Sleeping Beauty

[zor]

This is the first time I ever saw it on any format. I was amazed by the animation quality. Comparing it to other hand-drawn animation of our day like Mulan, and it's like night and day. Why don't they make it like this anymore?

And the story was nice and atmosphere great. However it was also short and simplistic. I wish it didn't dumb down the fairy tale -- I don't mind departing from the book when a movie is made, but they obviously sugar coated things here. I wish a remake/reimagining of this classic could be done with a richer story this time.

I saw some previews for the very old Pinnochio BD release ... I think the preview was on the Sleeping Beauty disc ... anyway, the animation in Pinnochio didn't seem as good.

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by zor

I saw some previews for the very old Pinnochio BD release ... I think the preview was on the Sleeping Beauty disc ... anyway, the animation in Pinnochio didn't seem as good.

The final product on Pinnochio will no doubtedly be much better than that preview demonstrated. There was a preview for Sleeping Beauty on several discs and it was well surpassed when the disc finally arrived.

[bigpatky]

dumbed down? the original sleeping beauty that they got the story from is only a couple of paragraphs long. if they wanted a movie, they had to add in a ton. dumbed down is not the words you're looking for.

[jw]

check this out, great insight, I posted this yesterday in a similar thread
Check out Lindsay's very detailed new article about the restoration process. You may not have seen it as it was posted a few months back
Link to news report
Recently, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment held a web conference on the extensive restoration process of the monumental animated feature film Sleeping Beauty, and Blu-ray.com was in attendance. The following is a highlight report of the hour-long presentation, led by Senior Vice President of Post Production Sara Duran-Singer and moderated by WDSHE Publicity representative Mindy Johnson.

Using illustrative slides, Duran-Singer explained the difference in restoration technique for Sleeping Beauty's previous home video releases, especially its initial debut on DVD in 2003. The most problematic issue was the studio's use of film elements that were several generations removed from the original negative. Use of interpositives, internegatives, or other masters were utilized in its stead. But confidence in digital film preservation technology has grown exponentially every year. So, for Sleeping Beauty's latest release, a brand new, complete restoration was undertaken using the film's fragile nitrate negative, as well as the original 1958 score recordings from UFA Studios in West Berlin.


(Click images to enlarge)

Sleeping Beauty was shot in the Sequential Technicolor process; fine grained, high quality black and white film is exposed through 3 successive filters of pure red, green, and blue to create a 3-frame perfect, unfading record of the colors. Using a photo optical process, these 3 color registers are then recombined to make one image. "What's really great about this is not only is the image sharp, but because it's shot on black and white film stock, it doesn't have any fading issues that we get in this current color negative," Duran- Singer explains. Because of this successive exposure process, three times the amount of footage - the entire film in cyan, yellow, and magenta respectively - had to be scrutinized and cleaned up accordingly. Scanned in at a 4K resolution, the film is restored and saved as a digital file - a new generation of negative, in some respects.

The film's format proved to be another challenge. Sleeping Beauty was shot using the Technirama Large Format Negative process, which was Technicolor's widescreen process using an anamorphic Delrama lens to produce high quality prints. Regular 35mm travels vertically and has 4 sprocket perforations per single frame, giving an approximate dimension to the original 35mm silent film frame of around 18 mm tall by 24mm wide. Paramount's VistaVision 35mm large format process had the film traveling horizontally, using the equivalent of two frames (8 perforations per frame or "double frame") to get a negative exposing area of 24mm tall by 36mm wide, just like the one used in 35mm still photography. The addition of an anamorphic lens allows then for a wider image to be recorded suitable for Scope and 70mm prints.


A. Standard 35mm B. Super 35 C. Technirama sequential exposure negative
D. Magnetic track CinemaScope E. 70mm F. Optical track CinemaScope
(Image courtesy Blu-ray.com Site Manager Deciazulado)

As you can see from the illustration here, the Technirama format's dimension is 3 times larger than the 2 most common 35mm formats used in production today. Since each single frame of animation has been exposed three times in the large format Technirama sequential Technicolor process, that means each color frame is recorded into an area 9 times as large as the current 35mm film area. This large format negative was used then to create Technicolor printing elements for 35mm reduction 4-track magnetic sound CinemaScope 2.55 prints, optical sound CinemaScope 2.35 prints, or for enlargement onto 6-track 70mm 2.20 prints.

