Producer Van Ling explores new format on Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray
With Terminator Salvation hitting theaters this week, it’s a good time to look back at previous “Terminator” films. Van Ling, producer of the Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray talked to The Oklahoman about The Terminator, the Blu-ray, and the challenges of creating this edition.
Ling was James Cameron’s researcher and creative/technical liaison on “The Abyss.” Ling was also involved with the design and creation of the visual effects on films such as “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” while serving as Head of Production for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, so it’s particularly appropriate that he revisited that film as the producer of the Blu-ray.
For more from the interview with Van Ling, see next Tuesday’s LIFE section of The Oklahoman, where he discusses the ethics of using modern visual effects to change classic films of the past.
Matt Price: You’ve been associated with the Terminator previously – what’s the most exciting about your involvement with the new Blu-ray?
Van Ling
Van Ling: For me, it’s the opportunity to explore the capabilities of the new format and creating new ways of presenting information. Blu-ray as a format has some very interesting things it can do in terms of interactivity and what you can link to the film and how you can access it. Interestingly, some of the things we’ve done for the new T2 Skynet Edition are things that I had wanted to do with T2 even as far back as the early 90s with CD-ROM format but never got a chance to try …like presenting the film in a way where you can call up the storyboards or the script or production information and video segments while the movie is playing. And now we can do it with much better picture and sound quality.
MP: What kind of archival materials did you have access to in deciding what would be included on the Blu-ray Terminator 2 disc?
VL: We’ve had a wealth of production information that was interesting to fans and film students alike that we’ve amassed over the past 16 years for laserdisc and DVD, and it was a challenge to figure out how we
might be able to organize that material for a new audience on Blu-ray. Since I had been intimately involved in the creation of nearly all of that archival material, I had a pretty good idea of what we had and what we could do …the challenge was the timeframe and resources we had. There were so many text files and storyboards and still photo galleries and film elements and video material ranging from VHS tapes to Digital Betacams that we had to sort through.
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