CINDERELLA DVD - digital restoration gone too far?

[drsd2kill]

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong place to share this, but...

I was severely disappointed with Disney's 2005 DVD release of CINDERELLA. The "digital restoration" was more like completely re-coloring and re-imagining the film. There were so many inconsistencies and errors, such as the whites of the stepmother's eyes often being blue and how whites were quite dulled and gray. Granted, the image is much sharper, cleaner, and reveals far more detail in the background, but I'm not so sure it is a fair tradeoff. The lines on characters appear to be thinner as well, and the animation appears less fluid to my eye in the "digitally restored" version now on DVD. Granted, they fixed a few things (as shown in two of the screen captures below), but I can't help feeling CINDERELLA was badly treated during this process. BAMBI and LADY AND THE TRAMP don't appear to be as altered as poor CINDERELLA, but perhaps I should take a closer look at those titles as well.

Anyone else think things have gone too far?

-Chuck

Below I put the 1997 Laserdisc transfer next to the 2005 DVD transfer for comparison. I have many more comparisons between the two transfers at http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f112/ ... CINDERLLA/ if anyone is interested.

[Unregistered]

Um, perhaps you should consider just posting the links to these images.. this would be a ahard page to load, for a person with a slow connection or older computer.
Hm I kind of see what you're saying. Some of the new images somehow seem "colder" than images from the old movie? Again, we're going with the term of Pastel" colors.

Still, a restoration with a few flaws beats no restoration at all.

[Hennie]

you put a lot of work in these pictures! But very nice to see this though, the worst is the picture below, why change things

[drsd2kill]

Restoration is supposed to present the film as originally presented. CINDERELLA already underwent a film restoration long ago. I don't mind using digital technology to remove dirt and flaws photomechanical restoration can't overcome, but completely overhauling the color and balance of a film seems wrong to me. Compared to the far less altered Laserdisc, the animation on the DVD release looks less polished and natural.

[Poppins#1]

drsd2kill, I think you are making one incorrect assumption - and that is that the colors of the Laserdisc were correct. I believe when they digitally restored Cinderella for DVD, they used the original cell art as a guide and tried to replicate that, therefore making a truer reproduction than even the original film was capable of.

[Disney Duster]

FINALLY!!!!!!!! Someone on these forums who sees what I see! The colors...how does pale yellow change to pale blue, or pale pink? The outlines are also indeed thinner, almost painted over! In fact, I request your help, drsd2kill.

There are six scenes that need to have screencap comparisons made to best show that the DVD's restoration went too far. Would you please take them for me? I don't have the ability to produce good ones. I only have a VHS of the old restoration which looks really shoddy on my computer.

Scenes where outlines and even animation is thinner or less visable:

Cinderella waking up(look at the outlines on her blanket and sheets).

Cinderella's dress transforming(look at the white specks/stars around her arms and above her head. In one DVD frame, I believe the white specks are almost completely gone for an instant!).

Cinderella trying to pick up her shoe(in this scene, where the Duke's shadow comes in and Cinderella turns back around to run away, the outline of her skirt is almost completely painted over!).

Scenes where colors look(and definately are) incorrect:

The scene where Cinderella is on the stairs and says, "Should I interrupt the...music lesson?"(look at her skirt, it's supposed to be a lighter shade of brown, but on the DVD it's the same shade as her top)

The scene where the Fairy Godmother says "Oh, you don't need to thank me"(The part under her bow should be a lighter shade of blue/purple, but on the DVD it's the same as the rest of her outfit).

The scene where Cinderella enters the palace and looks around at the entrance(how does silver/gray become blue?).

Please compare the old laserdisc screencaps of these scenes to the DVD screencaps of these scenes. They will best show the errors of the DVD's restoration! If you need me to make some screencaps just to show you exactly what scenes and frames I mean, I will try!

The fate of a classic film is at stake!

[PatrickvD]

I prefer it to look like it does on dvd. I'm not at all bothered by it.

If you wanna talk about re-coloring or re-animating for no real reason, take Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They crossed a line with those two in my opinion. Especially Beauty and the Beast.

[Enchantress]

I prefer it to look like it does on dvd. I'm not at all bothered by it.

If you wanna talk about re-coloring or re-animating for no real reason, take Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They crossed a line with those two in my opinion. Especially Beauty and the Beast.

