Stop Making Sense: Difference between revisions

James Mockoski, a restoration supervisor who primarily worked with Zoetrope studios, was called in by A24. Although seeking out as much of the original materials as possible for the restoration, it was soon reveled that the original [[Negative (photography)|negative]] for the film was missing. Prior distributors simply scanned preexisting screening prints of the film, including for the previous 1999 re-release. Mockoski remarked in a Rolling Stone write up of the restoration that "I wanted to know what they were working with, and she told me that the Talking Heads’ manager [Tomas Cookman] had got everything in from the previous distributor. They sent me a list, and there were almost no film elements included. There might have been, like, one screening print, and that was it. I asked, ‘So, where’s the negative?’ And the answer was, ‘Well, it should all be there.’ Which was … not quite the case. Not at all.”<ref>Fear, David. “Big Suits, Lost Tapes, and Dancing Heads: Inside A24’S Incredible “Stop Making Sense” Restoration.” ''Rolling Stone'', 27 Sept. 2023, www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/stop-making-sense-talking-heads-restoration-david-byrne-a24-40th-anniversary-1234828312/.</ref>

After an extensive search, the original negative for the film was found in an [[Wikipedia:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM]] film vault, despite MGM not having been involved in the making of the film. Similarly, Eric Thorgren and Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison planned to create new [[Dolby Atmos]] sound mixes, initially using materials from the previous distributor and [[Rhino Entertainment|Rhino Records]]. However, they ran into difficulty when they discovered they did not have the original audience tracks: the original audio was stored in the library of [[Wikipedia:Todd-AO|Todd-AO]], which had since gone out of business and its building demolished. Eventually, it was discovered that Todd-AO's collection was claimed by [[Wikipedia:Sony|Sony]], who transported it to a warehouse in Kansas, where the original audio tracks were found in time to be included in the restoration. Using these original tracks, as well as the post-production overdubs originally overseen by Demme to fix mistakes in the film's recording, Thorgren and Harrison painstakingly remastered the film's sound.