file to hide your numbers when dealing with anyone. Any meaningful restoration took countless private arrangements to keep threatened vintage film safely anonymous. You should assume right off the bat that some Disney lawyer would love to tighten its legal grip on intellectual property. You should proceed from an unwavering, unshakable devout faith that Disney can make anything good into a land mine. Local user @DrDre may have insights.
I think they will be worth a fortune. Get them valued professionally before you go anywhere near Ebay. I have in my possession a series of 52 original pictures from the set of A new hope. The pictures were taken by an old friend of mine who as a young man found himself on the set in London back in 1976 and was pretty much given free reign over the course of 4 days as nobody thought it was ever going to be a hit. The pictures are all original and unseen and cover everything from shooting, main stars during takes, props, sets etc etc.....
You are sitting on a piece of history that deserves more than just throwing on to eBay at the soonest opportunity. It could well be worth a fortune and probably is, but you’ve held on to them for years, so what’s the harm in taking a little more time to get them assessed properly before maybe then selling them on to someone or somewhere that can restore them, care for them or archive the properly. There must be someone on here that knows the top men around to contact for that.
I have to agree with the above. It would appear that you may have in your possession a very unique and rare piece of movie memorabilia there, and you should look to get it professionally assessed and valued.
Here is a thread you should peruse: https://boards.theforce.net/threads...tion-of-the-1977-original-star-wars.50032868/ IIRC, Mike Verta mentions costs and logistics required to restore SW77 from multiple confidential sources of vintage (legally threatened) 35mm reels. You might get an idea of the degree to which 35mm of the best of the OT will be considered a holy grail. Cautionary tale about projects that are going to take money to do right (do correctly, do right to the people and future generations by all that is good): https://boards.theforce.net/threads/se-trilogy-35mm-scans.50046756/ You should know about this site: https://originaltrilogy.com/ You might gain an appreciation for the lengths people will go to to use original materials to create a perfect version of their own vision of Lucas' vision. For what it's worth, present acclaim at least using Rotten Tomatoes critical score / audience score: SW 93% / 96% ESB 95% / 97% ROTJ 81% / 94% The highest number belongs to ESB, and the highest number belongs to a set of people that will lock king's ransoms into physical vintage artifacts. Genx whom this would have highest significance to is also entering its highest net worth. Put on all the brakes. If cash for authentication is the matter, maybe you can take a loss by selling the crappiest obvious crap wrinkle damaged specimen you have on ebay.
I agree with all of the above - deal with professionals and maybe an auction house rather than just putting it on eBay. Professionals could wean out the good stuff from the bad (unfocused shots, damaged film, etc). I haven't done any collecting in the original footage area so these folks have a better idea than me. You could always put the 'bad' on eBay later.
Those look one of a kind. I would advice getting them preserved digitally before selling them on. I know some people with access to professional equipment, who might also may know collectors, that will treat such a find with respect, rather than selling individual items to the highest bidder.
@DrDre WRT making a digital copy, then selling, does LFL abandon legal rights to the intellectual property in this film? Such digital copy can be sold and resold. LFL discarded the film under a presumption that said IP would become destroyed and inaccessible. Is it solely LFL's fault for not physically destroying this resource themselves? Is this a matter for a lawyer?
Well since LFL owns the brand and everything associated with it, I think it's still their IP, since it contains characters, designs, and such that they own, so selling it would still be legally tricky.
If I read you, it would be legally tricky to sell even the original physical artifact, even when ZERO digital copies / photocopies / facsimilies have been made...
The short answer is no. IP rights do not rest solely in the physical copy or single form of the underlying IP interest. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Looks like you hit the gold mine there. Side note, George Lucas lives in Anselmo, or he did. Dont know if he still does. I only know that cause I use to work for a subcontractor in San Rafael with one of my brothers and a friend during a summer out there. Back to school and I hate shingles, only during the summer.
I posted this notice about my collection in several Star Wars fan/collectors forums so, as I'm sure you all understand, my inbox has exploded. And it seems to be geometrically expanding as they tell two friends, who tell two friends, and so on… But I did want to get back in here to thank all of you for your feedback and suggestions, and specially Hernalt for all the great guidance and resources. I appreciate all the effort you put into that. I also wanted to assure all of you that I’m going to take your advice and abandon my dumb idea of selling off the collection a few cells at a time*. This is a perfect example of the difference between intelligence and common sense. I’d gladly give up a little of the former to have more of the latter. Among the things that factored into my original concept was the time it would take to clean, sort, and reconstruct all this film, and then have it converted to digital (I recently had about 5k ft. of S8 home movies converted, and it ain't cheap). But what I didn’t anticipate was all the interest in helping me do that, including two offers (so far) to do it for free! Obviously, those offers will be well vetted before I ever ship the whole collection to anyone (I do have some common sense). In fact, one is from someone only a six hour drive away, so may haul it there myself. I’m compiling a list of all those who would like to be kept informed as to my progress, and be the first to be notified when the film and/or digital version becomes available. If you would like to be added just email your first name (or handle) to LenClements@cox.net and put “Add to Star Wars Film List” in the subject line. Thanks! Len * I do have 9 more short strips that I already hacked up to put on eBay, but they're from scenes that I have way more footage of (e.g. I've got at least 100 ft. of Luke in the cockpit of his X-Wing), and some damaged strips only had a few consecutive cells that were clean. So you'll probably see those (and only those) on eBay eventually (those on the list will get a heads up when they're listed).