I totally agree with everything you just said. I think that BATB was the worst restoration. I still get annoyed when Belle says 'step into the light' and he is clearly visible already. Grrr...

[PatrickvD]

I prefer it to look like it does on dvd. I'm not at all bothered by it.

If you wanna talk about re-coloring or re-animating for no real reason, take Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They crossed a line with those two in my opinion. Especially Beauty and the Beast.

I totally agree with everything you just said. I think that BATB was the worst restoration. I still get annoyed when Belle says 'step into the light' and he is clearly visible already. Grrr...

oh, tell me about it. The colors were SO messed up. I usually change the colors on my tv settings before I watch it so I can adjust them to make it look like I remembered it.

so that when she "steps into the light".... she actaully does.

and Lion King isn't my all time favorite film so I'm not bothered by it as much as BatB, but the crocodiles re-animated was just pointless. I also was annoyed by the new millenium opening logo... the blue one was the original. aarrrgggg

[Enchantress]

oh, tell me about it. The colors were SO messed up. I usually change the colors on my tv settings before I watch it so I can adjust them to make it look like I remembered it.

That's a good idea actually, I've never thought of doing that.

[drsd2kill]

[quote="Poppins#1"]drsd2kill, I think you are making one incorrect assumption - and that is that the colors of the Laserdisc were correct. I believe when they digitally restored Cinderella for DVD, they used the original cell art as a guide and tried to replicate that, therefore making a truer reproduction than even the original film was capable of.[/quote]

Hmm... So the whites of the stepmother's eyes were often blue? They may have gone back to original art alright, but what about matching the color of the original Technicolor prints? I believe they had a guide showing what very color would look like once it was photographed and printed in Technicolor, so going back to what the colors may have actually looked like when photographed wouldn't yield a correct result. After all, the colors chosen for the film were chosen with that taken into account.

Something seriously went awry somewhere during the "restoration" - of what I would call "re-coloration". Check out the whites. Also check out the rest of the colors in relation to what we're used to seeing in this film. I don't buy the fact that "now we can see it as never before" bcause that is neither true or necessary - all a good restoration should aim for is to show the film as it was originally presented. CINDERELLA never looked like this, and I highly doubt all of it did even on the inked and painted cels. Lighting subtleties are gone in this new version, as if the animation was cleaned up and then recomposited over the backgrounds. Check out the dream sequence with the king and his imaginary grandchildren and how the background is different in the DVD version. Why would a simple "cleaning" change the position of the background.

[Disneykid]

This is a fascinating thread, and I share a few of the same concerns. The screencap of the King's dream is very disturbing to me, and I didn't even realize the change until you posted it. The situation with the whites turning into blues was something I noticed, but didn't bother me. I think it's some sort of artistic choice that wasn't visible in the old trasnfer. Notice how only the antagonists have blue eyeballs. I think it's to render them more cold and less approachable.

Disney Duster listed one of my concerns, though: when Cinderella first enters the palace, her dress is pale blue, and her hair is an almost blazing yellow. Now, the dress thing I would normally shrug off because there ARE shots where it's blue because it's reflecting shadows and the night sky. When I compared that shot to the old transfer, though, the gown was flat-out silver, and her hair was reddish brown. I can understand hues changing slightly because the old version would've been a darker, more deteriorated representation of what was originally painted...but silver turning into blue and tawney turning into orangey yellow? That's a bit too drastic of a change. Observe (sorry for the quality of the pic; the left hand one was taken from a Quicktime file of the DVD trailer while the right hand one was taken from a WMV file of the music video before the DVD was released):



A similar thing happens in the "Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" sequence. Cindy's hair (which can be seen in my signature) is too orangey yellow compared to the old transfer where, again, it's a reddish brown tawney. Heck, forget the old transfer. Cindy's hair in this scene is yellower than every other scene on the DVD (with the exception of the palace entrance shot above). Something's not quite right there. Unfortunately, the Cinderella galleries on the DVD show no color keys for the characters like Sleeping Beauty's does, so we have no direct reference point to compare besides the old transfer. I normally trust Lowry Digital (the team behind this) with these transfers because they've stated time and time again that they refer back to the original hand-painted cels as reference points. All of their other Disney transfers (Snow White, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty) lead me to believe that they do, indeed, do that. Cinderella is the one that kind of makes me scratch my head.

If pigs fly and I ever have a chance to explore the Disney Vault, one of the first things I'll do is check out the original Cinderella cels in storage and take pictures of them to compare.

