What started this? Back around 1995 or 1996 when I had a few hundred laserdiscs and
DVDs were still a consumer electronics dream, I had the misfortune of discovering a
rotted laserdisc in my collection. I did some reading and learned that it was not
an uncommon problem. I already had a movie database (text-based at the time) in which
I would put every new title I purchased. When thinking about laser rot, I thought it
would be a good idea if I went through each laserdisc and check them one by one.
Coincidentally, I had recently acquired a new video capture device. Since I was going
to go through all the trouble of playing every laserdisc for a brief visual check,
I thought I'd capture the title screens while I was at it.
It did take a great amount of time to go through all those discs, I admit. I would do
twenty or thirty at a time, then stop for a day, a week, even a month. But eventually
I got to the point where I had everything, and from that point on all I had to do was
grab from anything new added to my collection. (I eventually went back and added all
the movies I had on videotape too.) The process is really fast now...with DVDs and a
DVD-ROM drive, it only takes a minute or two.
Doing this has given me a great appreciation for title designs and the effect they
can sometimes have on a movie. And since I had all these images, I thought why
not share them? So I did a little programming in Access, and now I can update these
pages and add new movies with a few clicks. And if you think it's a colossal waste
of time, why not just browse elsewhere?
©1997, 2003 Steven W Hill
Nope.
I suppose some of you are thinking that I have too much time on my hands. I don't,
I assure you! Everything on the Movie Title Screens site is generated by reports
exported from an Access database. The only thing I do manually is grab the picture
and put in the information.