Ladies and gentlemen... I've gathered over half of the DVD collection I have now in just this last year. I couldn't reach my current total sooner because the older DVDs were still coming in at Coyote Hills and I had to see about them. That source has increased the quality of my collection by two-thousand percent and it's entertaining me and mine to the tone of five thousand smiles a week. I have two others shipping and I have sixteen producing at Antelope. So, ladies and gentlemen... if I say I'm a DVD man you will agree.
Now, in the theaters I enjoyed the film The Will Be Blood several times, and when I heard it was out on DVD I set a specific time apart to obtain it because That was one goddamn helluva show.
At a local retailer I stopped and looked for said DVD in the front area where newly released titles were typically displayed, but all I could find was a teaser version in a folded piece of cardboard.
Wait, wait, what is this?
The folded piece of cardboard WAS the DVD's Case!?!
I simply couldn't believable.
Now... I have a competition in me. I want all of my DVDs and their cases to look pristine. Most DVD releases are alright, and some are even quite nice. On the other hand, there are times when I look at DVDs and I see nothing worth liking. The sight alone of the There Will Be Blood DVD furrowed my brow and dropped my jaw.
While my face frozen was shock, my shoulders pushed closer to my neck and I raised my arms with my palms turned upwards as if lofting some invisible offering to the DVD Gods. Another surveyor of DVDs was standing next to me, and from the expression on their face I could tell we shared the same concern.
"Why would they put them out in such a matter? Have they lost their minds?" he asked, looking to me for some sort of explanation.
"I don't know." I replied exhaustedly, "Maybe it will change. Does your mind come back to you? I don't know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that."
The prospector turned to me and queried, "What would you tell the people responsible for these DVD cases if you met them?"
"Hmm...," I pondered out loud as I raised my hand to my chin, "One night I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat. "
...
With that the prospector left me in search for greener pastures.
Well I purchased the the special edition DVD seeing as it had 3 folds of cardboard instead of 2. Much nicer... There was still a surprise in store for me.
The discs were held in these cardboard sleeves, and very tightly. So tight that it was difficult to carefully remove them.
No worries, H.W., I am sure the DVD distribution companies know what are doing.
Why would they design packaging that damage their product? They must have been working for quail prices.
Since I splurged to get special 2 disc edition, I pried out the extras disc as carefully as was possible given the circumstances. The Extras that were included were indeed sub-par. Oh well, I will just drop it back into its papery place... (Spoiler: It doesn't just drop back in to place... it must be forced.)
I was as carefully as I could possibly be, using every technique to have less abrasion on the data surface of the disc. These were the fruits of (the devil) my labors.
Whichever Steinberg it was who decided this was the best way to keep my DVD safe... "I told you what I was gonna do. "
It doesn't look too bad in the picture, bit it is scratched (not smudged) in two different places from pulling and and re-inserting the disc ONCE!!! (with the actual feature disc, I never put it back into the cardboard case. It hid away in some neutral case until arrangements could be made.)
...
No use crying over spilled whiskey-milk. Time to work that old Porter "Fix-it" magic. Not on the extras disc, forget that. The case needs be corrected.
I happened to have this freebie case lying around the house. I take out the cover of the case and measure it up with the TWbB case. Pretty close.
I pulled out my always handy Razor blades and went to work.
Snip snap, snip snap indeed. (If you are looking for a detailed "how to" discription: Cut the thirde section out containing the Extras disc, and then trim the left and right sides so that it fits in the plastic. Don't worry about the "binding" part of the cover. It is meant to look like an old book [bible] so creases only add to it.)
Then slip it in! I was not particularly concerned with hiding the fact that I had to butcher a DVD's original case to make this, so the edges are not very pretty.
The side of the DVD doesn't have a title on it, so you will have to remember what movie it is. It actually fits in nicely with the other film cases that are meant to look like books. (Royal Tenenbaums and Army of Darkness 2 in my case)
With the third section of the special edition, you can slip that on the inside holder of DVD case. It will still scratch the hell out of the disc, but I wouldn't worry about too many people wanting to see what is actually on it.
I'm finished.
