Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008 - Page 5

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

I would think that most of the cells probably no longer exist, and those that do are probably in the hands of private collectors.

Its common practice to destroy or sell animation art work after the film is completed.

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Not in the case of Disney films. As one of the few who own a copy of Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life can attest, Disney retains control of its artwork and has it archived. Colours have remained very stable; in fact, at the time The Illusion of life was published, the only cel showing any damage reproduced in the book was from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, where some of the paint had cracked and peeled away from the cel.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Damage on opening day also could be sloppy handling by the projectionist who assembled the film on the platter.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

I'm glad I wasn't alone in some of this.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Probably true, but I think its unlikely that they will go back and rephotograph the animation cells.

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

That's the crucial point!

It doesn't really matter if it is artistically "thought" to be from animation cells or film - it's where it actually comes from.

If the original cells would be used to create the digitized image, there's no need at all to add artificial grain to make it look more authentic, of course. And the absence of grain should not bother us.

But if the digital master is created by scanning film elements, then (whatever artistic view you're caressing), DNR can damage the high resolution details if it's applied carelessly.

(In fact, it's almost totally impossible NOT to damage the HR content of the image if attempts are made to remove grain by applying DNR on a per-frame basis. The only chance would be using sophisticated algorithms taking information from multiple successive frames, but I wonder if those algorithms exist. Another method would be "individually by hand" - extremely expensive, therefore)

In my opinion that should be the main reason for anyone to oppose to "grain removal": if the HR content of the image is affected (I think RAH would say: infected). And because the grain is at the heart of the image rendering process of analog film, it's bound to be affected - always.


Cees

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

True.



Disney has used Lowry (now "DTS Digital Images") to do the work and they are one of the few (only?) companies that do digital cleanup the right way you describe: analyze successive frames and use manual editing to even teach the software what's noise and what's real picture information.

Their services are extremely expensive. Disney used them for Cinderella but not for Little Mermaid, for instance (and it shows).

Worth mentioning is that FOX didn't use Lowry for Patton (not surprising based on the results).

Lowry's algorithms and hand-cleanup are able to digitally remove grain and random noise without harming real high-frequency information... at least to the eye. But as I mentioned, their services are extremely costly, and so only a few studios are willing to pay to have them clean up A-list titles.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

The only reason I mention that Disney still has cels is that they can use these as colour reference. I agree that grain reduction should not be necessary on a Technirama film like Sleeping Beauty. As my personal favourite Disney animated feature, I will be utterly devastated if the end product looks as bad as The Longest Day; I trust this will not be the case.

On a side note, I took my boys to see The Clone Wars. The print was pristine, but the thing that struck me about the character animation was that they looked as if they were sculpted out of clay and hand painted; not entirely different from the screencaps of The Longest Day posted here.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

A wholy legitamate point of view. I actually share *both* points of view on this topic... I can either enjoy animation in a "preserve the film" manner for the reasons you state, or enjoy the "preserve the painting" look of many of Disney's classics on DVD. Both produce beautiful results on DVD, but as you say, your approach is probably truer to the original intention of the artists as they were indeed considering the film stock and the effects of photography when comprising their hand-painted artwork.

In the case of Lowry's digital cleanup, I'm sure that Disney has provided them with records of how the color balance should appear in the original photography to use as a reference. My guess is given the relatively grain-free large format negatives, most of the "clean up" probably involve balancing contrast frame-to-frame. and spurious cel dust etc.

Fingers crossed that the end result looks as stunning as it looked at the demo that I saw. I think that whichever point of view one takes about the best way to preserve and present these animated classics on digital media, one would be well pleased with the result. At least that's my optimistic anticipation.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

How do you fgure that there isn't as much inherent detail to be lost? Everyone seems to be focussing on the cels and forgetting that there is more to animated film than character cels. The backgrounds have to be taken into account on these films. Older animated films use a lot of highly detailed and dimensional looking painted backgrounds. The backgrounds contain a lot of detail. If DNR is used to remove grain then a probable side effect will be the loss of detail in background paintings.

These animated films should be treated no differently than their live action counterparts. The grain of the film that they were shot on should be preserved.


Once again, I'm going to have to disagree with the generalized statement that these films were originally children's films. They were not. Disney did not continually risk the solvency of his studio to make films aimed only at children. These films were designed and made for a general audience. I can still watch these films as an adult. If they were child centric there is no way that I would be able to stomach watching them.

