Sleeping Beauty Restoration Web Conference
HomeSleeping Beauty Restoration Web Conference
Posted October 11, 2008 06:45 PM by Lindsay Mayer
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 Exposure 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, nonfading 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 18mm 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 exposed area of up to 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 Exposure Technicolor process, that means each color frame is recorded into an area 9 times as large as the current 35mm format 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!
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 Exposure 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, nonfading 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 18mm 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 exposed area of up to 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 Exposure Technicolor process, that means each color frame is recorded into an area 9 times as large as the current 35mm format 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!