Two years ago I did a blog post on the two different promos CBS used to lead in to the Hallmark miniseries Titanic in 1996. Not too long after that, the YouTube account associated with the videos I linked to was abandoned, but I never took the time to fix the post. Here is the re-pressed (not “repressed”) post with a video from my YouTube channel. The original post regarding the promo for Part Two from November 28, 2012 with edits to reflect the new video follows:
00:20, Before I get into the preview, here’s a little fact about this scene. This is the only presentation which shows this scene exactly like this. The glass slides off, music plays and the words “To Be Continued” appear before the fade out. The VHS version has the glass fall, the music play and the video cuts to black after the strain of music. The original DVD cut to black right after the glass falls, and the second DVD has the glass fall, the music play, the words, and the fade-out but the audio is out-of-sync and the hue of the entire DVD is different than the hue of this original airing, the VHS, or the original DVD.
00:34, The same alternate view of the Titanic that was at 00:12 of the first video.
00:46, Visible and audible camera flashes are added to this shot of Jamie Purse (Mike Doyle) entering the first-class Smoking Room.
01:12, The hue of this shot is different than in the movie. The sea in this shot appear much more gray here whereas in the movie it is very blue.
01:13, It is hard to tell, but Officer Boxhall’s mouth does not sync with the words he is saying. In the film, the lines he says are said while we are still looking through the binoculars.
01:17, The steel hull of the ship appears brown or dark orange here. In the film it appears to be grayish blue.
01:36, A different hue on the scene
01:37, The same as 00:31 from the previous video, a shot of a man running into a wall of water. Like the above, the film version has a different post-filming color filter and slowed down in the final montage.
01:38, First Officer Murdoch (played by Malcolm Stewart) says, Ladies and children, this way!” in the preview. He does not say this at any point in the film.
01:39, A shot of the Titanic sinking which has a different hue than the shot used in the film.
01:40, A VERY different shot of the Grand Staircase flooding that neither the movie or the first preview featured. From this vantage point, the flow of water from the Boat Deck level looks less severe, but I wonder if this is the same take but a different angle than the shot used for the first preview.
01:41, This shot, and I believe the audio take, of the Allisons approaching Captain Smith was not used in the final film.
01:42, Two things here. One, this shot of the ship sinking made it into many previews and bumpers for the film, but in the film itself is part of the final montage and shows Jamie’s face. Two, the “How long to you think they would last; that water is 28 degrees!” is the same audio cue from 00:37 of the other preview. It is a line paraphrased from Officer Murdoch and is not the actor’s voice.
01:43, Different hue than the shot in the film.
01:44, The break-up is shown at full speed and without the montage here.
01:46, like 00:40 last time, Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones)’s, “There aren’t enough boats,” is not said the same as it is said in the film, but is also different from the cue in the other preview. Also, there is a different hue.
01:47, Different hue.
01:48, Different hue.
01:49, Different hue and in the film is part of the montage.
01:51, Different hue and in the film is part of the montage.
01:52, Ken Marschall’s painting appears again.
So, there’s that. Kind of neat, isn’t it? Makes you wonder how much more footage from the miniseries was filmed that we haven’t seen or heard,
Two years ago I did a blog post on the two different promos CBS used to lead in to the Hallmark miniseries Titanic in 1996. Not too long after that, the YouTube account associated with the videos I linked to was abandoned, but I never took the time to fix the post. Here is the re-pressed (not “repressed”) post with a video from my YouTube channel. The original post from November 17, 2012 with edits to reflect the new video follows:
In an age before instant video, when a movie or a show premiered on the the television, it was kind of a big deal. The same is true for the Hallmark miniseries Titanic which premiered on CBS 16 years ago to this day. Before and during the airing, CBS added special previews and bumpers which, since a movie can have only one premiere, would never be seen again. Like many previews, these would contain a handful of alternate shots not shown in the film. With no behind-the-scenes features or anything resembling them on DVDs, seeing these in previews is kind of a big deal to compare and contrast with the finished product.
I had the premiere of the miniseries on tape for a few years until it got recorded over and when I realized how that meant I would never see the whole show like that again, I was heartbroken. I remembered as a kid noticing a handful of things which were different from the film, but without the VHS could never critically look at it. Over the past couple of years I would habitually search YouTube and other sources for videos or references to the premiere in hopes of seeing something from it again, to refresh my memory and perhaps to learn something new.
