Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

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TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#226 Post by TMDaines » Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:41 am

I can check Phoenix if I get a time.

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RobertB
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:00 pm
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#227 Post by RobertB » Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:40 pm

No problems with subtitles for Phoenix on my old Panasonic.

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JamesF
Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:36 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#228 Post by JamesF » Sat Jan 20, 2018 12:11 pm

I just spot-checked both discs on an Oppo BDP-80 and the subs were fine on both, including the hard-of-hearing subs on Phoenix. In both cases, most of the subs are onscreen for on average about 3-4 seconds, with a few shorter exceptions due to short sentences and overlapping dialogue. Sorry to hear the discs have given you trouble Marwood, though I would agree that it’s likely a player-specific issue.

Marwood
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 8:05 am

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#229 Post by Marwood » Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:40 pm

Hi, sorry for replying a bit late.

I tried the Bullhead disc on my brothers Sony BDP-S1700 and the subtitles played fine on that, so yes it's most likely a player specific problem. Strange that it only happens on those two Soda discs though. I’ll try updating the firmware on my Oppo now and hope that will sort things out.

Thanks all of you for taking the time to give me feedback on this issue :D

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hamipai00
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:08 am

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#230 Post by hamipai00 » Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:43 am

Has anyone else had problems getting Soda discs to play? I recently bought a copy of A Spell To Ward Off Darkness from Amazon and neither the blu-ray disc nor the DVD would load up in my machine. I returned the faulty set but was very disappointed to discover that the replacements they sent me were exactly the same - they didn't load up at all, as if the discs themselves were blank.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was watching Description D'Un Combat (from Soda's 2014 Chris Marker Collection) when the DVD froze 5 minutes from the end and wouldn't switch off. I ended up having to eject the disc as it wouldn't do anything else - fast forward, stop playing, return to menu, etc.

I have a multi-region player and buy discs from all over the world and have never had any problems before so it's very strange to have suddenly experienced all of these faults with Soda releases.

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swo17
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#231 Post by swo17 » Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:16 am

I too had some issues playing the Marker set, as discussed starting here

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domino harvey
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Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#232 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:39 pm

I had no problems playing their recent DVD of Un homme à la hauteur on my region free player, though the copy protection on it meant it wouldn't play in my computer drive at all

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Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#233 Post by Gregory » Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:54 pm

I had terrible problems getting my player to read some but not all of the discs in the Jim Jarmusch Collection and thought it was just a defective set but then I ended up buying a new Seiki player and it could play all the discs with no trouble.

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swo17
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#234 Post by swo17 » Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:55 pm

I believe they did eventually determine with the Markers that some models just have a hard time playing their discs. Unfortunately in my case that included the Oppo.

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JamesF
Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:36 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#235 Post by JamesF » Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:28 pm

Firstly, I’m very sorry to hear that some of you have had issues with some of our discs. We never did quite get to the bottom of why some people had issues with the Chris Marker set, though I suspect that it was an issue with VDC, the manufacturing plant that used to press Soda’s discs (including the Jarmusch boxset and A Spell...) - we switched to Technicolor not long after and haven’t had any other reports of playback issues since then. I’m not sure whether there’s been new pressings since then which would hopefully fix the issue, but obviously it’s frustrating for those whose players are affected, and for us as we do check each disc master comprehensively before it gets manufactured (including on my Oppo!). Again, it shouldn’t happen on anything we’ve released since then.

While I’m replying here, I should add that this is my last week working at Thunderbird - I’ll be joining the wonderful team at Arrow as of next week. While I’m not sure yet if I’ll be clear to discuss my work for them on here, I’ll certainly still be posting here in a personal capacity and answering questions about the work I did for Thunderbird should they ever arise. Onwards and upwards!

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rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#236 Post by rapta » Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:31 pm

JamesF wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:28 pm
Firstly, I’m very sorry to hear that some of you have had issues with some of our discs. We never did quite get to the bottom of why some people had issues with the Chris Marker set, though I suspect that it was an issue with VDC, the manufacturing plant that used to press Soda’s discs (including the Jarmusch boxset and A Spell...) - we switched to Technicolor not long after and haven’t had any other reports of playback issues since then. I’m not sure whether there’s been new pressings since then which would hopefully fix the issue, but obviously it’s frustrating for those whose players are affected, and for us as we do check each disc master comprehensively before it gets manufactured (including on my Oppo!). Again, it shouldn’t happen on anything we’ve released since then.

