Interview Disney’s Restoration of Dumbo and Efforts to Preserve Their Film Library (2 Viewers)

[Vern Dias]

The Dumbo multichannel mix is the absolute worst of the worst.

Disney had a kind of boxy sound normally, but monkeying around with it digitally only makes it worst.

I have to disagree with your opinion of the sound on Dumbo, although I do agree with it on many other Disney films. In the interview with the restoration teams, it was stated that Disney transferred all their optical sound elements to mag back in the '50s. Frankly, they must have done a crappy job of it, probably by failing to preserve the entire frequency range present on the optical tracks (DC to 10KHz was very doable using optical recorders back in the '40s) and IMHO this transfer process may well be be responsible for your "boxy" sound.


In the case of Dumbo, the mag elements were missing, so they went back to an almost pristine IB Tech print and digitized the optical sound track for remixing. No stems, no dialog tracks, no effect tracks, and the result is that Dumbo has the best sound I have heard on BD fron a mono optical Disney source.


Many years ago, BD (before Dolby) I built some custom preamps for reproducing optical sound. I also built in some eq and slit loss comp. I was amazed at the quality of the Disney and WB IB Tech. sound tracks, even those released in the '40s. Wide frequency range, low noise and wide dynamic range were the norm when run through a DBX 3BX processor. One of the reasons for the difference is that, unlike other color film stock, the sound track on IB Tech film stock was actually composed of a black and white ultra fine grain emulsion. The RCA film recorders had been refined and enhanced over the the years and certainly deserved the "High Fidelity" label that RCA used in the film credits.


I only hope the Disney learns from this experience, discontinues the use of the inferior mag masters dubbed from their early optical tracks, and redigitizes the audio for their older mono releases from surviving IB Tech optical tracks.


Vern

 

[Patrick McCart]

With mono tracks usually turning up as high resolution PCM or DTS MA tracks, I'd like to think 5.1 remixes of films would be unnecessary when there's no separations available. A lot of Criterion's PCM tracks taken from original magnetic masters (like The Night of the Hunter) or optical separations (Modern Times) have incredible fidelity and range. A lot of this quality just wasn't apparent in lossy 192kbs Dolby 1.0 on DVD editions.

 

[bigshot]

I don't know,what would you say about this ?

I don't think most reviewers ever bother to compare how the 5:1 mix sounds directly compared to the original mix. I have a great sound system, and 5:1 sounds fantastic for modern movies. But when they start trying to rip apart a mono track and muck about with it, it always ends up sounding muddy, distant, phasey and poorly balanced compared to the original. Maybe most folks don't care, but the underwater gurgling of the music in Dumbo drove me up the wall.

 

[bigshot]

I have to disagree with your opinion of the sound on Dumbo, although I do agree with it on many other Disney films.

I was specifically referring to the 5:1 mix. Have you heard that yet? It's dreadful. By the way, I think the characteristic boxy Disney sound was due to their relatively small recording stage. Other studios had larger rooms to record in.

 

[Douglas_H]

there is a thread on Alice here somewhere where someone who claims to be a bit of an expert on that film said the colours have been very badly handled.

 

 

 

Really? Someone on the internet claiming to be an expert! Please give me link I've never seen such a post.

I'm very familiar with the colors used in classic Disney films, having restored a great deal of original art and having seen vintage IB Tech prints projected many times. The Dumbo bluray has fairly accurate colors. With a little twiddling, Bambi can be toned down so it looks pretty close. Fantasia has some segments that are accurate (Dance of the Hours) and some that are wildly off (Pastoral). Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty are so far off, they don't represent what the films originally looked like at all. The balances are monkeyed with to the point that no amount of adjustment of the monitor will bring it back. Ironically, the best looking Disney transfer I've ever seen is Elmer Elephant in the Dumbo supplements. Color matching to backgrounds can be deceptive, especially on the early features because they were painted too brilliant so they would look correct through two or three levels of nitrate cel stock. It's better to match to top level cel paint. Of course in some cases, like Alice, it's clear they didn't match to anything. They created their own colors. Also, aside from a couple of organic pigments used for extreme purples, Disney paint did not separate like it says in this article. The mottling he is referring to here in the elephants is drying rings caused by the paint beginning to dry before the painter had a chance to cover the whole area.

So IOW, the Disney restoration staff who have access to everything "Disney" are incompetent hacks and you are the keeper of the keys. I would suggest applying for a job at Disney and setting things straight before any further damage is done. Please hurry!

