Colors on Disney restorations?

[jade]

Now i've heard alot of people say that this topic is subjective, but there has to be some way of knowing what they original colors where or atleast what they were attended to be.

With that said i have a few questions about some Animated classics colors after restorations.


What should we think about the candle glow in Pinnocchio? It's almost gone now in the newest edition. Was it as yellow orangey in the 1940 as it was up until the masterpiece edition? All we can do is speculate of course!


Alice's hair in the latest Alice in Wonderland restoration is electric yellow. Very bold and cartoony. Previous restoration have her hair being neutral and realistic. Which one is right in your opinions? Why the dramatic change now?

My most important question is about my favorite film ever, Snow White!

I've heard that Frank and Ollie said themselves that the colors were ''nice but not the colors they used''. Did they really say this? Can it be cited?


How can restorations have these dramtic changes from the original films. Aren't there orignal cels left to use for reference? Original negatives?

Something that tells these restoration companies EXACTLY what color was used?

I've never heard any complaints about Snow White's restoration, but if the colors are wrong that's really disheartening.

I just wish perfection was the ideal of these restorations. After they are finished they should be watched back a 100 times by these companies to spot any errors from the originals.

These films are a huge part of our culture and should be protected!

[Kyle]

This is kind of a dead horse at this point but I'd say a good 80% (if I can just make up a percentage here) of changes are made not with original intentions in mind, but just because they can. Their on this power trip and feel just because they can change something that they should. Ive fallen into that rabbit hole myself with just photoshop, changing old photos.

It starts with just unfading the colors, then I get to thinking it would look better if I pumped up the saturation even more, added contrast, removed a bunch of moles, and before you know it the photo bares little resemblance to the original photo in any time period, robbing the original of the charm it used to have. The temptation to change for the sake of making something "better" is usually stronger than merely making it look like it used to. And depending on the person's taste it may or may not actually look better.

You have a lot of people working on these restorations at Disney, so a lot of mistakes (some subject, others not so much) will slip through the cracks. If you dont have a restoration director with full control over the final image and sensibilities that make him/her want to stop at the original intention and nothing more, you'll end up with the weird changes you see in a lot of Disney's movies.

[DisneyJedi]

Honestly, I don't mind the color changes in the restorations. Sure, some of them look unnatural/unrealistic, but at least I don't constantly complain about it to the point that it becomes redundant.

[rodis]

Honestly, I don't mind the color changes in the restorations. Sure, some of them look unnatural/unrealistic, but at least I don't constantly complain about it to the point that it becomes redundant.

Ditto.

And Disney described the Diamond Edition line as "the most treasured Disney classics digitally restored beyond their original brilliance". There.

[jpanimation]

^lol They warned us

[Christopher_TCUIH]

Did someone mention the colors?

Listen, we'll NEVER get those colors as they were originally used. Lets just get that straight. That being said, I don't see the harm in endlessly discussing it on this forum.

[The_Iceflash]

Keep in mind that the sources we are using as illustration of the alleged "correct" colors are from poor sources. Just because the colors look different in varying degrees than what we are used to "VHS copies, 80s TV airings, nth generation film copies etc" doesn't mean they are wrong. In much of these cases they have gone back to original negatives, cells, etc for color accuracy when restoring. A lot of what we see in early home video releases in terms of lighting and color was the result of an aging print and compression to a lower resolution (and not to mention VHSs were tape dubs of film several generations from the source. They would obviously look a lot different if a much better source were used and it presented in a higher resolution) and it wasn't how it originally looked. They don't use past home video releases as their sources and rightly so.

As far as Snow White is concerned, the Blu-ray does look quite different then the original DVD in terms of color and I would assume more accurate.

Alice in Wonderland: Her hair is probably more accurate. Remember the film was made in 1951 and from what I saw on past home video releases, the colors look dramatically faded. I can imagine Walt wanting this film in particular to look anything but vivid. We can't assume previous restorations were correct. Restoration technology does improve, better prints found, etc. Like with music restoration. Master tapes are sometimes found years after remasters were done. The change could have happened due to a new found source.

The lighting issue with Pinocchio is almost classic signs of an aging print. During the restorations they realized the lighting isn't correct. Remember they do lots of research about how it was intended to look.

"Different" is not always wrong. It may well be that they got it wrong the first time, and got it right the second time.

I've worked a little bit with the Disney people on restorations before, and they care very, very much about what they do, they obsess over the tiniest details, and they often go back and will bring in actual animation cells as reference to see how the scene was originally drawn and colored. They also have Tech IB prints of every significant film the studio ever made (prior to 1960), and those are routinely screened and used as reference. There is no one person at Disney who approves the restoration -- it's a whole department of 4 or 5 people who has to sign off on it.