While I’m replying here, I should add that this is my last week working at Thunderbird - I’ll be joining the wonderful team at Arrow as of next week. While I’m not sure yet if I’ll be clear to discuss my work for them on here, I’ll certainly still be posting here in a personal capacity and answering questions about the work I did for Thunderbird should they ever arise. Onwards and upwards!
I haven't checked all my discs - I have a lot of Soda/Thunderbird discs, all things considered - but I do seem to remember not being able to play the review disc for Watermark on Blu-ray, but the DVD disc did work. I was reviewing things for the Amazon Vine programme at the time and vaguely remember complaining, so perhaps that was another casualty. Then again, I have watched several of Soda discs and had no trouble...so far. :shock:

Glad to hear you're moving on to new pastures; obviously Arrow seems to be a rite of passage for a lot of boutique folk these days (one person goes from Eureka to Arrow, another from Arrow now works for Powerhouse etc). Hope you have a smooth transition and it all works out well for you! You've been a great help on this forum and others in the past, giving updates and explaining creative decisions and such. Thank you!

Whilst I'm here, a few questions re: Thunderbird. Did you manage to get any more Jarmusch lined up or is that it for them? Perhaps you could convince Arrow to license a few if at all possible - Coffee & Cigarettes, Broken Flowers, perhaps even Ghost Dog? And obviously there are still some key Chris Marker and Guy Maddin films not available on Blu-ray here yet too...

Also, do we know what happened with the Zellner Brothers' new film Damsel? I can't seem to find out who the UK distributor was. I assumed it might be Thunderbird due to them releasing Kumiko? I wish I had got that Kumiko poster in fact (I know you were giving posters away from your offices recently).

Lastly, any chance of an upgrade to Oslo August 31, Barbara, or any other DVD-only titles? :)

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#237 Post by zedz » Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:54 pm

In the interests of extra information, I also had playback issues with Soda's BluRay of Anna Odell's The Reunion, on my Oppo. I hadn't had any issue with other Soda discs on that machine (and that includes the Marker set and A Spell to Ward Off Darkness). I assumed it was a bad disc and got a replacement from Amazon, which had exactly the same problem (wouldn't load at all). Soon after, I got a new Oppo, which seems to play both discs without any issues. Maybe it's a firmware issue on some machines?

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JamesF
Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:36 pm

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#238 Post by JamesF » Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:16 am

Thank you very much for the extra info, guys - I’ll pass this on to our sales rep to discuss with Technicolor. Very odd indeed!

rapta - am afraid I don’t know anything about Damsel and whether Thunderbird or another UK distributor are likely to snap it up. I hope so, as I really enjoyed working on Kumiko and would like to see it too! We’ve worked with the sales agent recently and certainly don’t have an aversion to Robert Pattinson films (High Life is on the slate for the next year) so perhaps it’s not within the realms of impossibility, but I really don’t know anything.

As for the other titles you mentioned - I’m afraid there are no plans to upgrade older Soda titles at all, and I think with the transition from Soda to Thunderbird, who are generally focusing on more commercial titles, it is unlikely there’ll be more Maddin and Marker releases. Again, I’ve not heard any being discussed internally. I’m sure they’d love to release more Jarmusch titles (Paterson is still our biggest hit) but I’m not sure what the current situation on those is on them.

In the meantime, I’d certainly like to recommend our upcoming DVD release (alas, no Blu) of Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi’s The Heiresses, out on December 3rd. It’s a lovely film, and Martinessi recorded a really insightful commentary for us that I think is likely to remain a UK exclusive.

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What A Disgrace
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#239 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed Feb 13, 2019 3:10 pm

Shoplifters in March, Burning in May.

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What A Disgrace
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#240 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed May 29, 2019 12:54 pm

For anyone interested, the Blu-ray of Shoplifters is barebones, while Burning includes a 63 minute interview with Chang-dong Lee with Simon Ward from the Londoln Film Festival.

greenrose20016
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:34 am

Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#241 Post by greenrose20016 » Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:57 am

Am I right to assume that the Jim Jarmusch Collection from Soda is now OOP? I can't find it anywhere.

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swo17
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Re: Thunderbird Releasing (née Soda Pictures)

#242 Post by swo17 » Fri Mar 11, 2022 12:56 am

James Flower posted that The Reflecting Skin is going OOP

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