This promo aired right before the first half started 16 years ago tonight. From this preview, we can learn/see/notice:
00:11, An alternate shot of people waving to the Titanic.
00:14, A shot of Titanic, which in the film erroneously has no rudder, but in this preview shot correctly does!
00:17, A very CGI-looking Titanic.
00:20, One of many shots with a slightly different hue/filter than the finished product.
00:28, Mr. Phillips (Matt Hill) says, “We’ve struck an Iceberg,” but in the film his line is, “We’ve struck a berg.”
00:29, A shot of Mr. Ismay, which in the film is severely filtered in post and actually used in a montage with many other shots in slower motion.
00:31, A shot of a man running into a wall of water. Like the above, the film version has a different post-filming color filter and slowed down in the final montage.
00:33, HOLY GOODNESS this is a BIG ONE! A shot of the Titanic sinking that is NO WHERE in the film! Is it a model? To me, it looks different than the CGI Titanic they have, but it might just be because the shot has the natural yellow hue to it and not the filtered blue hue most of the sinking sequence gets.
00:33, ANOTHER BIGGY! A shot of people sliding down the side of the ship which A, corresponds to a shot used in the film but from a different angle and B, CLEARLY shows a studio lamp in the top right corner. WHAT?! Six-year-old Cade NEVER noticed this!
00:38, “How long to you think they would last; that water is 28 degrees!” is a line paraphrased from Officer Murdoch (played by Malcolm Stewart) in the film. The line that Stewart delivers is much softer, as he is trying not to attract attention, so it makes sense that a more urgent one recorded by someone else was used for the preview
00:40, Isabella Paradine’s, “There aren’t enough boats,” is not said the same as it is said in the film. THis time, though, it sounds more like the original actor doing the dub.
00:42, TWO THINGS!! One, as a kid I noticed that this is NOT Sonsee Ahray saying the line, “We can’t leave all hose people,” as Ahray’s line in the movie is much quieter and less urgent. Two, this is a totally different shot of the staircase flooding that is used in the film. I don’t mean just a different post-filming filter or a speed change like :30 and :31 were, I mean the men are falling in different ways, the water is moving differently, and the staircase is not breaking apart. That means they flooded that staircase set at least twice. James Cameron’s was flooded once. Of course that destroyed his set, but still interesting to think that they sank this one multiple times!
00:44, This is a weird one and I am not sure it counts. As a kid I always thought Mr. Phillips said, “Go away, sir,” to Captain Smith in this preview but in the movie clearly says, “Right away, sir.” When I got older I dismissed the idea of “Go away, sir,” as my childhood ears betraying me, and of course then I had no video to prove one way or another. Upon finding this video though, I am again unsure. It sounds a LOT like, “Go away, sir.” That would be immensely disrespectful and wrong of Mr. Phillips to do that, and I am sure that he never did or would have done, so it may just be the preview heightening the moment (like it did dubbing other lines). It may also be me incorrectly hearing it.
00:45, A FULL SPEED of the ship breaking apart after the group of people runs up the deck. In the film this is slowed down and used in the final montage, so much of the shot is distorted by Sonsee Ahray’s face smack in the middle and a number of crossfades happening.
00:51, This is a harder one to detect. beyond the narrator’s voice saying, “Discover the truth behind the disaster…” we hear the a stock sound effect of screaming. It was also used in the game Cyberflix made, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time.
00:56, The shot of this child and mother is altered for the movie via the filter and having been part of the montage.
00:57, You thought artist Ken Marschall was only involved in James Cameron’s Titanic? You are wrong. The background of the title shot here is T1982c of his (hit the right-pointing arrow a couple of times to see it). This painting would also be used on promotional materials as well as the cover of the Australian DVD release of this miniseries. Marschall also supplied photographs for the film. You can read that in the credits.
Look at all that! Isn’t that crazy?!?! From one minute of video, we have seen so much more of the miniseries that we might have expected! There are a handful of other videos which show some other interesting things as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The filter thing happens in a few shots that I did not list. I only listed the ones which appear significantly different for other reasons as well.