I'm not convinced any home viewers are qualified to judge the work being done, especially if all they have for comparison are older versions of the transfers, done by different people. This is no different than somebody pulling a 1975 LP, comparing that to a 1980s CD, comparing that to a late-1990s CD, and then comparing that to a 2005 Steve Hoffman remaster. One assumes the latter will be best, but the truth is that they could all sound different.

It would be nice if we would stop being "experts" on how the colors originally were. VHSs, etc are not how the colors originally were way back in the day. How they originally were was how they looked back when they were released.

[Disney Duster]

At a certain point in time, starting with, I believe, Bambi, Disney started restoring their films by scanning the original film negatives at 4k or something like that, a very high quality that was, I believe, HD.

When they were restoring Sleeping Beauty for the 2008 Platinum Edition, the restorers saw that Aurora's hair in the original cels looked green. So they realized they had to do the right Technirama color timing to get the gold hair she is supposed to have.

If you notice, the first film to use the 4k negatives was Bambi and Bambi looks about the same from his Platinum to his Diamond. Alice in Wonderland may have had her restoration done to make the colors right years after her Masterpiece Edition.

Sleeping Beauty is one of the least complained about colors, and rightly so. It looks like a green tint was removed from the film. Floyd Norman told me himself in an E-mail that they got the colors very close to what it is supposed to look like, as he worked on the film when it was made.

Now your beloved Snow White...the quote about Frank, or Ollie, or whoever saying "the colors are nice, but not the colors we used" was heard from someone, not a direct quote in some article or anything. But you can find peace that this alleged quote was referring to the old Platinum version. The Diamond Edition of Snow White had a new restoration, and may well be the least complained about one. And who knows, maybe it's because Disney will always be extra careful with this most important of Disney films.

However, Cinderella supposedly had this original negative scanning too, and, well, you know how the problems with that one. But it has problems that not Snow White nor Pinocchio nor Bambi seemed to have.

[Marce82]

Just a note: 4K is WAY higher resolution than HD.

And actually, there have been lots of complaints about Sleeping Beauty's coloring....

[jpanimation]

If you notice, the first film to use the 4k negatives was Bambi and Bambi looks about the same from his Platinum to his Diamond. Alice in Wonderland may have had her restoration done to make the colors right years after her Masterpiece Edition.

Bambi was the first to use it's original negative back in '04, setting the current standard of using original negatives. Sleeping Beauty was the first to use a 4K scan in '08, once again setting a new standard. Thus far, Bambi hasn't had a 4K scan of it's negative made, since they just reused the old 2K scan from '04 and added additional cleanup utilizing much more recent techniques then used on Cinderella back in '05.

From what I remember; Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Snow White, Fantasia and Dumbo, have all had new 4K scans made with new restorations and that Bambi, Cinderella and Lady and the Tramp just reuse their old 2K scans originally made for their DVD releases. Hopefully someone can confirm this, since I don't feel like digging around all night to find the original articles I read that talked about them.

[Christopher_TCUIH]

Do the original colors even exist anymore? All I hear is the original negatives this, the reprints that, the intended colors this, the original brilliance that, the toned down this, the brightened that...etc it's all so maddening!!! Who's got the receipts??

All I know at this point is Alice's hair should be some shade of yellow, Snow White's apple should be some sort of red, and Sleeping Beauty isn't Mexican.

[The_Iceflash]

At a certain point in time, starting with, I believe, Bambi, Disney started restoring their films by scanning the original film negatives at 4k or something like that, a very high quality that was, I believe, HD.

When they were restoring Sleeping Beauty for the 2008 Platinum Edition, the restorers saw that Aurora's hair in the original cels looked green. So they realized they had to do the right Technirama color timing to get the gold hair she is supposed to have.

If you notice, the first film to use the 4k negatives was Bambi and Bambi looks about the same from his Platinum to his Diamond. Alice in Wonderland may have had her restoration done to make the colors right years after her Masterpiece Edition.

Sleeping Beauty is one of the least complained about colors, and rightly so. It looks like a green tint was removed from the film. Floyd Norman told me himself in an E-mail that they got the colors very close to what it is supposed to look like, as he worked on the film when it was made.

Now your beloved Snow White...the quote about Frank, or Ollie, or whoever saying "the colors are nice, but not the colors we used" was heard from someone, not a direct quote in some article or anything. But you can find peace that this alleged quote was referring to the old Platinum version. The Diamond Edition of Snow White had a new restoration, and may well be the least complained about one. And who knows, maybe it's because Disney will always be extra careful with this most important of Disney films.