Yet we are supposed to believe this is how those films should look, that there is absolutely no visible grain on the negative, none at all, hmmm ok, well if they say it is so then surely it must be so, or we can use our brains and think for ourselves, i think i'll do the latter.

Maybe a little less "thinking" is in order here.

The reason there's no grain is because the image has been broken into parts. The characters are rotoscoped out of the film and are cleaned up separately than the background. There is no grain on the characters because they are cleaning up solid colors. There's no grain on the background because it's a video freeze constructed from multiple frames. When the two get composited back together, there's no more film grain. Using this technique, it's impossible to maintain grain because the background isn't moving any more. They tried to leave grain on the characters the first time they did Bambi and it was a disaster. The grain was only on the characters, not the background so it looked like their fur was crawling with fleas. They also didn't understand the concept of the moving hold, so whenever a character became still, the grain would stop dead. My biggest objection is the way optical effects get destroyed by this technique. The glow on Tinkerbell is supposed to be on top of her, but on the DVD, they've cleaned it off of the character and left it around the edges. This puts the glow underneath her. In Pinocchio, the ripple glass effects have been removed, particularly in the scenes in front of Gepetto's fireplace. In Alice, she looks down at a stream and sees a crawling high contrast approximation of the beautiful ripple glass that was there in the original movie. Lack of grain is nothing compared to this sort of stuff. I'm not defending the way Disney scrubs their films clean. This is a totally intrusive and unnecessary way to clean these films up. It's resulted in total disasters like the first laserdisc release of Bambi and the bluray of Alice in Wonderland. The reason I don't object as much with Dumbo is because there isn't as much to mess up. The color palette of the film was already bright and there are very few DX optical effects and ripple glass shots. Those are the things that suffer the most from Disney's peculiar technique. My comment before though was referring to color accuracy. Aside from a couple of quick shots and minor shifts, the color of the Dumbo bluray is pretty accurate to the original colors in the film. It's the first Disney bluray to get anywhere close. It seems that they have heard the complaints and may be responding to them in their own hubris filled way.

Hubris? Hmm, seems like a subject you are intimately familiar with.

Would it not be possible for them to find the original audio stems and do a proper surround mix from scratch, maybe it would be expensive but it could sound more natural, personally i never buy the UK Disney classic animation discs because they always leave the original audio off, hence i usually end up importing the North American edition.

 

No it is not possible. Remember, they are incompetent corporate minions who butcher they're own films and try to pass their work off as a labor of love. Don't you know who you're dealing with here? Liars. C'mon, like you said think for yourself.

The problem isn't so much the quality of the elements as it is the quality of the mix itself. Back in the day, the approach toward mixing was focused on balance and clarity. The technology was more basic, so their mixes were designed to be straightforward. Today, engineers who may have never even seen the film before throw all the digital bells and whistles at the mix... Phase/reverb, stereo placement, rear channel ambience and effects, etc. The whole thing becomes very thick and complicated. Mono sound doesn't have to sound flat. In the old days, they were experts at creating precise balances that were clear, dynamic and had depth without a gazillion channels. It seems to me that the best way to see and hear a film is the way the filmmakers intended it. It's one thing to clean up dirt and hiss, but it's another thing entirely to start rethinking creative decisions like color harmonies and sound balances. Disney has taken an aggressive revisionist approach to its films. Their work crosses the line from restoration to recreation. If enough people complain, perhaps they'll rethink their approach. Besides, if they start doing really accurate restorations, they can sell us the same damn movies once again!

Yup just like Star Wars. I'm waiting for the "real" restoration work in 3D. For Dumbo, odds are 2021 on the 80th Anniversary Edition. Can't wait.

 

[bigshot]

So IOW, the Disney restoration staff who have access to everything "Disney" are incompetent hacks and you are the keeper of the keys. I would suggest applying for a job at Disney and setting things straight before any further damage is done.

Dumbo was made six decades ago. In the late 60s, the Disney morgue disposed of all of their nitrate cels by order of the fire marshal. They don't have reference to the original colors on the early films. However, a lot of original artwork was given away to VIPs and employees after the film was completed and that art does still exist. I am one of the few people qualified to restore vintage animation cels, and I've worked on quite a few from Dumbo. I have swatches of all the main characters. I have worked for Disney in the past. In fact, a cel I created for Disney is on display in an exhibit called "Masterpieces of Disney Animation Art" in Florida. The technicians who handle the transfers and digital processing of the Disney features are not hacks. But they do what they're told. If consumers don't demand accuracy, executives will continue to "get creative" with films they had no part in making in the first place.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Douglas_H


Really?
Someone on the internet claiming to be an expert!
Please give me link I've never seen such a post.

