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The Reel Thing: August, 2011
http://www.the-reel-thing.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2011-Conference.pdf
[Show spoiler]
Quote:
Travel by train or flying Model-T to the towns of Medfield and Harrington:
The digital restorations of The Absent-Minded Professor and Pollyanna
Jayson Wall and Theo Gluck, The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company continues to restore and preserve the rich legacy of films produced by the studio, which includes not only animated classics but also some of the most beloved live-action features ever produced. Titles such as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Parent Trap, Old Yeller, Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island and The Love Bug have been digitally restored from the original camera negatives in 4k resolution. Recently, The Absent-Minded Professor and Pollyanna have been added to this list of restored classics.
The Absent Minded Professor, released in March of 1961, was only the second black-and-white liveaction feature film produced by Walt Disney after 1959’s The Shaggy Dog; however this wasn’t due to budgetary restraints. Co-producer Bill Walsh wanted to capture the same “low budget” feel as those “atomic” teenage monster films of the late 50’s, and somehow convinced Walt to do the same for these comedies. The Shaggy Dog turned out to be the surprise hit of 1959, which convinced Disney to keep the same formula in place for Professor, which was going into production in mid-1960.
Director of photography Edward Colman shot The Absent-Minded Professor on Kodak 5222 with a date code of 1960, hard matted in-camera at 1.66:1. Colman, who also shot many episodes of Jack Webb’s Dragnet throughout the 1950s, received his first of two Oscar nominations for his work on Professor. The film grossed over $11 million in its original release, and was re-issued in 1967 and 1974 with all release prints struck from the original black & white camera negative.
The restoration team supervised by Theo Gluck and Jayson Wall evaluated the negative in late 2010 and discovered severe damage. Replacement footage had been cut in throughout all reels and the last three reels of the feature were third generation dupes from 1961. These three reels were listed as “original production dupes” and it was assumed that they were used since day one of release. After reviewing the production files, the team, acting on a hunch, performed a worldwide search of the Disney vaults that led to some surprising and different findings for reels 4b, 5a, and 5b.
The earliest generation elements were selected for each scene, and moved to Warner Brothers MPI to be scanned at 4K resolution on a Northlight. Reels of a 1961 release print were located and used as the guide for maintaining the original look of the feature. Each reel of The Absent Minded Professor was rebuilt and reconstructed digitally by the restoration team and MPI colorist Ray Grabowski for this 50th anniversary restoration.
Pollyanna, released in May of 1960 marked the American debut of Hayley Mills, and the feature film directorial debut of David Swift. Swift started his career with Disney in the late 1930’s as an office boy and worked his way up as an assistant animator under Ward Kimball. By 1952, Swift moved to NBC and created one of the classic sitcoms of early television, Mr. Peepers. As for Mills, she was awarded the last juvenile Academy Award for her work on Pollyanna, and went on to make five additional films for Disney between 1961 and 1965.
Based on the novel by Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna featured a first-rate cast not seen in a Disney production since 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The film received positive reviews, yet it failed at the box office in 1960 and was never re-released in theaters. Pollyanna first aired on Walt Disney’s The Wonderful World of Color in 1963, and it quickly became a dependable television ratings powerhouse. By the time the film was released to video in 1983, it had become a beloved classic in the Disney library.
Original release prints on Pollyanna were in dye transfer Technicolor, and the film was photographed full aperture center on Eastman Kodak 5248, date code 1959 by director of photography Russell Harlan. Upon inspection both the yellow and cyan layers exhibited significant color dye loss, uneven fading across the image, color breathing and flickering. The original YCM elements proved to be unusable; they were produced incorrectly with one yellow record and two cyan records which had all shrunk unevenly.
As in the case of The Absent-Minded Professor, Pollyanna’s restoration was supervised by Gluck and Wall. It was decided to first test sections of various reels of the negative at Laser Pacific to analyze the viability of using modern digital tools for correction of the remaining color. This test proved successful, and the entire seven reels of auto-select negative were scanned at 4k resolution on a Northlight. Working with Disney’s resident color consultant Bruce Tauscher and Laser Pacific colorist Lou Levinson, the team referenced David Swift’s approved HD video master (made from a photochemical IP), and the studio’s 1960 dye transfer Technicolor print as color guides for this
restoration. Warner Brothers MPI handled the flicker correction.
New digital servicing files and DCPs for theatrical screenings were produced from the restorations, and plans have been made for future production of long-term 35mm preservation elements for both Pollyanna and The Absent-Minded Professor. The Walt Disney Company continues to ensure that the studio’s classic live-action features will always remain available in “first day of release” quality, true to the filmmakers’ vision for generations to come. The entire restoration team feels that Walt and the residents of Medfield and Harrington would be proud of these results.
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