Two years later, I still think this preview is pretty neat for setting the mood to the miniseries, even if it does use a lot of material not in the final product. Part two is next!
I planned to do this earlier in November…but life didn’t like that idea. So, here is the next installment of really interesting things that can be found in previews from the 1996 miniseries “Titanic”. This preview is from November 19, 1996.
12:40, Before I get into the preview, here’s a little fact about this scene. This is the only presentation which shows this scene exactly like this. The glass slides off, music plays and the words “To Be Continued” appear before the fade out. The VHS version has the glass fall, the music play and the video cuts to black after the strain of music. The original DVD cut to black right after the glass falls, and the second DVD has the glass fall, the music play, the words, and the fade-out but the audio is out-of-sync and the hue of the entire DVD is different than the hue of this original airing, the VHS, or the original DVD.
13:04, The same alternate view of the Titanic that was at 00:12 of the first video.
13:15, Visible and audible camera flashes are added to this shot of Jamie Purse (Mike Doyle) entering the first-class Smoking Room.
13:41, The hue of this shot is different than in the movie. The sea in this shot appear much more gray here whereas in the movie it is very blue.
13:43, It is hard to tell, but Officer Boxhall’s mouth does not sync with the words he is saying. In the film, the lines he says are said while we are still looking through the binoculars.
13:47, The steel hull of the ship appears brown or dark orange here. In the film it appears to be grayish blue.
14:06, A different hue on the scene
14:07, The same as 00:31 from the previous video, a shot of a man running into a wall of water. Like the above, the film version has a different post-filming color filter and slowed down in the final montage.
14:08, First Officer Murdoch (played by Malcolm Stewart) says, Ladies and children, this way!” in the preview. He does not say this at any point in the film.
14:09, A shot of the Titanic sinking which has a different hue than the shot used in the film.
14:10, A VERY different shot of the Grand Staircase flooding that neither the movie or the first preview featured. From this vantage point, the flow of water from the Boat Deck level looks less severe, but I wonder if this is the same take but a different angle than the shot used for the first preview.
14:11, This shot, and I believe the audio take, of the Allisons approaching Captain Smith was not used in the final film.
14:12, Two things here. One, this shot of the ship sinking made it into many previews and bumpers for the film, but in the film itself is part of the final montage and shows Jamie’s face. Two, the “How long to you think they would last; that water is 28 degrees!” is the same audio cue from 00:37 of the other preview. It is a line paraphrased from Officer Murdoch and is not the actor’s voice.
14:13, Different hue than the shot in the film.
14:14, The break-up is shown at full speed and without the montage here.
14:16, like 00:40, Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones)’s, “There aren’t enough boats,” is not said the same as it is said in the film, but is also different from the cue in the other preview. Also, there is a different hue.
14:17, Different hue.
14:18, Different hue.
14:19, Different hue and in the film is part of the montage.
14:21, Different hue and in the film is part of the montage.
14:22, Ken Marschall’s painting appears again.
Isn’t that crazy! The things you notice when you look twice. Chances are I will be doing more posts like this, comparing one thing to another that is supposed to be “the same,” so keep watching for them; you never know what you might learn.
In an age before instant video, when a movie or a show premiered on the the television, it was kind of a big deal. The same is true for the Hallmark miniseries Titanic which premiered on CBS 16 years ago to this day. Before and during the airing, CBS added special previews and bumpers which, since a movie can have only one premiere, would never be seen again. Like many previews, these would contain a handful of alternate shots not shown in the film. With no behind-the-scenes features or anything resembling them on DVDs, seeing these in previews is kind of a big deal to compare and contrast with the finished product.
I had the premiere of the miniseries on tape for a few years until it got recorded over and when I realized how that meant I would never see the whole show like that again, I was heartbroken. I remembered as a kid noticing a handful of things which were different from the film, but without the VHS could never critically look at it. Over the past couple of years I would habitually search youtube and other sources for videos or references to the premiere in hopes of seeing something from it again, to refresh my memory and perhaps to learn something new. For the most part, those searches were fruitless until very recently. In the last two months, I have founf the original previews from the CBS (and CBC!) airings of Titanic and, just as I thought, there is a LOT to learn about the miniseries often dismissed as sub-par!