The assumption that kids "do not want grain" is fallacious. Kids do not have enough awareness about the technicalities of film to want anything, other than to be entertained. A kid watching one of these films is not about to say, " I hate this film because it has grain". They are going to watch it and say, " I like it" or " I hate it" and then go on to something new. The existence or lack of existence of grain isn't even going to impinge on their consciousness. That being the case, these films should be preserved as close to their filmic appearance as possible.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Of course I know that, and it's obviously going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. But you're still comparing reality with its near-infinite detail to an abstract of that, a painting. Save for scenes with effects like rain, water etc. most backgrounds are also fairly static, so it's easier to compare between frames if anything has been lost in the process. And the most important part is what I already said: the kind of automatic DNR that removes part of the animation or the rain in Citizen Kane is an absolute no-no. The films need to be carefully examined and processed frame by frame to ensure nothing goes wrong, which, from what I understand and judging by previous Platinum releases, they likely do.

The point still stands (and with your theory, is actually furthered); the general audience wants grain even less. At the very least they don't expect to see it on an animated feature marketed as "restored" and "pristine" no matter what kind or how old. And grain tends to becomes especially noticeable with bright, solid colours on a big screen with all enhancement options turned on and sharpness at 85% of the maximum.

Maybe I'm not giving the general audience enough credit, but when even enthusiasts supposedly clamoring for perfection have a problem with it and a lack of understanding regarding the subject, I don't have much hope.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

We're talking about Lowry. Not off-the-shelf DNR.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

They might very well have, however in the past Disney hasn't always been totally faithful to what was done before. As Frank Thomas said about the restored Snow White, "Those are some nice colors, not the colors we used in 1937, but nice".

Of course the color differences in that case may have more do with with newer film stock reproducing colors in a different way than Technicolor did.

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

I think most of us are in agreement that preserving film grain will make the Blu-Ray look closer to the look of the film when it was released. Nothing new there and hopefully in time most studios will get the point.

As Disney obviously has another opinion on this with regard to Sleeping Beauty (I suppose they had access to the information RAH has presented with regard to the impact of film grain on children ) I will wait until it is released to comment on the finished product.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Why are people posting about grain removal on this digitally shot title?
What "prep work" was DTS/Lowry involved w/in this title?

Robert Harris did not like what Lowry did too "Sunset Boulevard" for Paramount.
Isn't Mr. Lowry a fan a fake grain?

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Sleeping Beauty was released in 1958, and as such is not a "digitally shot" title. As for Mr. Harris' comments on Sunset Boulevard, they can be read here: Yellow Layer Failure, Vinegar Syndrome and Miscellaneous Musings by Robert A. Harris

Not a ringing endorsement, but rather an examination of what happens when rights owners fail to protect their assets.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

No.
I talking about Mr. Harris not liking the re-mastering Lowry did on "SB".
"Grain is not a 'byproduct" of film - it is the film, original prints of SUNSET BLVD. are stunning, but look absolutely nothing like the digital version released on DVD. This DVD is pretty, but it is not SUNSET BLVD. You need to see a real print of SUNSET BLVD... and then make your comparison, understanding that the gray scale has been corrupted along with resolution."
Movie Poop Shoot: Hollywood Elsewhere - April 11, 2003
(middle of page, unless Mr. Harris deletes it)

It's kind of funny that my link kinda 'disagrees' w/your link!
From my link:
"What your letter means, with all due respect, is that you are a corrupted video viewer. You have been won over by the dark side. When one removes grain, there can be a certain amount of image interpolation, much like line-doubling. There is also a loss of resolution as at a certain point, there is no information."
From your link:
"After screening the new DVD of Sunset Boulevard* this evening, I'm pleased to tell you that it falls in line with North by Northwest* and other titles which have used this process.

The scratches are gone. As is the dirt. The film grain has gone with it, but the resultant image is totally pleasing in its cleanliness."

Anyway. that's probably for RAH's forum or something.
1st RAH posted:
Then DaViD posted:
(bold, mine)
So I thought cause we were talking about the original cell & something that does not look like film, it wasn't from film. I see in Mr. Harris post we are talking of film elements. Even tho some, even Cees ("If the original cells would be used to create the digitized image, there's no need at all to add artificial grain to make it look more authentic, of course. And the absence of grain should not bother us" If being the key word), spoke too cells. Got ya! Thanks for clearing that up!
Man, I really wish I could "see" digital files of the original cells!
Digital files were made of the "Snow White" cells, right?

