The History of Rock

March 15, 2004 12:14 AM

In the recent movie School of Rock there's a scene where Jack Black's character is standing in front of a blackboard on which he's sketched out a history/taxonomy of rock music. Does anyone know how I'd go about getting a poster of this?

The poster doesn't seem to be officially merchandised (although I'd love to be wrong about that)... so if its not, is there a way I could get a high enough resolution screen capture to get it printed at poster size?

posted by namespan to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Depends what quality you find acceptable, but I don't think you'll be able to make a good poster from a screen cap. According to imdb, it was shot on 35mm film, which translates to roughly 1200x2000 pixels (roughly, a lot of people use wildly different numbers, but seeing as you're probably not going to be able to get your hands on the original film, I think this is a safe upper bound). At 150dpi, that means you get at most a 20cmx34cm picture. Hardly an impressive poster.

Haven't seen the film yet, but it sounds like an interesting poster to have yes.
posted by fvw at 12:41 AM on March 15, 2004

Do you have the dvd? It's advertised as containing "Dewey Finn's History of Rock Interactive Feature," which might give you a start. Or maybe it's on the soundtrack? Some guy at Amazon appears to have mapped it out in text with links.

Also, you may know this, but at the website, that blackboard shot is the first thing that pops up in flash when you click "enter website."
posted by onlyconnect at 12:54 AM on March 15, 2004

I've seen these sort of trees around the place before, and I know that there is a book of them available by a guy called Pete Frame...which was off the back of a TV programme (which I honestly cannot remember the name of)...

Heres a couple of the trees that I know of...maybe with some photoshopping you could make one of your own.

Pete Frames Eagles Tree
Magazine entries by Pete Frame
Cambridge Rock
Roxy Music
posted by mattr at 1:16 AM on March 15, 2004

The tv programme was called Rock Family Trees and was based on the stuff Frame did for Sounds magazine. I used to have the Deep Purple and Black Sabbath ones up on my bedroom wall.
posted by squealy at 4:41 AM on March 15, 2004

The tree in the movies was something supposedly constructed by Mike White and Jack Black over the course of days, so I'm guessing it isn't available elsewhere. Would make a cool poster though.
posted by yerfatma at 5:08 AM on March 15, 2004

Also, check this page out.

Re the dvd release, one amazon reviewer wrote that "To top it off, the DVD-ROM has Dewey Finn's instantly famous blackboard history of rock. You can drill down to the bands mentioned and get a brief history of each. Class dismissed."
posted by onlyconnect at 5:11 AM on March 15, 2004

Here's the board from the flash movie. Unfortunately it's limited to the size of the flash - 700x465 pixels. It's mostly readable, at least.
posted by zsazsa at 6:16 AM on March 15, 2004

there's gotta be some super-secret cia technology that can blow up the image for you. befriend someone in the cia and then i'm sure they'll help you out.
posted by Stynxno at 8:01 AM on March 15, 2004

Response by poster: but seeing as you're probably not going to be able to get your hands on the original film

Suppose for a moment, hypothetically speaking, I was in fact able to do that, but knew abolutely nothing about what to do after that.
posted by namespan at 8:01 AM on March 15, 2004

-Slide scanner if you can cut the film out of the frame.
-Project the film up onto a surface and get a very high resolution digital camera.
posted by rudyfink at 9:19 AM on March 15, 2004

Response by poster: It's possible that I could get access to the film -- I have several acquaintances at later-run dollar theaters that might be able to help with that. But it's unlikely I'd be able to cut the film up.

Maybe a capture from DVD is really going to be the best option. If so, anyone have advice at how to do this at the highest resolution possible?
posted by namespan at 1:07 PM on March 15, 2004

Use a DVD ripping program to digitally convert it. This will give you a 640x480 version, suitable for printing about about 4 inches by three inches.

Obviously, you will need to redraw the chart by hand. This shouldn't be a big deal if you can read it.
posted by kindall at 1:37 PM on March 15, 2004

Cutting one frame out of a scene wouldn't even be noticeable. Ask your friends if they'd be willing to give you a frame at the end of the film's run, then just splice the pieces together. They could say it was damaged.
posted by Hildago at 4:01 PM on March 15, 2004

For the record - the film frame is about 4k x 3k more or less.

You'll snip the frame, and use a slide scanner as mentioned above. Maybe take several just in case.
posted by filmgeek at 8:05 PM on March 15, 2004

Using the graphic linked above try the hq4x filter at www.hiend3d.com. While it can't add detail it can magnify without losing data. Hard to explain really, just give it a shot.
posted by yangwar at 1:37 PM on March 16, 2004