Audio Video News

How bizarre. A band is telling its fans not to buy their latest video release.

Wilco is telling its fans to avoid purchasing the Blu-ray release of the documentary about them, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. The 2002 film was released on DVD, and the band feels that its Super-16mm, black and white style has no improvements from DVD in Blu-ray, and fans are better served to save their money.

Here's what the film company, Plexifilm, says about the controversy, and continue reading to see what Wilco has had to say from their webpage.

"Dear Plexifans,

Next month, we planned to release a high-definition Blu-ray edition of Sam Jones' acclaimed 2002 documentary about the band Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. Earlier this week, Wilco sent a message to their fans telling them not to buy the Blu-ray disc, saying that they didn't think the film warranted a Blu-ray edition. While we respect Wilco's opinions, they hadn't seen the Blu-ray version of the film, nor had they contacted us and asked to see it, or expressed any concerns about it to us whatsoever.

"Look, we're huge Wilco fans too, we co-produced the film and we've been distributing it for almost seven years now. But (stay seated fellow fans) this is not Wilco's film . . . it's Sam Jones' film, that happens to be about Wilco. And at the end of the day, our responsibility is to the filmmakers whose work we distribute, and it's our duty to release that work in the best possible format we can. We used to release films on VHS, then DVD, now on Blu-ray and iTunes; as the technology progresses, we'll continue to release our films in these new media. Most importantly, any decision about the format in which to release a film is the filmmaker's decision, period.

"With the Blu-ray release of Helvetica earlier this year, Plexifilm has started a program of releasing films in our catalog that were either a) shot on 16mm or 35mm film, or b) shot in high-definition video, as a Blu-ray disc. Producing a Blu-ray disc is expensive, and we also have to pay a per-disc fee to the Blu-ray Association for the privilege of pressing the discs (don't get us started on that). But the HD resolution and better sound of Blu-ray are hands-down better than DVD . . . it's not even close.

"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart was shot (beautifully, we might add) on super-16mm film. We had originally done a high-def transfer of the film print, which was then down-converted to standard definition for the DVD release. So we started with a high-def, pristine representation of the film, then had to dumb down its resolution to conform to old DVD technology.

"The advent of Blu-ray meant that we could go back and release the much-better HD transfer, which no one has ever seen. It's the closest you can get to actually sitting in a theater and watching the original film. Does it make the film look like Spiderman 3? No, but it's the best possible representation of the movie. As filmmakers, we've been dealing with the poor quality of DVD for a decade now, so it's a relief to finally see our work available in a better-quality HD format. If you have the standard DVD, should you run out and buy a Blu-ray player just to see it? Maybe not. But if you already have a Blu-ray player, you'll want to see this version.

"That said, we don't feel comfortable releasing a version of the film that Wilco might have reservations about. So here's what we're doing: we're postponing the Blu-ray release, to give us an opportunity to show the band the differences between the HD and standard definition versions. We hope they agree that fans with HD televisions and Blu-ray players deserve to see the best possible edition of the film.

"We'll keep you posted . . .

-Plexi"

From Wilco:

"In our recent email blast of 10/28 we discussed the impending release of the film "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" on Blu Ray DVD. It's due out in mid-November. In expressing our reservations about it, conceptually, it appears from a handful of comments that we may have confused the message and a clarification may be in order. Please note that our comments were not in any way intended to be an indictment of the merits of Blu Ray as a technology. On the contrary, for many projects and with careful preparation it appears to be quite a valid (if slightly expensive) enhancement. That said, we'll reiterate that the band were not involved in any way in remastering or otherwise preparing the film for Blu Ray production. That combined with the facts that the film was shot in 16mm b&w and, to our knowledge, the audio was not remastered makes us continue to question whether the potential incremental increase in audio/video quality is worth the price for THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT. For the time being, we're sticking with our caveat emptor.

"When the new DVD is released, we're going to purchase several copies and ask for a select few volunteers among you, dear readers, to A/B the original DVD release with the Blu Ray to further the discussion. So look for information re: this in the coming weeks. This is one of those rare cases where we'd actually love to be proven wrong."

If anyone does do this comparison, please let us know what you think. The images from a Super-16mm should look better on Blu-ray, but is it worth the price? Lemme know. -Leslie Shapiro

Plexifilm