As for Beauty and the Beast, that transfer I'm sure was a direct overhaul. NONE of the stills from my "Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast" book look even remotely close to the DVD transfer. Since this book was published right when the film was released, this is certainly not a case of using aging photos. The only reason why I don't protest that transfer is because the filmmakers approved it, so they must want it to look that way.

[Poppins#1]

There are several points I would like to make.
#1. You are absolutely correct that Disney did use a color cross-reference chart that showed how the actual paint colors would look on film. Artists would choose the end-result color and use the appropriate paint to make it. I would hope they took this into account when doing the digital restoration, but I wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt.
#2. Film printing itself is a very tricky process. Color timing is not always exact and many release prints have slightly different color schemes, not to mention the fact that they all fade with time. In 1950, Cinderella would most likely have been photographed in three-strip Technicolor. Meaning that somewhere in the Disney vaults exist the original three-strip black & white camera negatives. Recompositing the image from these separates would give a fairly accurate rendition of the original color with no fading. That is one of the pros of the 3-strip process. However since time causes the separates to shrink at different rates, the best way to recombine the image with perfect registration is the Ultra-resolution process where all three negatives are scanned and digitally combined and alligned. So far Warner Brothers is the only studio to use this process. I don’t know what source materials Disney used for the Laserdisc and VHS release, but it certainly wasn’t perfect color reproduction.
#3. Next we have the controversy over what film restoration should be. Most would agree with drsd2kill that it should faithfully reproduce the look of a new film print. In most cases I would agree. Some feel that going further and creating an image that is better than film is the way to go, using current technology to remove such flaws as flares and film grain. Grain structure has always been a by-product of the photochemical process and has become so much a part of the film experience that many consider it to be inherent in the artistry rather than a flaw. In the area of animation I think this is all a plus. What is so wonderful about the Lowry restorations is that they peel away all the artifacts attributed to film and make it look like you are viewing pure artwork. The pristine, flawless images of Cinderella on DVD are simply breathtaking to behold. Consider DaViD Boulet’s comments in his review at hometheaterforum.com:

However, in the case of animated art like Cinderella, I think it could be argued that the painted artwork could be viewed as an “earliest generation” copy of the art, if you will. If the image can be cleaned to reveal that artwork more clearly…it might actually be serving the artists’ original intentions better than the prints did that delivered the film's theatrical debut.

#4. I’ve taken a closer look at your screencaps. It’s like those puzzles where you’re supposed to pick out what is different. But now I see what you are talking about with the background being shifted in the dream sequence. Also in captures #1 and #2 they have made physical changes to the stepmother's dress. I agree that these tamperings are over-the-top and akin to painting a smile on the Mona Lisa

[drsd2kill]

[quote="Poppins#1"]In 1950, Cinderella would most likely have been photographed in three-strip Technicolor. Meaning that somewhere in the Disney vaults exist the original three-strip black & white camera negatives. Recompositing the image from these separates would give a fairly accurate rendition of the original color with no fading. That is one of the pros of the 3-strip process. However since time causes the separates to shrink at different rates, the best way to recombine the image with perfect registration is the Ultra-resolution process where all three negatives are scanned and digitally combined and alligned. So far Warner Brothers is the only studio to use this process. I don’t know what source materials Disney used for the Laserdisc and VHS release, but it certainly wasn’t perfect color reproduction.[/quote]

CINDERELLA was indeed photographed in Technicolor, but I believe it was successive exposure. That way, all three records are on the same strip of film and shrinkage would be more consistent (though I don't think a thought was given to shrinkage at the time). I think all of Disney's Technicolor films were shot successive exposure, though I don't know about Warner. The film was fully restored for its 1997 Laserdisc release and it was very good. A new digital transfer with today's technology would have made it look even better, I'm sure, but instead we got something wholly other.

I don't believe Lowry did the SNOW WHITE or SLEEPING BEAUTY restorations. I think those were mostly handled by Cinesite, and the DVDs were created from the cleaned up master files. Same digital-to-digital process was used for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN (which makes me think the filmmakers must've wanted BEAUTY to look the way it does since no film intermediate was needed). Oddly enough, RESCUERS DOWN UNDER could've been DDD, but the anamorphic transfer for the DVD was from a grainy print. It appears to be the same issue with HUNCHBACK and HERCULES as well. Grrrrr.....