Maybe a little less "thinking" is in order here.


No it is not possible. Remember, they are incompetent corporate minions who butcher they're own films and try to pass their work off as a labor of love.
Don't you know who you're dealing with here? Liars.
C'mon, like you said think for yourself.

I'm from Scotland, and since we actually gave the world sarcasm, i can appreciate your post and chuckle at it.

 

[Vern Dias]

I was specifically referring to the 5:1 mix. Have you heard that yet? It's dreadful.

That's the mix I was referring to as well. It's certainly not dreadful. In fact, it is one of the cleanest remixes from optical that I have heard. It has decent dynamics and a wide frequency range (for an optical track) , and a good spread across the front sound stage, I don't know your criteria or your system, so it's certainly possible that we were listening for and/or hearing different things.

I don't concern myself with things like the size of the sound stage, or the original microphone layouts because that is what it is, and it is totally outside of the control of the restoration team. What's important to me is that every bit of quality present in the source elements used makes it to the BD, so that we can enjoy it in our theaters.


In my case, I was bitstreaming the DTS-HD MA track from a HTPC to a Denon 3808CI receiver feeding 3 Polk Audio LSi 3 front speakers. Surround speakers are installed theater style (2 on each side wall and 2 on the back wall).


Vern

 

[MatthewA]

Two things about this discussion have been on my mind (and yes, the more vintage Disney [i.e. Walt-era and anything pre-1990s] we get on Blu-ray done well, the better). There are apparently no individual Music, dialogue, or effects stems, yet Disney was able to create a soundtrack album for the film back in the 1990s. Apparently they had to cobble together a number of different sources for the pre-1950s animated films to achieve this, and I assume Dumbo (which I have but is in storage until I finally finalize my move)


As for the surround remixes themselves, I have never really been impressed with most attempts to turn mono into stereo, although apparently Universal tried to separate individual sounds with their 5.1 remix of Psycho using software (I believe it was SonicWorx Isolate) with some success. What really bugs me is fake surround mixes of stuff where they had individual stems and it was technically feasible but were too cheap/lazy to appropriate funds to do a real surround mix.

 

[Scott Calvert]

For me it isn't that I like film grain or dislike film grain. It simply makes up the image on the film. The Disney animated classics I have seen on BD so far, are not representations of the actual films. They have done so many alterations they are pretty much shot-for-shot remakes. What if studios were doing this to live-action films (some of them, for all intents and purposes, actually were)? IMO it's horrible and it needs to stop. I simply will not purchase any of these products.

 

[Ethan Riley]

When I was a kid, I had a "Sleeping Beauty" sticker book. This book would have been produced in the 60s. The stickers were all full-color and were stills taken from actual film. The current blu-ray absolutely re-captured the colors taken from those stills. Previous home video versions of SB (I've owned all of them) did not come close to those stills. So there we go. I'm not saying that some kid's sticker book was 100% accurate to the film cels that were available in the Disney Studios in 1959; I am saying that they were photographed using, probably, a first generation print of the film--a print contemporary to the original release and one that hadn't been burnt out through usage. As the film was re-released over the years (I saw it on every successsive re-release) and on home video, the colors got weirder and weirder, until blue became pink (take that, Merriweather!) and green turned to gray. That would be the dvd release from the last decade. Suddenly, the blu-ray appears and the colors get switched back to the way I "remember" them. That is, at least from the stills in that sticker book--stills that were--again, probably taken from a very early print of that movie. So that's all I have to say. I wasn't around in 1959 and if I was, I certainly wouldn't have a good enough memory to tell you exactly what colors were shown onscreen (a lot of my fellow HFT members claim that they can. Yeah, right guys). But the blu-ray does look good. So whatever. Everything else is trivia.

