Writer/Director Gary Ugarek, the man behind Deadlands: The Rising, and its sequel, Deadlands 2: Trapped, also happens to be an HD DVD fan. He has been trying his darndest to release his latest creation on HD DVD, long after the format’s official demise.
We first covered news about Deadlands 2 last September, when Gary was able to announce pre-orders for this limited edition disc. Many of you jumped at the opportunity to show support for this project and placed orders at Anthem DVD.
Unfortunately, this story has not turned out the way that HD DVD fans would have wanted, including Gary. Rather than piece together an article based on various postings gleaned from around the web, I thought it would be good to give Gary a chance to tell us about it himself.
Here’s Gary Ugarek:
I was totally psyched about this project as was the studio. We jumped in head first talked with many replicators who said they could do the job and we took them for their word on it. We set out to start making the masters which was the first issue because Anthem neglected to inform me they did not have the proper authoring software and had to acquire it, which they did, but it should have been mentioned in the beginning, but it is a small issue on the larger scope of the project.
We next ran into a glitching problem with check disc samples during chapter search, which became another issue but was quickly fixed, then the first whopper hit us when the replicator came back and said they could not do 30gb discs, so we searched out the others who all seemed to say the same thing, or at least that is what I was told by Anthem. So it then became a decision to scale it down to a 15gb HD DVD disc, which I had to inform the public and pre-order customers about, some weren’t happy but others stuck by it. Then all of sudden I heard nothing for almost 2 months. Emails and calls to Anthem were not being returned and I am thinking what the hell is going on here? Finally when I was ready to throw in the towel and told everyone we most likely can’t get it done and to start asking for refunds is when Anthem called me back… this was December 2009. Now they said we’re ready to go we just have to get the masters to the replicator and I was saying… what do you mean? why weren’t they there already? It just seemed like they sat on everything and said nothing to no one. It really pissed me off to no end.
So now they jump on the forums and tell everyone they will have their discs by March 2010, and to be patient, but what happens again… they supposedly send out the masters and suddenly the replicator, per Anthem, won’t press them, so I start asking why not, whats the excuse? for which I never got a straight answer and then Anthem wanted to go ahead and do the HD DVD 9 route and turn it into a 3 disc set which I knew wouldn’t sit well with the customers or myself so I encouraged everyone to get their money back.
Was there lessons learned in this fiasco? Oh yes… I took Anthem’s word that replicators were available…. when we started out I was hunting down replicators with them but they took it over and I stepped aside figuring they had control of it, but I should have stayed on top of it, but Anthem also should have been communicating with the customers on these delays and they were not doing that, in fact at one point the head of the studio and I had a long chat in December 09 about these communication gaps and his response was to just keep moving forward and not look into the past to which I agreed, but I also noted if you don’t reflect on your past mistakes how can you correct the problem moving forward. He assured me they would correct it… WRONG, they did not. Instead the continued on with the same business as usual policy and that to me was an insult to not only me but the HD DVD customers as well.
Communication is the key and I always make sure I try to relay communication to everyone, but some people don’t understand the importance of it until it bites them in the ass.
Since Anthem dropped the project I have been actively persuing replicators in my spare time and I am going to move forward and get this done on my own. I don’t know what the time line will be but I hope to get them out by summer 2010 and it be the release we all expected from the get go.
I am also actively pursuing Anthem to drop the Deadlands 2 title from their catalog because of how they managed this project and will be actively looking for a new distributor for the film. So far they have completely failed on every level as a distributor and have left a sour taste in my mouth as well as movie fans.
GARY UGAREK (writer/director)
CEO WNWR Films LLC
I appreciate Gary’s effort to keep looking for a replication house to bring the movie out on disc, and in the way it was originally intended to be presented.
Meanwhile, it’s very important that those of you who wish to cancel the HD DVD orders already placed at Anthem do so right away, since all you may be getting from them is the regular DVD version.
We’ll keep you updated if there’s any news on Gary’s quest to bring Deadlands 2 out on HD DVD.
February 24th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Wow, well I guess I ‘ll have top cancel out of Anthem, ME-thinks we’ll have to follow up with Gary intermittently to see when/if he gets another distributer. Oh well…..
Hey anybody know a video card that’l output 1080p over component?, having trouble with an nvidea 8500 , they removed custom resolutions from component connections in the latest Nviia driver release, and so even using powerstrip to add the custom 1080 progressive resolution nets me nothing, as it is not selectable under the component outputs.
