Meher Baba IS

Subject: “Baba’s Triangle (Seclusion Hill)” from Bhau Kalchuri DVD now on YouTube
Date: Saturday, 23rd January 2010

Source: email from Bhau Team

This music video appeared on the DVD, BHAU KALCHURI: MEHER BABA’S LION,* directed and edited by filmmaker David Hammer.

To watch, click on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMszNIh1yX0

Music was composed by Robert Weinstein:
www.robertweinstein.com

The film footage was restored by Richard O’Casey (Destroyer), Meher Baba Film Archive International © 2006 (www.meherbabafilm.com) and is used here with permission of the copyright holder.with

Conversion and digital watermarking were by Adam Uccello:
SECLUSION HILL (COLOR)

The restoration of this 16mm film footage is a good example of the perils which the film conservator faces!

MEFA film curator Richard O’Casey was asked to restore the film by the owners, the Meher Baba PPC Trust in India.

It had arrived in a pretty sorry state.

The camera original had been lost or destroyed long ago, and what the Film Archive had to work on was a very high contrast color print far removed from the original, remembers Richard. The original colors were so faded by heat and humidity that the whole footage had a very strong magenta (purple) color.

And the subject matter seemed to be two completely different events.
It turned out in fact that half the footage was a black and white film unrelated to Seclusion Hill at all but printed onto color film so long ago (black and white film must NEVER be printed onto color film)! that it had become magenta and white rather than black and white!

After several months of meticulous film laboratory work, the two different films were restored: Seclusion Hill (Black & White) back to a black & white film, and this footage Seclusion Hill (Color) back to reasonably good color.

Please note that all restoration is carried out on celluloid film not on digital. As celluloid film not only has a much higher resolution and contrast ratio than digital HD but also has no digital compression and a hundred times the lifetime of digital, it is the chosen conservation medium of all Hollywood film studios, both for their film originated and their new digitally originated movies. (Yes, the digital originals are upgraded onto 35mm film for conservation).

* BHAU KALCHURI: MEHER BABA’S LION includes two interviews with Bhau: “3/4 of the World” and “To Remember Him,” an audience Q&A, plus two music videos edited by David: “Baba’s Triangle (Seclusion Hill)” and “Wake Up, O People You Wake Up”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6evS6hLJf64