Take this preview for example. This aired right before the first half started 16 years ago tonight. From this preview, we can learn/see/notice:
00:12, An alternate shot of people waving to the Titanic.
00:14, A shot of Titanic, which in the film erroneously has no rudder, but in this preview shot correctly does!
00:17, A very CGI-looking Titanic.
00:20, One of many shots with a slightly different hue/filter than the finished product.
00:27, Mr. Phillips (Matt Hill) says, “We’ve struck an Iceberg,” but in the film his line is, “We’ve struck a berg.”
00:30, A shot of Mr. Ismay, which in the film is severely filtered in post and actually used in a montage with many other shots in slower motion.
00:31, A shot of a man running into a wall of water. Like the above, the film version has a different post-filming color filter and slowed down in the final montage.
00:30, HOLY GOODNESS this is a BIG ONE! A shot of the Titanic sinking that is NO WHERE in the film! Is it a model? To me, it looks different than the CGI Titanic they have, but it might just be because the shot has the natural yellow hue to it and not the filtered blue hue most of the sinking sequence gets.
00:33, ANOTHER BIGGY! A shot of people sliding down the side of the ship which A, corresponds to a shot used in the film but from a different angle and B, CLEARLY shows a studio lamp in the top right corner. WHAT?! Six-year-old Cade NEVER noticed this!
00:37, “How long to you think they would last; that water is 28 degrees!” is a line paraphrased from Officer Murdoch (played by Malcolm Stewart) in the film. The line that Stewart delivers is much softer, as he is trying not to attract attention, so it makes sense that a more urgent one recorded by someone else was used for the preview
00:40, Isabella Paradine’s, “There aren’t enough boats,” is not said the same as it is said in the film. THis time, though, it sounds more like the original actor doing the dub.
00:42, TWO THINGS!! One, as a kid I noticed that this is NOT Sonsee Ahray saying the line, “We can’t leave all hose people,” as Ahray’s line in the movie is much quieter and less urgent. Two, this is a totally different shot of the staircase flooding that is used in the film. I don’t mean just a different post-filming filter or a speed change like :30 and :31 were, I mean the men are falling in different ways, the water is moving differently, and the staircase is not breaking apart. That means they flooded that staircase set at least twice. James Cameron’s was flooded once. Of course that destroyed his set, but still interesting to think that they sank this one multiple times!
00:44, This is a weird one and I am not sure it counts. As a kid I always thought Mr. Phillips said, “Go away, sir,” to Captain Smith in this preview but in the movie clearly says, “Right away, sir.” When I got older I dismissed the idea of “Go away, sir,” as my childhood ears betraying me, and of course then I had no video to prove one way or another. Upon finding this video though, I am again unsure. It sounds a LOT like, “Go away, sir.” That would be immensely disrespectful and wrong of Mr. Phillips to do that, and I am sure that he never did or would have done, so it may just be the preview heightening the moment (like it did dubbing other lines). It may also be me incorrectly hearing it.
00:45, A FULL SPEED of the ship breaking apart after the group of people runs up the deck. In the film this is slowed down and used in the final montage, so much of the shot is distorted by Sonsee Ahray’s face smack in the middle and a number of crosfades happening.
00:50, This is a harder one to detect. beyond the narrator’s voice saying, “Discover the truth behind the disaster…” we hear the sound of a stock sound effect of screaming. It was also used in the game Cyberflix made, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time.
00:56, The shot of this child and mother is altered for the movie via the filter and having been part of the montage.
00:57, You thought artist Ken Marschall was only involved in James Cameron’s Titanic? You are wrong. The background of the title shot here is T1982c of his (hit the right-pointing arrow a couple of times to see it). This painting would wlso be used on promotional materials as well as the cover of the Australian DVD release of this miniseries. Marschall also supplied photographs for the film. You can read that in the credits.
Look at all that! Isn’t that crazy?!?! From one minute of video, we have seen so much more of the miniseries that we might have expected! There are a handful of other videos which show some other interesting things as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The filter thing happens in a few shots that I did not list. I only listed the ones which appear significantly different for other reasons as well. So if you happen to have 3 hours on your hands, watch MrMytvshowcollection‘s videos of the Titanic premire and get a look at the bumpers and the preview for part two and see what differences you notice. I will be back in two days (to mark the anniversary of the premiere of part two) to give a rundown on that.