 

[bigshot]

Those Panini sticker books didn't have accurate colors. I have those books myself. The bluray isn't matched to anything, even itself. Things vary from scene to scene. There's a lot of original artwork from Sleeping Beauty out there. That and an orignal print is all you need to do an accurate color balance.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

When I was a kid, I had a "Sleeping Beauty" sticker book. This book would have been produced in the 60s. The stickers were all full-color and were stills taken from actual film. The current blu-ray absolutely re-captured the colors taken from those stills. Previous home video versions of SB (I've owned all of them) did not come close to those stills. So there we go. I'm not saying that some kid's sticker book was 100% accurate to the film cels that were available in the Disney Studios in 1959; I am saying that they were photographed using, probably, a first generation print of the film--a print contemporary to the original release and one that hadn't been burnt out through usage. As the film was re-released over the years (I saw it on every successsive re-release) and on home video, the colors got weirder and weirder, until blue became pink (take that, Merriweather!) and green turned to gray. That would be the dvd release from the last decade. Suddenly, the blu-ray appears and the colors get switched back to the way I "remember" them. That is, at least from the stills in that sticker book--stills that were--again, probably taken from a very early print of that movie. So that's all I have to say. I wasn't around in 1959 and if I was, I certainly wouldn't have a good enough memory to tell you exactly what colors were shown onscreen (a lot of my fellow HFT members claim that they can. Yeah, right guys). But the blu-ray does look good. So whatever. Everything else is trivia.

This is why I'm glad I'm not the Disney reviewer. I am really torn about how I feel about Disney's restoration efforts.


Viewed in isolation, the discs do look good. But I have only VHS tapes, laserdiscs, DVDs and Disney Channel broadcasts in the 1980s and 1990s to compare these to, and my memory on how they looked is not great. Nor is it that great on the theatrical reissues I saw in the 1980s and 1990s, the last wave of theatrical reissues we're likely to see. And the majority of the public only remembers these, too. They can't demand accuracy when they don't know what accuracy is supposed to be.


I just watched Dumbo and I must say I've never seen it look better (except for one or two shots that had a slight green haze), and I've seen the mid-1980s VHS and the 2001 DVD, and probably a handful of TV showings (I remember watching it on syndicated TV at my cousin's house when I was 4 and having someone videotape me doing so). It didn't look unnatural or phony, like it had been recreated on video. But is it how it was supposed to look? I've never seen a theatrical print, and even if I had, there's no guarantee that it would have been accurate either. Not all prints, even IB Tech ones, are accurate. We have plenty of examples of how it is not supposed to look.

 

[Sam Posten]

I don't doubt that Disney's archivists are full of passion for their work. What worries me is that their executives are cowards who won't ever put SOTS out with whatever caveats they need to to "apologize" for whatever misperceived insensitivity there is about it. Until they put Song out to the public that's the only word for it. Cowardice.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by MatthewA


This is why I'm glad I'm not the Disney reviewer. I am really torn about how I feel about Disney's restoration efforts.

Maybe you should review them, i would prefer some criticism ( if needed ) rather than the usual praise, there is nothing mentioned about the eradication of the film grain texture. Stephen had some useful things to say on that matter in this very thread, obviously you need balance in a review, some things on these releases will be much improved, high definition always improves some things but i tend to find that reviewers stay away from mentioning any negatives, certainly when it comes to Disney and the larger well known sites.

 

[bigshot]

I agree. Puff pieces like the one at the top of this thread would be much more useful if the reviewer threw a few tough questions at the interviewee while they had his ear. I have yet to see any review comment on the effect Disney's technique has on optical effects. But if you look at the fireplace in Gepetto's workshop or the little stream in the Tulgey Wood, it's dead clear that they're being eradicated. It's like a thread I saw on Star Wars where the interviewer said that he would be interviewing people from Lucasfilm and wanted suggestions for questions to ask. You can guess what everyone suggested, and you can bet that it wasn't covered in the interview.

 

[bigshot]

What worries me is that their executives are cowards who won't ever put SOTS out with whatever caveats they need to to "apologize" for whatever misperceived insensitivity there is about it. Until they put Song out to the public that's the only word for it. Cowardice.

It isn't just Disney. A friend at Warner told me about the Whoopie Goldberg disclaimer on the Warner Bros cartoon collections. ("It was wrong then and it's wrong now.") It was completely disengenuous. The disclaimer was called for by a lawyer and was given to a person in the classic animation division to write. That person totally disagreed with it, but wrote it anyway. They got Whoopie Goldberg to read it, even though she is a huge fan of the cartoons they were apologizing for. The Warner execs asked her what she would like as a thank you present for helping, and she said she would love a cel from Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs. They had the limited edition people make one up for her. I don't think anyone there really cared about the disclaimer. They were just afraid of what other people might say if they didn't have one.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder





Maybe you should review them, i would prefer some criticism ( if needed ) rather than the usual praise, there is nothing mentioned about the eradication of the film grain texture. Stephen had some useful things to say on that matter in this very thread, obviously you need balance in a review, some things on these releases will be much improved, high definition always improves some things but i tend to find that reviewers stay away from mentioning any negatives, certainly when it comes to Disney and the larger well known sites.