However, Cinderella supposedly had this original negative scanning too, and, well, you know how the problems with that one. But it has problems that not Snow White nor Pinocchio nor Bambi seemed to have.

Well said and yes, Cinderella's issues are the glaring exception since its has issues the others don't have. With Alice in Wonderland, it may be interesting to note that the Masterpiece Edition did come out over a year before Bambi's Platinum Edition (the first to have a restoration by scanning the original negatives). Therefore, Alice in Wonderland most likely didn't get that restoration for the Masterpiece Edition. That could very well be the reason why the Blu-ray looks the way it does. As an aside, I think Alice In Wonderland currently looks the best I have ever seen it. It looks breath taking and I don't doubt Walt intended Wonderland to look that breath-taking.

Just a note: 4K is WAY higher resolution than HD.

And actually, there have been lots of complaints about Sleeping Beauty's coloring....

Though there shouldn't be. People seem to think that if the colors look different than they are used to, then it is by default wrong. That's not how it works. We know Disney puts a lot of care into their restorations and to a lot of research and do a lot pain staking work doing color corrections. What Duster described for Sleeping Beauty was a very good thing. Aurora's hair should not have looked green. Those restoring it realized that and found the problem causing it and fixed it and it looks all the better for it.

[jade]

So i think it's fair to assume that the newest release of Alice is the truest as far as color is concerned. Being that it has the more accurate means of restoration. I prefer her hair the electric yellow anyways, fits the mood of the film better.

How many restorations since the masterpiece has Alice gotten?

I've seen so many dvd releases in the US. that i have to ask.


Anyone have a screen shot of the missing still in Beauty and The Beast along with a still of whats there now?

It was on tv last night, anyone watch? Was it the correct version like the 3d release?

Also in Cinderella which was also on ABCfam last night, i barely noticed any missing lines anywhere. I did notice the quick color error though.


Where are the missingdetail lines the most noticable?

[Marce82]

I caught the latter half of Cinderella on ABC fam last night... and it was the same butchered version present on the dvd and the bd...

[Disney Duster]

I don't think I can answer all of those questions, but maybe some. Alice's Masterpiece Edition and then Un-Anniversary Edition had the same transfer I think, and then they evilly got my money again with the 60th Anniversary Edition just like a year later, if even, and that, I think, had a new transfer (with more correct colors?). And I know in Cinderella I always notice the missing lines on the carriage when it goes to the palace and then when it rides away from the palace. I always notice when the Fairy Godmother's top is accidentally painted the same as the rest of her gown. And every time I see the restored transformation, I always sadly notice the magic dust looking weird or hardly there in certain places.

Bambi was the first to use it's original negative back in '04, setting the current standard of using original negatives. Sleeping Beauty was the first to use a 4K scan in '08, once again setting a new standard. Thus far, Bambi hasn't had a 4K scan of it's negative made, since they just reused the old 2K scan from '04 and added additional cleanup...

Oh. Ok if you say so.

[jpanimation]

Bambi was the first to use it's original negative back in '04, setting the current standard of using original negatives. Sleeping Beauty was the first to use a 4K scan in '08, once again setting a new standard. Thus far, Bambi hasn't had a 4K scan of it's negative made, since they just reused the old 2K scan from '04 and added additional cleanup...

Oh. Ok if you say so.

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I just wanted to say you were right and I was wrong. Everything since Bambi in '04 has had 4K scans. Sleeping Beauty was the first to have a 4K restoration. Restoring at 4K instead of 2K helps the detail survive the digital scrubbing, like Alice in Wonderland as opposed to Cinderella.

[Disney Duster]

Oh. Well thanks for clearing that up, but does that then mean Bambi was restored in 2K as was Cinderella?

[jpanimation]

Cinderella for sure was restored at 2K, I think Bambi was too but I really can't say for sure. The Bambi restoration does at times have some soft line work, which is usually the result of an older 2K restoration.

[rodis]

Cinderella for sure was restored at 2K, I think Bambi was but I really can't say for sure. Either way, Bambi looks pretty good to me.

What does 4k mean in terms of restoration? I understand they scanned it at 4k but I'm not really familiar with the terms.

[jpanimation]

It means they have 4 times the resolution to work with when restoring the picture. It means they can zoom into the image and be more precise when scrubbing artifacts and such away (2K is essentially Blu-ray resolution, which looks good on your TV but isn't really good if you need to zoom in to do precision work). Compare Pinocchio, Fantasia or Dumbo to Bambi. Compare Alice in Wonderland to Cinderella. Look at the linework in Bambi and Cinderella and notice how soft it is compared to the others. It no longer looks like hand drawn lines.