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

No. Snow White was taken from digital restoration files made for the 1993 rerelease at Cinestage, which originated on film. Lowry then did digital dustbusting/grain removal on those files, but they were still using the algorithms infamously used on Citizen Kane, among others.

There has not, to my knowledge, been an animated feature that has gone back and digitally captured the original cels. Disney switched to CAPS (Computer Assisted Painting System) in 1990, but that's a completely different beast.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

I hope they will go back and do Snow White. I loved the 1987 restoration, even if it contained cel dust (except for the horrible cropping in the theatre; the opening storybook was cropped off and you couldn't read what was at the bottom!) Anyway, the look of the film then was very warm and rustic. I find the Platinum Edition of that title to lean too blue and cold. I also didn't like that they faded out of scenes too quickly, resulting in moments of lost animation (the perfect examples are when the witch reads about the Sleeping Death and stares at the camera. Originally, the fade out left only her eyes staring at the audience in the darkness. The second one is when the Dwarfs finish Heigh Ho and we end on the waterfall. On the dvd, Dopey doesn't even make it all the way across before the screen fades to black.) Also, it appears that with the 1993 restoration some damaged frames were frozen and repeated. It would be nice to have the original titles too, but those are probably lost (the reconstruction of them on the dvd was a nice extra.) I'd also like to see the 1987 50th anniversary tv special hosted by Dick Van Dyke on a new release. But back to Sleeping Beauty, can someone explain to me how a Technirama production has an aspect ratio of 2.55:1?

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

This is a very good question, and with out masking the top and bottom of the frame I'm not sure how you would do it.

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

SB was not set up as a TLA production. It was composed for CinemaScope.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Oh! Wow, I didn't know that. Interesting!

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Interesting, but having been photographed in Technirama, wouldn't the original negative have Technirama dimensions? Are you saying that because it was composed and intended for CinemaScope that they cropped to 2.55:1?

Also wouldn't CinemaScope have been reduced to 2.35:1 by 1959 because of the addition of the optical soundtrack?

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

I'd take it with a grain of salt, but the disney rep at the BD Live/Sleeping Beauty event was adamant that this was the first time the "full original image area" of the original photography was being revealed on any media. When specifically asked, he said that the aspect ratio of the BD/DVD was not being obtained by cropping, but was the native aspect ratio of the original negatives and so revealed the fullest possible image area of the source.

Naturally, we'll be albe to verify once we have the disc.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Sadly due to financial constraints, Disney washed the cels from Snow White to make Pinocchio, and then again for Fantasia... so many of those cels do not exist. Some are still around, but very few.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Keep in mind the production lead time on an animated feature @ the time. At the time that animation actually went before the cameras, the CinemaScope ratio would still have been 2.55:1. If we were to take a look at the ONeg, we may see something similar to the open matte transfer of Yellow Submarine.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Oh brother!
I NEED a nap. ;-)
Maybe I was thinking of "Bug's Life"??? vvv
Thanks, again.

EDitEDbyED:
If indeed we are going too be getting the un-cropped cells for the 1st time...
how is this coming from original film elements?
The film elements contain the "entire" cell?
And we'd only be able too verify this, if someone has the dimensions of the original cells.

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

The dimensions of the original cels would have nothing to do with the AR. Cels are a standard size and it is the size of the drawings on the cels and their placement that would show us the AR. As I said before, I suspect that the 8 perf sequential ONeg may exhibit characteristics similar to the open matte transfer of Yellow Submarine (unfinished artwork in the edges of the frame, etc.).

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Film element often don't contain the entire cell. Animation cells aren't drawn that way.

The edges of a cell are typically very rough because they are not intended to be photographed and they have information about what frame of the shot the cell is intended for written at the edges. Also a single shot may contain MANY cells, typically one for each character in the shot and one for each additional moving element.

Backgrounds generally don't conform to the aspect ratio but rather the camera move intended for the final shot.

Doug

Re: Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008

Which is what I was getting at. Cels are never produced to the AR, but the size and placement of characters on the cel give us a (very) rough approximation of the AR, moreso when viewed in their placement on the background. The only way we're actually going to know the intended AR, as I said before, is to look for telltale signs on the 8 perf ONeg or any other 8 perf elements.