Ring the Shark Bell! July 31st 2007. DVD Release.

I obtained a very poor quality DVD-R bootleg of BWWD last month. It was in widescreen, but from a very poor print; it seems to have been captured on video from a screening of a 35mm print, not via a telecine transfer. But it was watchable and the sound was decent enough.

BWWD was shot in the same format as Sergio Leone's Westerns - Techniscope, a 2-perforation, 35mm system that utilized spherical lenses and yielded a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This was a canny choice, as you could shoot for twice as long as normal 4-perforation 35mm systems and the wide ratio framed the sharks beautifully and with deeper focus than anamorphic widescreen systems. However, as it was filmed in this manner, it meant that it was difficult to show the film on television, cropped to from 2.35:1 to 1.33:1 and so it slipped into obscurity for thirty years. It will be a real treat to see it again if the transfer was made from the original negative or an optimal-quality prime 35mm element.


"We find ourselves like a hollow glass globe, from the emptiness of which - a voice speaks."

It is a great new transfer. I was involved and we went back to the original negitive. Pristine. You will love it. I'm trying to get the word out since this is a piece of history.

hi,
i was wondering if you could tell me if in this documentary theres footage of a young south american girl victim of a shark attack laying dead and half eaten on her grieving parents humble fishermans shack(perhaps in Colombia).
i may be completly off track here, and i may have seen this in some sensasionalistic documentary like Mondo Cane or Faces of Death. I just thought i would ask somebody who has actually seen the movie.

any input will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.