Any ideas are welcome.
Rick
February 24th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Thanks for keeping us informed Pravin! There are people out there who still do care. Thank you!
February 25th, 2010 at 9:21 am
@ Rick, Google HDFury.
February 25th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Ive seen HDFURY, it does convert to VGA and I guess I could then do a convert to component. I just have a problem when the video card manufacturer ‘hobbles’ functionality in a card. I have been working with PowerStrip and the existing latest nvidia drivers. In previous driver versions you could force a ‘custom resoltuion’ (of 1080p for example) into the component display. Now , however, the component display no longer allows custom resolutions, although the 1080p resoultion created by power strip was happily accepted by the nvidia driver, it is only selectable for the display currently connected via DVI.
Ya know
I have a display that accepts 1080P over component.
Why the frak can’t I get my completely capable vid card to spit it out dammit!
Thank you nvidia and their undying loyalty to the spirit of ASSC, now the hollywood companies will never even have to enable their image constraint tokens on movie releases, because nvidia has built it into their driver to not even allow the option to display over 1080i (540P), over a medium which is more than capable of carrying it. (I do not even want to get into the 1080p not being in the spec, that is a long story in and of itself. sigh…)
grrr,
Anyway maybe I’ll look into forceware or some other solutions as well, meanwhile thank you for replying Jas, and all input suggestions, are welcome please feel free to continue to suggest stuff.
(I really don’t want to convert out of my DVI port, I want the component out to work! lol)
But I may end up going back to HDFury in the end.
thanks again Jas
February 25th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Hi, guys. I cannot say I am surprised about what happened with Deadlands 2 hd dvd. I am very upset about it all; it really looks fairly fishy. And to top it all, after having requested a refund several times, Anthem films keep ignoring my emails. Any suggestions? Thanks.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:09 am
Hello. I have emailed Alex and Anthem Pictures several times requesting a full refund for Deadlands hd dvd. As of today I have not heard a word from them. I have decided to take legal action against them and I recommend you do the same if you find yourself in the same situation. My lawyer suggests that we take legal action against Mr. Gary Ugarek as well, but I am not so sure about it. What do you think? Thank you.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I don’t think Gary is liable in this case – he’s not the merchant who accepted your payment and is still hanging on to it.
In terms of legal action, each person is only looking to get their payment back. You can probably do this through your credit card company quite successfully. In going the litigation route, this would be a small-claims matter, meaning no attorney is needed, but it may be inconvenient to pursue. If this became a class-action suit (which is usually reserved for matters involving higher stakes than this), the legal teams involved would be guaranteed to make money regardless of outcome, and people might only get a $5 or $10 discount on their next Anthem order after the attorneys have been paid.
If an attorney is willing to take a case over a $30 matter for free (perhaps he’s a relative or close friend), then a strongly worded letter might work wonders.
I think going through the credit card company will be a more effective route.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Thank you, Pravin. Good advice.
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:26 am
Not to mention I beleive Gary has worked faithfully to attempt to get this out. It seems he has had a rough time of it, we are only out the price of the HD DVD (which I am going to try to get back from anthem as well).
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:57 pm
I just got this from Alex at Anthem Pictures:
“We are still continuing to do the project on HD DVD-r.
We are conducting refunds at this time.”
And this:
“We are in process in conducting refunds at this time. It takes 30 days to process the refunds. Please be aware I am the only one that is doing the refunds. I will send you a refund receipt indicating it has been processed. Thank you for your patience.
Thank you!
Have a great day!
Alexandra Tabares
Production Coordinator
Anthem Pictures
Phone : 818-597-2346 x 114
Fax : 818-706-8553
http://www.anthemdvd.com“
March 15th, 2010 at 9:13 am
I have just read a lot of the comments above. There is nothing fishy about what happened with the HD-DVD. Our company, Anthem Pictures, spent several months going through every conceivable replicator in the world. When we had put the HD-DVD on sale, we had a replicator who said they could manufacture the HD-DVD, which we were then told they could not after we started pre-sales. Our reputation is VERY important to us, considering there are very few independent labels left. We have been processing returns as quick as we can. We have also been picking up as many HD DVD-Rs as we can, so that we can at least get some product out. If you have not received a response from Alex, please be patient ant she WILL get back to you. She is dealign with all of the pre-orders and managing them one by one.