A Few Words About A few words about...™ Pinocchio -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Michael Rogers]

Yeah, I finally did see it by not going to menu from the first trailer. Consequently, those that want to skip it altogether, just go to the menu from the first trailer

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I look forward to some inside info on the missing "Right!" line by Jimminy in the give-a-little-whistle song. I noticed that the first time too, but I do want make sure that it's really supposed to be there before taking Disney to task. The fact that it's on the soundtrack 78 from 1940 is a good indicator.


It's not careless, inattentive, or arrogant to do one's best to match color fidelity to the most stable and objective elements available: the painted artwork. As a matter of well informed opinion, one can argue that photographic elements should be the overriding point of reference and not the hand-painted artwork. However, that doesn't indicate that there's anything careless, inattentive, or arrogant about presuming the other point of view.

Lowery and Disney have meticulously restored the color to what they believe to be the most true representation of what the original artists wanted us to see. They may or may not have done this perfectly or to everyone's taste, but careless, inattentive, and arrogant aren't words that apply.

 

[EricKA]

I thought the new Pinocchio bd/dvd transfer was awesome. I sincerely hope that Disney will do the same for FANTASIA, my favorite of their titles, next year!!

 

[Robert Harris]

Thank you, David. Couldn't have said it better myself. An enormous amount of effort has gone into re-capturing the original look of the cells -- not prints, which are by-products, nor that old standard of archival propriety, the VHS reference tape.

 

[rich_d]

Robert,

With that viewpoint and assuming some art is in very good condition, do you think that WHV should re-capture the original look of the matte paintings in the Wizard of Oz?

 

[Robert Harris]

No. The matte paintings were "as photographed," and created to match the surrounding sets. Totally different situation than cells.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Robert:

Care to make any guesses as to what might have happened with Jiminy's missing dialogue from "Give a Little Whistle?" (With the caveat and understanding that it would only be a guess.)

 

[Chuck Pennington]

But what about the fact that colors were chosen based on how they would photograph and be printed in Technicolor? Therefore matching color to original artwork would not result in the proper coloring. For example, whites were often tinted slightly so as to be off-white (apparently pure white would not print properly in Technicolor - this is what I've read). Might that explain why the whites of Cinderella's stepmother's eyes are green or blue in some scenes on the 2005 DVD release but were white on every previous release? Sure... That is, if the original cels were colored that way. But still, that would be incorrect. The fact that the colors aren't consistent from shot to shot though calls that into question.

1992 release - Jiminy says "Right!" after Pinocchio says his name


2009 release


1992 release - Jiminy says "Look out, Pinoch!" (ms)


2009 release

 

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Theoretically, this could actually be fixed via updating the BD-Live disc online over the Internet. The missing audio clips of Jiminy could be downloaded and then mixed into the soundfield at the appropriate timecodes. The same fix could be made for the missing "DisneyView" panel. Of course this wouldn't help people without Profile 2.0 players.

Just as an aside, does anyone else think that it would have been much cleaner and easier to implement the "DisneyView" matting by mastering it with the video encode (i.e. instead of layering it on the screen using Java graphics)? Then, if you don't want to view it you select black bars to cover them up instead...no timecodes, no dropped images, no tricky software image fading, etc. Oh, well...they didn't consult me.

 

[ATimson]

Maybe if you want to just have one set of panels (though I'd still argue that it's better to do it as-is on the disc; wouldn't anybody with a Profile 1.0 player get stuck with the panels always on?). But I thought the disc included multiple sets of panels to choose from, which makes your idea not possible.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Nice work, Chuck.

In the big picture, it's only a few words...but I think most people will agree: they should be there. Plain and simple.

==========================================

Randy Thornton is one of the Executive Producers at Walt Disney Records.

He has been involved in numerous restorations of the musical elements for the early Disney animated classics. At a different forum (of which he is an active member) I posted questions about the missing dialogue. This is his response:


So, his best guess is that it might be that the restoration team turned to a different audio source for the audio restoration of the film and didn't realize those bits had been excised. If true, if would be an interesting tale, but unfortunate.

 

[rich_d]

I'm not sure who you are quoting with "as photographed." If you simply meant that a matte painting is created from a set design photograph, how is that different from a cell that started out as a photograph before rotoscoping?

Further, the Emerald City (cityscape) does not exist other than in the art of the matte painter. It's not matching a vision, it is the realized vision. With the discussion point about color, how is that fundamentally different from referencing the color of a painted cell?

 

[DeeF]

The movie certainly looks quite amazing on Blu-Ray.

 

[Michael Rogers]

Am I missing something about using the status bar that comes up when you pause the film? So far on my Panasonic BD30, I've been able to cycle through the pictures representing chapters but the chapter title remains the current chapter and when I hit select(in an effort to advance to the chapter represented by the picture), the player locked up and had to be turned off via the front button because it wouldn't turn off by remote. After updating the firmware up to the current 2.8, the player doesn't lock up but the disc stops playing and it has to be restarted.

How is this status bar supposed to work? Can you select chapters from it? Am I doing it wrong or is my player unable to handle the status bar?

 

[white vader]

Hi all. I'm glad to see that in shots where there is effects animation the've left light grain in other elements too, in shots like the fairy and Jiminy.

 

[Robert Harris]

A cell is not positioned during production to match anything other than the other cells in the shot. A actual look of a matte painting is only relevant to the production footage around which it exists.

 

[Dave H]

I bought this yesterday and watched it - I was very impressed and thought it looked outstanding, overall. I love the work Disney is doing on these classics.

 

[ScottR]

I'm sure that Disney would probably want to know about the omissions. And here's hoping the rest of the film doesn't have any more. They didn't spend all of that money for the most perfect Pinocchio ever, only to have a few lines mistakenly left out. It's one thing when the material no longer exists; it is another when every other release contained the lines. I hope they can offer replacements.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

What do you guys think of this scene, where Pinocchio's yellow shirt turns white, and then is splotchy white/yellow, and then yellow again?

Note that this did not happen in any of the previous releases. If this isn't a sign that the film has been largely processed and recolored, I don't know what is. Where is the quality control?








The clip is here:

 

[ScottR]

Whoa! My goodness, this isn't good.