It seems only fitting that the first post about my collection be the piece that first caught my attention.
In 1996 I was treated to a VHS recorded during CBS’s presentation of Hallmark Entertainment’s Titanic, given to me by a cousin of my mother’s. She had recorded it for her sons who, at that time were very interested in the Titanic…whatever that was.
Now, before I get too into this post, let me say that I do not hold nearly as much against this movie as I believe a lot of my contemporaries do. That might be a bias because this was my first Titanic experience, but then again on the whole I don’t dislike too many Titanic entertainments.
As a child in the days before James Cameron’s Titanic rocked the world, this miniseries was pure magic. Regardless of accuracy, and I will admit that as a child that was not the first thing on my mind, I loved it. To me the story of the first class couple, the third class couple, all of their friends and acquaintances, and the crew were really entertaining to watch. I know that I watched that tape over and over again many times, even to the point that I can still remember a number of commercials from the breaks even today.
For those who are unfamiliar with this miniseries, it revolves around a fictional first class couple (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Peter Gallagher), a fictional third class couple (Mike Doyle and Sonsee Neu), a number of other fictional characters (Tim Curray, Eva Marie Saint) and a number of historical characters (George C. Scott, Marilu Hener). At least, that is how the movie is usually explained. In my opinion, it is much more than that. The movie also focuses on the story of the Allison family of Montreal, albeit the portrayal is a bit flawed. It also contains what are, in my opinion, good representations of the crew. These too are flawed however. This movie really tries to get into a lot of places in a limited amount of time…and on a limited budget. What the movie suffers from is that it often pulls out a number of half-truths and myths surrounding the Titanic and presents them as fact. First Officer Murdoch’s suicide is a soft spot, but one that appears elsewhere as well. The story of the Allison family is sensationalized with the confusion of nanny Alice Cleaver with a murderess of the same name. But that too was not an uncommon idea at the time the film was made.
But enough synopsis, I am sure I will end up with a post or a page about the film itself someday in the not-to-distant future. This miniseries aired on CBS on November 17th and 19th of 1996. It was exciting! It was interesting! And it has some very interesting portrayals of historical characters. It has my favorite Fifrh Officer Lowe (Kavan Smith) of any Titanic movie. He, and the other officers present, are there right from the beginning so that once the ship starts sinking they do not appear as just any officer on the ship, as I believe the officers often do in other Titanic movies. This miniseries actually tries to get you to know who is who as you are watching. The miniseries also has my favorite Madeline Astor (Janne Mortil), but that’s another post for another time. This movie also features great performances by Catherine Zeta-Jones, in a pre-Zorro role, Peter Gallagher, George C. Scott and a number of others. Marilu Henner’s Molly Brown is entertaining, though not the most accurate.
In the years since I got received the VHS tape recorded from the broadcast, it has been recorded over many times, but on accident and intentionally. I was given the official VHS from the same cousin after a family tragedy. Both the original VHS, which still has fragments of the original broadcast, and the official VHS, despite its signs of wear and tear, are very important to me. To me they are a quintessence of my interest in the Titanic and the film itself, flawed as many say it is, provides a beautiful look into the mindset of many types of people involved in the disaster without focusing on one, central, fictional love story.
This post has been a lot wordier than I thought it would be and I still have so much to say about this miniseries! I will have to post many follow-ups to this in future. For now, though, I will end with one of my favorite quotes from the movie for you to dwell on. It is Monday morning on the Carpathia. The Titanic has sunk and the survivors are trying to cope. Officer Lowe approaches Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones) whose life is falling apart at the seams in a number of ways (believe me…it is complicated). Isabella mentions how insignificant the sea makes on feel and how the Carpathia is a “ship of widows.” After a beat, Lowe says something very powerful that I think applies not just to the story of the Titanic, but to any and every event in anyone’s life. He looks at her and says, “It’s good, ma’am, that we don’t know how things is gonna end in the beginning, or we’d never make the journeys that we were meant to take in this life. The journeys that…make us who we are.” It’s a extraordinary quote. And it helps illustrate how universal the tale of the Titanic really is.
The photos above are of my official Hallmark VHS of the miniseries Titanic.
thetitaniac 