More often than not, the latter two formats were used due to the standards in theatrical equipment at the time. Many "average" theatres were only able to project films up to 2.35 in width due to the placement of the soundtrack on the margins of the film frame. Special 70mm theatres formatted the film down to 2.20, again because of the space needed for 6-track sound encoded onto the film prints. Having such a variety of film formats inevitably led to present day confusion as to what Sleeping Beauty's true aspect ratio really was. But in looking back at the original amount of filmed image on the negative, Disney was able to conclude that the film's 2.55:1 magnetic CinemaScope composition was the intended picture. Artists and animators had fully utilized the entire ultra-wide space, so in choosing the 2.55 ratio, not only was there more background art exposed, but character animation as well. Disney proclaims this is the first time Sleeping Beauty's entire image has been viewed by audiences.



Another subjective issue was, artistically, what the filmmaker's original intent would be given a particular flaw. The Restoration Committee, comprised of members such as animator Andreas Deja, feature animation film and digital camera technician Joe Jiuliano, animation director Dave Bossert, and film format and restoration expert Theo Gluck, deliberate the appropriate action when spotting mistakes like paint pops (one cel will contain an erroneously placed object, etc.) or paint crawl, which is the "blotchiness" that can result from unevenly dried cel paint. If these artifacts detract enough from the viewing experience, they are cleaned up; even still, care is taken to not overdo the edits, lest the film begin to look too "artificial" and tinkered with by modern tools. Grain is an issue in animation just as it is in any other film medium. Unlike live action film, where too much digital noise reduction results in "waxy" looking human characters, taking the grain out of the picture on an animated film sufficiently cleans it up. Being so flat and graphic, film grain is little more than noise on a hand-drawn animated feature. Thus, grain from the negative has been consciously edited out during restoration.



Sleeping Beauty also underwent a complete audio restoration for its Blu-ray debut. Locating and utilizing the original 35mm 3-track recordings of the score from 1958, the full sessions - false starts, alternate takes, and all - were digitized into computer audio files. First, the files were edited down to the scoring that is used in the final film. Then it underwent restoration - anything from equalization to excising noise and artifacts like track hiss and popping. Handing the audio off to Terry Porter, an Academy Award nominated sound mixer, the music and dialogue was transformed into a lovely and rather engulfing lossless 7.1 mix unique to the Blu-ray release.

Utterly breathtaking in magnitude, Sleeping Beauty's from-scratch restoration process has paid off in spades. The Blu-ray Disc is garnering praise from all angles - whether it's the casual viewer, the home theatre enthusiast, or audio/video critics and media outlets. The amount of care put into this release is highly admirable, and sets a standard for not only Disney's future animated feature releases, but for studios worldwide. Kudos to the Restoration Committee and Sara Duran-Singer for accomplishing such a feat.

Huge thanks also go to Deciazulado for his technical input on Sleeping Beauty, without which this article would not be half of what it is!

[SoCalTiger]

Originally Posted by bigpatky

dumbed down? the original sleeping beauty that they got the story from is only a couple of paragraphs long. if they wanted a movie, they had to add in a ton. dumbed down is not the words you're looking for.

While I agree it isn't exactly "dumbed down" either, the Sleeping Beauty story adapted by Disney is primarily based on the written version by Charles Perrault. It's a few pages long so 2 paragraphs is an over exaggeration. The Brothers Grimm also published a variation of the story. Ultimately the story had oral folk tale roots similar to much of the Brothers Grimm stories.

[zor]

Originally Posted by bigpatky

dumbed down? the original sleeping beauty that they got the story from is only a couple of paragraphs long. if they wanted a movie, they had to add in a ton. dumbed down is not the words you're looking for.

In the original story, the princess is asleep for many more years than in the movie. It's been made to be more kid-friendly.