First of all, that's some incredible hindsight to save these gems. I recall someone auctioning off a bunch of test footage from ROTJ a while back, but I forget how much that went for. Anyways, thank you for making the decision to save this and share it. It's great to see so many fans jumping in to help out (never underestimate the Star Wars community).
I feel as though I'm taking a risk in posting this, but I do hope it will be picked up on and something cool may come of it. For the sake of preservation and because it will make you a tidy sum, check to see if any of the film reels have anything that may be deleted scenes, in particular of the 286 Grand Vizier/Black Velvet Pestage talking to Darth Vader via hologram. It's something that was known to have been filmed but which was cut out of the movie and has never surfaced publicly. Anything at all related to it would of the greatest interest. More can be found here if it will be of assistance, as can some of the known hints of other deleted scenes that you may have material about: http://starwarz.com/tbone/minions-of-the-empire/comment-page-1/
The trove of similar ROTJ film clips that I mentioned earlier had a few deleted segments. For instance, it not only had Luke making his lightsaber, but an alternate angle of the officially released deleted scene. Alternate/extended scenes are very much a possibility, and that prospect makes me very excited. Lucasfilm usually only includes lengthier deleted scenes as bonus features, so there's plenty of smaller shots that simply wouldn't be economic to release.
@SheaHublin I honestly can't remember. I doubt it, but I was looking back through my records, and it would have been around November 2013 that this auction occurred
Hey guys, So many of you, from this forum and others, have been reaching out to me lately to get an update on what the heck's going on with my film project. I do still intend to respond privately to those of you who have offered your service to clean, restore, sort, edit, and convert to digital, my entire collection, for free (which is amazing and so appreciated). But so many of you have been so enthusiastic, supportive and helpful, you all deserve to be kept in the loop. I know it's not fair to announce a find like this and then just disappear. In fact, I wanted to post this last night but instead had to spend most of it reassuring my 82 year old mother that a 7.1 earthquake in California doesn't mean the "Big One" is coming here in Las Vegas. So now that I'm starting to get a handle on exactly what I have here, specifically it's value (financially and otherwise), I want to assure you that it would take something extremely important to take my attention completely away from it for any amount of time, let alone almost four weeks. And it did, and it was. In fact, it was a pretty powerful one-two punch that knocked me out of about every other activity that didn't involve me, and my mother, staying in the fight. I don't want to get too personal, but just know that for as long as I'm able I will continue to give this project priority attention. So if I should ever go off-grid again I promise I'll be back (assuming my biopsies keep coming back negative – unfortunately, my mother's didn't). I'm also in the process of trying to pack up for a move across the country (to a tiny town in Indiana – long story), so my updates will probably be very sporadic for the next couple of months. Having said that, I'm struggling with the logistics of how I'm going to safely and securely get this film to where it needs to be and, most importantly, get it back. It seems that what I would be doing is tantamount to packing up and shipping a package full of newly discovered da Vinci drawings to someone I don't know who has promised to restore and appraise them, then ship back to me (while the whole time remembering the aerial shot of the FedEx truck completely engulfed in flames during the I-5 fire in 2015). Obviously this is nothing personal, but as I'm sure you all can appreciate, this project is going to take some nebula size trust. Otherwise, it's either going to involve me personally overseeing the project, or some kind of escrow arrangement (involving the catch-22 of not knowing the real value of the film until the project is completed). So it may be to my advantage to complete this project before I move to the "boonies" (as my grandfather used to call Kirklin). If anyone has any potential solutions please let me know. I'm open to any out-of-the-box ideas, no matter how long it would take for the light from the idea to reach the box. Thanks for your consideration and understanding. Len Clements Las Vegas, NV
"nebula size trust" No. More than that. Mike Verta was borrowing from multiple source 35mm, each of which individually had the death sentence in 12 systems, but the loss of which could not fatally destroy the project. He was also proceeding from much experience, knowledge base, professional network, financial resources. If I was the Chosen One in this scenario, everything including Ragnarok and the rapture would wait until I got a professional appraiser transported and compensated. How I would afford such a thing I have no immediate idea. Consider everything after this a Bad Idea (bad ideas loosen up good ideas). I would start with the bad idea of something like a crowd source / kickstarter / go fund me, all of which contributors are rightfully going to want some return on their own investment. Something like that that isn't that. Pooling resources in a small quiet network could do it. If contacts are already offering expertise for free, based on what they have heard, then (time = money) that is a signal that they already place a certain dollar value on the work. Whoever is offering expertise already has some idea of the value, and might be amenable to chipping in on an authoritative appraisal. The more that offer expertise, the more there are to spread the financial risk. What do they get in return for helping? Being included in an exclusive cultural heist for the lost ark is probably not reward enough for all of them. Some might want assurances they will be awarded the contract for this or that subprocess. Getting any idea at all of the value is the best first step. It could be worth a $20 for some random Star Wars fan on a forum like myself to chip in to a professional appraisal. The actual professionally appraised value, when it came back, could be a dangerous number that is above someone's radar. So a random fan that chips in $20 ought not to expect to hear the actual professional appraisal. Are there enough random fans that would part with $20 and never see a return on that charity? You have an unusual burden, that's for sure.