I need to take a closer look at BAMBI and some other scenes from CINDERELLA. If I make more comparison screen shots, you know I'll post them.

Also, I don't believe for a second that the whites of the stepmother's eyes are supposed to be blue. They aren't consistently blue throughout the film on the DVD. Most of the time they are the appropriate white. It seems parts of the DVD look just right and are terrific, and others.... Maybe time was an issue with the release and they did further corrections for when it was projected digitally at the time of the DVD release in L.A. I certainly hope so. I hear Lowry scans these films at 4K resolution, so I'll bet whatever work they did will be the base used for a future hi-def release

I HATE the way MARY POPPINS looks after Lowry did their "magic" - the new DVD looks waxy.

[Poppins#1]

CINDERELLA was indeed photographed in Technicolor, but I believe it was successive exposure. That way, all three records are on the same strip of film and shrinkage would be more consistent (though I don't think a thought was given to shrinkage at the time). I think all of Disney's Technicolor films were shot successive exposure, though I don't know about Warner.

Ain't the Internet great? You learn something new every day. I had never heard of "successive exposure" so I googled it. You are correct. The Disney Technicolor films of this era were indeed shot this way. Rather than three strips of film, each frame was photographed three times in successive frames on the same strip of film (1 red, 1 blue and 1 green record). So that the original camera negative was indeed black and white records just three times the length.

Here's an interesting article I came across talking about using the successive exposure negative in the restoration of Bambi
http://www.bu.edu/alumni/cas/magazine/a ... index.html

[Josh]

Seeing those original screencaps was definately my nostalgia! I think that the recolouring of the film was to maintain the interest of little kids, as they get bored a lot faster nowadays. Espiecially in the scene where Gus and Jaq are collecting corn.
I preferred the original screencaps, as like I said, they were my nostalgia, as when I grew up watching Cinderella, the colours were more vibrant and less pastal and I grew up seeing all the scratchy lines you find on a VHS, instead of the quality perfections you find on the P.E DVD.

Also, I've always wanted to know this, do they re-draw every single cell? Or are the films just redefined on computers? btw, what was wrong with Beauty and the Beast's re-animation?

[Disney Duster]

I've always wanted to know this, do they re-draw every single cell? Or are the films just redefined on computers? btw, what was wrong with Beauty and the Beast's re-animation?

To a restore a film these days, for DVD, they don't re-draw the cels. They put them on the computer and clean up the cels, by removing dirt, visual noise, artifacts, or anything they notice that isn't part of the original artwork. Some people complain, though, that they smooth over the brushstrokes, and I personally think they digitally repainted and re-colored some of Cinderella.

As for Beauty and the Beast, when they released it into IMAX theaters, IMAX screens are so large that people would notice if certain animation wasn't as detailed or good as it should be. So, they re-animated some parts to make it look better. But some people think this is wrong, and that the movie should be put on DVD unchanged.

Drsd2kill, if you do make more more Cinderella screencap comparisons, could you please make them of the specific scenes I listed in my earlier post, above? They show the restoration errors in the best way, I think. I think it's good proof.

To further persaude you that you should make sure to compare screencaps of the old and new restoration for the scene where Cinderella's dress transforms, take a look at these:

<center></center> <center></center>

Notice that the white stars/specks are much fainter and some seem to have completely disappeared, especially around her arms and above her head. But this isn't the best example. I can't post a screencap of the specific frame in the scene, but there is one frame where the specks that were around her arms have completely disappeared, while in the old restoration they're still there. Please try to find what you can, drsd2kill.

[waltdisney123]

I made a Music Video of Cinderella, and is used the old vhs release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ucno0rUZw

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I guess they sometimes have a hard time figuring out what it even looked like originally. That's one part of what makes the question of "restoration" difficult.

[2099net]

Well, the specs were probably removed by computer. Similar things have happened with Citizen Kane for example and raindrops on windows. Its becasue the computer removes all "random" noise - much like you can on filters in Photoshop. It could be stopped with manual intervention, but most often isn't.

As for the colours, if you're used to seeing the film on VHS, what makes you think those colours are correct? Remember NTSC has trouble with colours:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntsc#Quality_problems

I belive DVD does not have these colour problems because they have a digital source, not encoded to NTSC on the disc and digital cabling from player to monitor/TV.

If Deathie was here, he would know, bless his "none appearing" self.