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Warner Celebrates 40 Years of Woodstock

Author: BILLY GIL

Posted: August 6, 2008

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music
Warner Home Video plans to release a 40th anniversary ultimate collectors edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc of the Oscar-winning original Woodstock concert film Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music July 28, 2009. The title also will be available as a standalone DVD.

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music – Ultimate Collectors Edition will include several never-before-released festival performances in their entirety. The film will have been in an 18-month moratorium when it is released.

The release was announced just before the 39th anniversary of the seminal rock show that took place Aug. 15, 1969.

“The music, artists and spirit of Woodstock resonate as strongly today as in 1969,” said Jeff Baker, Warner’s EVP and GM of theatrical catalog. “We’re certain the film will strike a chord with those who remember, and may have even attended, Woodstock, but we also believe the music — some in extended cuts — will appeal to today’s youth generation who not only love rock music but are equally as committed now to the values surrounding Woodstock, like spirit of community, caring for the environment and idealistic change.

“Additionally, since we think of the ultimate collector’s edition as our ‘signature dish,’ if you will, we’re very excited that we’ll be giving the same attention to this iconic film as we have to our other top-tier titles such as ‘Harry Potter,’ Blade Runner, JFK and the upcoming Casablanca and A Christmas Story.”

The included four-hour director’s cut has been remastered from the film’s original elements, with supervision by director Michael Wadleigh. Original Woodstock chief engineer Eddie Kramer is overseeing the 5.1 audio mix of newly included footage.

The restored and remastered film will include previously unreleased full performances by The Who, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Joan Baez, Country Joe McDonald and Country Joe and the Fish, with more to be announced. Special features will include new perspectives from musicians and celebrities on the cultural significance of Woodstock.

Additional special features will include filmmaker commentary; replicas of handwritten notes from festival-goers; a 40-minute documentary film by Robert Kline called “The ’60s and the Woodstock Generation,” adapted from his book Children of the 60s; studio archive letters and other collectible items.

A multimillion dollar marketing campaign will include print, TV, online and viral advertising, with major promotional tie-ins.

“Woodstock was more than just a concert; it was an event. It was a time for our generation to speak up and let everyone know we had a voice,” said musician and Woodstock alumni David Crosby. “Whether you were there or are discovering the film for the first time, it still holds up 40 years later and now will speak to a whole new generation.”

dx23 wrote:Home Media Retailing reporting July 28th 2009 release in both blu Ray and DVD

Jeff wrote:

dx23 wrote:Home Media Retailing reporting July 28th 2009 release in both blu Ray and DVD

How strange for them to announce this a year before its release.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:

Jeff wrote:

dx23 wrote:Home Media Retailing reporting July 28th 2009 release in both blu Ray and DVD

How strange for them to announce this a year before its release.

I think they are doing that to see if anyone who attended the show comes up with some unique material to end up on the DVD.

Warner Home Video will release a lavish "Ultimate Collector’s Edition" release of seminal rock concert film Woodstock. The 1970 Oscar-winning documentary will be released on both standard DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 9 (prebook May 5), just two months shy of the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

The event, held Aug. 15-18, 1969, saw a half-million people descend on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y., for three days of music from 32 performers, including Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, The Who, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Santana.

The concert’s cultural legacy — it is seen today as one of the defining moments of 1960s pop culture as well as a coda of sorts to the era’s idealism — was celebrated a year later in the film, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker. It received an Academy Award for best documentary feature and has been deemed “culturally significant” by the Library of Congress.

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music features the 1994 director’s cut of the film, with a run time of more than four hours. In addition, the "Ultimate Collector’s Edition" contains two extra hours of rare performance footage, much of it never before seen.

“It’s an amazing package,” says Jeff Baker, the Warner EVP who is overseeing the film’s release. “To everyone who grew up in the 1960s, it’s a trip down memory lane. To everyone else, it’s a nostalgic time capsule from an era that truly changed American society, American culture, American life.”

The two extra hours of concert footage includes 18 new performances from 13 artists, including Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker. Five of them are from artists that played at Woodstock but never appeared in any film version. A third hour of bonus material includes a featurette gallery with interviews with Scorsese, producer Michael Lang, director Wadleigh and others who chronicle the making of the festival and the film.

Exclusive to the $69.99 Blu-ray Disc: a “Customize Your Own Woodstock Playlist” functionality and other special features like Media Center, My Commentary, and Live Community Screening.

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music will be packaged in a gift box at $59.98, numbered as part of a limited run with such collectibles as a reprint of a Life magazine commemorative issue, a lucite lenticular display of festival photos, assorted memorabilia and an iron-on patch with the classic bird-and-guitar Woodstock emblem.

A simpler two-DVD set will also be available at $24.98.

fdm wrote: You've seen the packaging right?

Barmy wrote:Nothing says "woodstock" like a $60 box loaded with crap.

press release wrote:A simpler two-DVD set will also be available at $24.98.

ryan11 wrote:Actually, the box set should be invisible, cause' if you remember Woodstock, man, you weren't really there.

Del Preston: Woodstock? That was quite a show, man.
Garth: You were at Woodstock?
Wayne: Excellent! What was it like?
Del Preston: It rained all morning, and then it cleared up in the afternoon. And that's it....oh,I almost remembered something else....but it's gone.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Restoration vignette with Eddie Kramer.