[romac]

Originally Posted by zor

This is the first time I ever saw it on any format. I was amazed by the animation quality. Comparing it to other hand-drawn animation of our day like Mulan, and it's like night and day. Why don't they make it like this anymore?

I grew up having many of the Disney movies on VHS. I wish you could've seen it on there. It really made the restoration Disney did that much more special to me. This is probably my favorite Blu that I own.

[assydingo]

Story is lame but it's eye-candy equal to the best of new films for me.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by zor

This is the first time I ever saw it on any format. I was amazed by the animation quality. Comparing it to other hand-drawn animation of our day like Mulan, and it's like night and day. Why don't they make it like this anymore?

And the story was nice and atmosphere great. However it was also short and simplistic. I wish it didn't dumb down the fairy tale -- I don't mind departing from the book when a movie is made, but they obviously sugar coated things here. I wish a remake/reimagining of this classic could be done with a richer story this time.

I saw some previews for the very old Pinnochio BD release ... I think the preview was on the Sleeping Beauty disc ... anyway, the animation in Pinnochio didn't seem as good.

Pinocchio is considered the best animated film ever made, and is considered the zenith in hand-drawn animation. I hope you're not confusing film grain with actual animation.

[zor]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Pinocchio is considered the best animated film ever made, and is considered the zenith in hand-drawn animation. I hope you're not confusing film grain with actual animation.

I didn't notice grain in the preview ... the preview just seemed to make it like Donald Duck quality animation. Sleeping Beauty was amazing as animation in the following ways -- some of these are not because of the bd format

1. The amazing detail. No present day hand drawn title seems to have this kind of painstaking craftsmanship. It makes for a very picturesque experience. The only thing I can compare the experience to (combined with atmosphere) is the computer animated Tale of Despereaux.

2. The BD format and restoration seems to make everything shine and pristine.

It was like looking at a work of art

[[1080-p]]

the way sleeping beauty looks now is the original version but everybody was used to the crop version because of the old 4:3 tv sets which made no sense

[ajmrowland]

Originally Posted by [1080-p]

the way sleeping beauty looks now is the original version but everybody was used to the crop version because of the old 4:3 tv sets which made no sense

Which is why DVD was created initially: not just to store movies, but to showcase them, which is what makes this version much more significant, as "showcase" clearly means behind the scenes material and original aspect ratio.

[pjasonOH]

Bought this the other day.
First time viewing it since the '79 re-release....absolutely amazed at the picture.While I have to agree with those who say that it may be a little light on story,the visuals and music more than make up for that to me.
Loved the Grand Canyon short,and the commentary track was very interesting to listen to.

Was VERY impressed with the Pinnochio trailer....that's going to be great as well.

[Afrobean]

I just watched this film for the first time ever.

I just wanted to say that the animation was AMAZING. Completely ignoring how the picture looked on BD (which was very good, I might add), the greatness of the animation. I saw things I had never seen before in traditional animation, I saw things looking so real and "right" that if I could have almost sworn they were cel shaded CG. That "perfectness" that makes cel shaded CG usually look fake made this animation appear more sincere and real.

For example, when the prince opens the door to the cottage, the door opening looked so amazing I couldn't believe it. And the way fabrics moves, the capes, the flags. It all looked so perfect. Did they rotoscope this thing or something?

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

I just watched this film for the first time ever.

I just wanted to say that the animation was AMAZING. Completely ignoring how the picture looked on BD (which was very good, I might add), the greatness of the animation. I saw things I had never seen before in traditional animation, I saw things looking so real and "right" that if I could have almost sworn they were cel shaded CG. That "perfectness" that makes cel shaded CG usually look fake made this animation appear more sincere and real.

For example, when the prince opens the door to the cottage, the door opening looked so amazing I couldn't believe it. And the way fabrics moves, the capes, the flags. It all looked so perfect. Did they rotoscope this thing or something?

Disney animator's wont admit, as they call it 'live action reference drawing' but the motion of the human characters is too smooth IMO to NOT be rotoscoped.