Rob's Nostalgia Projects - Censorship Blu-Ray Set

⮜

Previous Project

⮤

Return to index page

⮥

Next Project

⮞

Censorship Blu-Ray Set

Last Updated:
Production Time:
Number Of Discs:
Language(s):

March 2, 2024
6 Weeks
8
English

Subtitle(s):
Source(s):

None
Bootleg UK PAL VHS Tapes
Pre-existing DVD MPEG-2 files
Pre-existing AVI & MP4 files

█

Double sided Blu-ray cover artwork - 25mm spine (click to enlarge)

This project started life as a preservation of one programming event, and expanded from there; BBC2's 1995 Forbidden Weekend, which was various material on the theme of horror, video nasties and censorship, shown over a long bank holiday weekend on BBC2, with each film preceded by introduction from Alex Cox, and the BBC even giving the weekend its own special idents.

This was one of my earliest experiences into horror when I was 14, that and seeing The Evil Dead on VHS a few months or so before, and Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror & the premiere of Dawn Of The Dead Director's Cut both on BBC2 in 1997; some of my fondest teenage memories. A lot of similar censorship themed material has been shown on TV over the years, both BBC2 & latterly Channel 4 have done a number of 'Banned' & 'Censored' seasons for instance, along with other specials such as Channel 4's 1995 Sci-Fi Weekend, for which I remember seeing the trailer for Outland & The Man Who Fell to Earth (I have a few hours of footage from this event, but not enough to warrant releasing a set, although I would like to).

In all of these examples (besides the films themselves), the vast majority of the introductory & documentary content has never been repeated or released on any home media. Preserving original VHS recordings is the only way people can see this content today, and harks back to a time which almost seems 'quaint' in terms of what was legally available and how censored it was. This was in the backwards days when John McClane was relegated to saying Yippee ki yay Kemosabe through late night 90s ITV, lest England's moral fabric unwound at some light swearing, but Jim fixing the nation's kids was all round family entertainment. Conversely, today you can buy so many features uncut in shops which forty years ago might have ended with a prison spell for simply owning the same on VHS. Further, anyone can watch far worse with a few taps on your mobile phone, or an internet download, making seem BBFC optional, even obsolete in modern society.

The aim of this project was to produce a complete SD (standard definition) Blu-Ray box set of everything I could track down and assemble together under the banner of 'TV broadcast censorship themed material', This made it quite an uphill & time consuming project, as it hinged entirely on finding people with original recordings (or them finding me), assuming any recordings actually still existed. I decided to go with an SD Blu-Ray rather than DVD set, as I can only fit around 120mins of footage on one dual layer DVD at the maximum 9mb bitrate. On a single layer Blu-Ray disc I can fit more than three times that (8 hours), and at a similar bitrate the quality will be better. This makes it an excellent medium for preserving large amounts of SD material on a manageable physical set.

As this set expanded way beyond the original 4-disc 2021 Forbidden Weekend Blu-Ray set, the title was replaced to 'Censorship'; something more generic, and the project given this new page. The menus and artwork were also generalized, which will make upgrades and adding new material in the future much easier.

Source Material Transferring & Project Assembly

Complete Blu-Ray Set Screenshots

Radio Times Mock-Up Censorship Issue Blu-Ray Insert

Each set will come with a mini replica laserprinted Radio Times, adapted from the Forbidden Weekend special issue released in May 1995. It's 146mm x 127mm closed, with 4 pages/8 sides. In there you have some of the original articles on censorship, along with TV listings for most entries included across the whole Blu-Ray set. Not every single item included on the set, is in the magazine, and vice versa. It's more of a bit of fun. than a strictly complete informational insert.

I always enjoyed going though the new Radio Times issue each Saturday morning as a child, picking out the bits and pieces I wanted to watch over the week. Every so often you'd get a great film on ITV like Alien or The Thing, and once in a blue moon you found something really special, like the Forbidden Weekend, Dawn Of The Dead première, or Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror. I'm hoping this replica will bring fond memories back to many others out there!

I was able to directly lift the BBC2 '95 Forbidden Weekend & Channel 4 '99 Censored Weekend listings from two Radio Times issues I'd bought. I was also able to get all the other BBC1/2 listings from the excellent BBC Genome TV listings website, which contains all BBC Radio Times listings in full, from 1922, up to the present. ITV and Channel 4 listings were a little tricker. Tracking down & buying an original Radio Times issue to cover each entry would have cost a fortune, and that's assuming one was available. Instead I subscribed to the The British Newspaper Archive website. This is mostly populated with small local newspapers, but The Daily Mirror and The Scotsman both have extensive daily TV listings pages I could draw from. They're not Radio Times, but it allowed me to get all the listings I needed, with a synopsis against each one, for a reasonable cost.

Project Research/Scan Downloads & BD-ROM folder

The set is supplied in a blue 8-way Blu-Ray case, with a laser-printed reversible cover, printed disc artwork, and the mock-up eight-page Radio Times issue. You can see photos below.

A gallery; the finished Blu-Ray eight-disc set, with mock-up Radio Times issue

In May 2022, I spent a few days creating two 30 second mock-up BBC2 90s style trailers to play before the main menu on the first disc of my 2022 Dawn Of The Dead Blu-Ray. Some of my movie projects are fairly mainstream (such as Dawn Of The Dead, The Evil Dead, and Zombie Flesh Eaters) and most people who like the horror genre will already at least know of the titles. Others are horribly niche & obscure and would only be of interest to a small pool of people no matter how much I promoted them (such as the Evil Dead Shorts & Trailers Blu-Ray). I think there are some projects in the middle such as TV preservations; shown once 25 years ago, never repeated, and officially unreleased on any home format. There's no one officially promoting them today, and you'd really have to be searching for them, to find them, which is a shame.

These two trailers have some great memories for me. I hope they get more people interested. They're both 18+ on YouTube, so you might have to click & log-in to view them.

It's worth saying that this project was never intended to rip any rights holders off, especially as some of the material is available to buy on retail DVD/Blu-Ray. I wanted my set to be a companion to bought retail releases, not a 'free' bootleg replacement. That said, very few would opt to watch a VHS quality presentation over a newer DVD or Blu-Ray quality version, unless they specifically wanted to see this preservation set. That aside, any sharing of this set is intended for physical trades only, and is not being shared online.

If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.

Disc 1 of 8 - Disc Artwork & Menus