Matt Hough is already the Disney reviewer, and he does a very good job of it, so the point is moot for now. But I would not pull punches if I felt they did a bad job. I've been a Disney fan since I was a small child and I have never held my tongue when they did something I felt was wrong; I reviewed their MOD of an obscure 1981 live-action film called Amy and soundly criticized them for using an outdated transfer in a questionable aspect ratio, which seems to be a common occurrence on a lot of their DVDs of less well-known material.


In the Citizen Kane thread I did mention that I have tried to judge based on accuracy to the source; and I have dealt with discs that are good representations of source material that is poorly lit and grainy, or produced on analog video. As for the grain here, I don't know exactly what film stock they were using for the successive exposure negatives or its ISO, but it would likely be very low, and lower ISOs, whether in film or digital photography, tend to show less grain when properly lit. Where Disney is concerned, the studio has access to the materials, and contacts with those who know the right way to present these films from the wrong way, and I don't. Even if I could access a 35mm IB Tech print of the film and a way to view it, there's no guarantee that it would have the right colors.


I do agree that Disney does seem to get a pass from a lot of people on things that other studios wouldn't get a pass on. Still, while I don't think it's fair of Disney to say that all negative criticism is out of ignorance or false memory, the fact that they actually came out to talk about this at all is better than nothing.

Originally Posted by bigshot [url=/t/314907/disney-s-restoration-of-dumbo-and-efforts-to-preserve-their-film-library/30#post_3853751]



It isn't just Disney. A friend at Warner told me about the Whoopie Goldberg disclaimer on the Warner Bros cartoon collections. ("It was wrong then and it's wrong now.") It was completely disengenuous. The disclaimer was called for by a lawyer and was given to a person in the classic animation division to write. That person totally disagreed with it, but wrote it anyway. They got Whoopie Goldberg to read it, even though she is a huge fan of the cartoons they were apologizing for. The Warner execs asked her what she would like as a thank you present for helping, and she said she would love a cel from Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs. They had the limited edition people make one up for her. I don't think anyone there really cared about the disclaimer. They were just afraid of what other people might say if they didn't have one.

On the new documentary about Dumbo, Eric Goldberg and John Canemaker discuss the crows, and their comments made me look at the characters in a new light. I had never associated any racial stereotypes with these characters until someone called them racist in an article I read years ago—one could just as easily call the other elephants sexist stereotypes of women. I chalked it up to the times, but after watching the documentary, it made me think about it. Also, they are the only ones who ever show remorse for teasing Dumbo, they are the only ones other than Timothy and his mother who help him.


If they are willing to defend these crucial supporting characters against their critics, their reservations about Song of the South seem more and more petty and fear-based.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Originally Posted by Vern Dias

In the interview with the restoration teams, it was stated that Disney transferred all their optical sound elements to mag back in the '50s. Frankly, they must have done a crappy job of it, probably by failing to preserve the entire frequency range present on the optical tracks (DC to 10KHz was very doable using optical recorders back in the '40s) and IMHO this transfer process may well be be responsible for your "boxy" sound.

In the case of Fantasia, because the Fantasound equipment was too unwieldy to transport to the site where the mag transfer was being done, it was done over phone lines, hence the nightmare that was restoring that original track. Not sure of the circumstances surrounding the other transfers from optical to mag, but I can't imagine they would have been much better.

 

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Douglas_H

So IOW, the Disney restoration staff who have access to everything "Disney" are incompetent hacks and you are the keeper of the keys.
I would suggest applying for a job at Disney and setting things straight before any further damage is done.
Please hurry!

Maybe a little less "thinking" is in order here.


Hubris? Hmm, seems like a subject you are intimately familiar with.

Maybe a little bit more of a constructive rebuttal and less of a blanket sarcastic dismissal would prove to be a more productive method of posting. Petty ridicule of others who are clearly knowledgeable and experienced in the subject being discussed, without any other input besides petty ridicule in and of itself, doesn't really add much in the long run.


I find this discussion fascinating and champion anyone who learnedly supports a presentation as close to the original release as possible. Even when someone posts something I disagree with, if they have executed same with intelligence and expertise, I am inclined to listen and consider.