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One of my favorite 1960s Euro-portmanteau-art films is this 1963 Ro.Go.Pa.G.
Its title is based upon the surnames of the film directors involved on this co-production of 4 short segments - Rossellini, Godard, Pasolini & Gregoretti. (Orson Welles is in the Pasolini segment)
I first saw this when Kino issued Ro.Go.Pa.G on VHS during Y2K.
17 years later, Quartet Records offers us (finally!) the entire soundtrack by Carlo Rustichelli:
http://www.quartetrecords.com/cd-catalogue/rogopag.html
Limited to 300.
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Sounds very interesting ZardozSpeaks. I'll be looking into it.
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I am completely baffled by a release of 300 copies. I've been in this game many, MANY years, starting with Bay Cities. Kritzerland has been in this game for twelve years now. And it is incomprehensible to me how a release with potential income of $6,000 can yield one cent of profit - what am I missing here? And that's IF they all sold full price which I think we know is not the case, so it's less than 6K. I know what it costs to press a CD, and most pressing plants charge even more for runs under 1000. I know what it costs for booklet designs. I know what it costs for liner notes. I know what it costs for printing of booklets, and again it's more if you don't do 1000. So, I guess th obvious question is: Is Group of Sugar GIVING these titles for free? Seriously. It makes no sense on any level unless there is no licensing fee and even then what kind of profit would you make? A grand? Two? Me no comprehend.
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I think the days of the 300 run in the 60s/70s italian market have been with us a while, Bruce.
It was only a few years ago when 500 was average and you got left with some.
The sad reality is italian western fans and italian music collectors are dying.
Even the youngest fans when they came out would be in their 60s and 70s now.
We/they are a dwindling number.
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Posted: |
Mar 31, 2017 - 3:12 PM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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As somebody who is not in the business, I have always found this baffling, too. Believe me, I get why they assume 300 would be the maximum sales for a movie like "Ro.Go.Pa.G," but like you, Bruce, I don't understand how the math can possibly add up. As you say, many sales will not be direct from Quartet. I see that Screen Archives has this CD up for the standard $19.95. What is wholesale on a CD like this? Are they getting maybe $14 from resellers like Screen Archives? So let's say half of them are sold through Quartet directly (this is arbitrary, admittedly), and all 300 sell. If that happens, that's about $5,000. How little can it cost to produce this CD that that's a business model?
Don't get me wrong – it's not my money, so I'm pleased they do things like this (though I will not be buying this particular CD). But it is a puzzlement.
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I think the days of the 300 run in the 60s/70s italian market have been with us a while, Bruce.
It was only a few years ago when 500 was average and you got left with some.
The sad reality is italian western fans and italian music collectors are dying.
Even the youngest fans when they came out would be in their 60s and 70s now.
We/they are a dwindling number.
I totally get that part - what I don't get is even selling out the 300 how you make any money unless there's no licensing fee.
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I know what it costs for printing of booklets, and again it's more if you don't do 1000. So, I guess th obvious question is: Is Group of Sugar GIVING these titles for free? Seriously. It makes no sense on any level unless there is no licensing fee and even then what kind of profit would you make? A grand? Two? Me no comprehend.
You just have no other choice nowadays with such rather unknown old Italian titles. The only other alternative would be to not release such titles anymore at all and to let them rot away in the archives. There is nothing else in between. All of the European labels know that there is such a small market for scores like this one that it would not be rewarding to do a run of 500 of which in the end you would not even sell 400 anymore. Labels are also not profit-oriented when they release such a title.
I can tell you the same for example about the two Rossellini and Rustichelli CDs we have just released on Saimel Records this month which are also limited to only 300 copies and which have also been licensed from Gruppo Sugar:
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=119074&forumID=1&archive=0
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=119330&forumID=1&archive=0
It´s for sure that you won´t earn even one cent by releasing such scores on CD. But regarding Saimel for example we are simply not profit-oriented when we are releasing such gems, but we do it because we personally love the music that much and we want to see it released even though we know that there is no money to be made from such a CD production at all. It is clear from the start that you will lose money and often even quite a lot of it!
It is certainly quite similar with the ROGOPAG CD. Quartet has to do a mixed calculation: On the one hand they release for example a Morricone title which will sell much better or even sell out, and on the other hand they can therefore produce such a release like this one where they will simply earn nothing at all.
And yes, there are licensing fees to pay at Sugar. You don´t get these scores for free from them The licensing fees might perhaps be not as high as for US studios, but they are there.
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So there you have it - we have now -and in the past- been lucky that there are people who produce this stuff at a loss - just because they themselves understand they are digitally rescuing such gems and securing them for the future.
Most collectors in this field know that there is a sort of pecking order for sales, a kind of order by which cds are sought after and sell.
A morricone western being number one, a morricone non western, a nicolai western, a nicolai non western, then westerns by people other than those two, non morricone/nicolai thrillers, then right down to usually the kiss of death, non morricone/nicolai dramas and comedies! And in the long list beyond those two from cipriani, piccioni, giombini, bacalov, de masi, umiliani, ferrio etc etc towards the back end of the list is rusticelli . So hats off to anyone who rescues this stuff for history and the few affionados.
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I had to suffer through this movie in college for a elective class on film studies. I laughed most of the way through the movie as did most of the class. Our teacher was upset because it was one of his favorite movies. I can understand why there will only be 300 CD sold after refreshing my memory with the music samples.
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Still waiting.....what did Gregoretti (who?) had to do with this???
(I'm gonna repeat this question -- the most crucial of all -- untill someone responds).
Gregoretti, who originally was a documentary filmmaker and quite well-known in Italy during the early 60s, directed the fourth and last episode of this omnibus film called "Il pollo ruspante" (= "The free-range chicken"). It is a half-hour satire about consumerism with Ugo Tognazzi in the leading role. But the best contributions to this movie are the episodes by Godard ("Le nouveau monde") and Pasolini ("La ricotta").
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I had to suffer through this movie in college for a elective class on film studies. I laughed most of the way through the movie as did most of the class.
So which is it? Suffering or laughter? Just curious.
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Perhaps we need to see "I nuovi angeli" to understand Gregoretti's appeal. On the IMDB, the film gets a high score of 7.8/10 by the 8 people who have managed to see the film.
Gregoretti had already won a prize ("Prix Italia") for one of his TV programs in 1960. Therefore he was already known in Italy from such TV broadcastings and he was known as a journalist.
I NUOVI ANGELI was not a commercially successful movie in Italy in 1962, but it was produced by the same man who had also produced Pasolini´s ACCATTONE (1961) and MAMMA ROMA (1962) and who was therefore the decisive link here: Alfredo Bini. And it then was Bini´s idea to make a portmanteau movie which should be directed by the three Italians Rossellini, Pasolini and Gregoretti. He then also asked Godard in France if he would contribute an additional episode to this pormanteau movie.
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I had to suffer through this movie in college for a elective class on film studies. I laughed most of the way through the movie as did most of the class.
So which is it? Suffering or laughter? Just curious.
Both! The laughter was from the pain we were feeling having to sit through the film! I was laughing mostly at the music.
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