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Classic Cartoons Marred by Digital Restoration
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "When classic animated films undergo digital restoration, key features can get lost in translation. The Wall Street Journal reports that the process meant to smooth over scratches and dirt specks on old film "can also remove some of the lines that make up the animation -- for example, blurring Tom's face in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak." "
here's a non-registration-required before-and-after example.
you're still going to be turned on by Buggs Bunny dressed in drag.
But the process can also remove some of the lines that make up the animation -- for example, erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak.
This problem isn't limited to cartoons - I hear that they're running into to similar problems during the restoration of early Ron Jeremy videos.
"for example, blurring Tom's face in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak."
Or making one character seem to fire their blaster first when you were sure that the other fired first last time your watched it.
Walt Disney Co. has largely avoided criticism of its cartoon restorations. For most of its projects, Disney doesn't use digital noise reduction, relying instead on artists to inspect each frame of film and remove defects either manually or with proprietary software. "If you just take a film and throw it through a noise-reduction system, you're never going to get the same standard of quality," says Jeff Miller, president for world-wide post-production and operations.
Although I'm not surprised, I'm disappointed that this isn't part of the standard process. To me, just running the film through DNR is lazy and indicative of a company just trying to make a quick buck. If you want to use a DNR machine, you gotta get a real person to check the work. Period.
Clearly, those responsible have no excuse for it. Again, FTFA:
Craig Hoffman, a spokesman for Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., which released the Looney Tunes DVDs last fall, declines to comment on the complaints about the restored cartoons. "There's a wide audience: children, collectors, people who grew up loving them," he adds.
What exactly does a wide audience, or people who grew up loving [Looney Tunes] have to do with your quality control? Is passing a shoddy product off to some members of that wide audience acceptable? I can understand that young kids may not know the difference, but if you're targeting a wide audience, you gotta account for more than young kids.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Why are they complaining about the tools when it's apparent that it's the workmanship that's at fault?
For an excellent counter example, check out the beautiful work that Animeigo did restoring the original Macross series when they released it on DVD a few years ago. The cleaned up print makes the series look like it was ten years newer.
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
Of course.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Sure we can digitally process it, but in the next decade the digital reprocessing will evolve, probably along the lines of the neural network, so that it can make better distinctions between fine lines and scratches. If they have to make some money on the technology, let them enhance products like Media Cleaner and improve digital video for a while. Remember Ted Turner's colorized classics? It was a big thing that never really went anywhere, because in the end it just didn't look right. Don't rush it, not with the classics. Human beings spent hours on every frame of those films. It was a labor of love. Digitally detracting from that level of commitment just because they can is a poor excuse abusing and disrespecting the art.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Just re-draw every single cell.
A number of the old cartoons are kept in a closet of dirty secrets because they had racist themes in them. They're no longer being broadcast, which I suppose is fine as no one should have to put up with watching them, but the flipside of this is that they're being flushed down the memory hole, enabling us to sanitize our memory and pretend that we've always been a right and just society. I'd much rather lose a line or two in a digital restoration than to have these hideous examples lost to history.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
We all watched the cartoons, with their dirt and specks and the occasional hair. I never felt there was anything wrong with that stuff. It was just part of the animation and broadcast processes. It doesn't detract from the cartoons. Going back and "fixing" these minor defects would be like filling in the cracks in the paint on the Mona Lisa. It was art before it was perfect. Now, I'm not so sure.
This space for rent.
That has changed over the past 5-6 years. At first I thought it was just me outgrowing the charm of cartoons (I'm 27). But then I realized it wasn't me or my tastes that were changing. It was the quality of the new productions that was sadly deteriorating.
This applies to most of the cartoons produced by the major animation houses in Hollywood - WB, Disney, etc. The new Tom and Jerry cartoons are a joke compared to their witty and charming predecessors. It seems that most of the focus now is on better animation and special effects through computer animation, and less focus on the *wit* and everyday humor that made them so popular in the first place.
Take any old Tom and Jerry cartoon (directed by Fred Quimby) - you'll see it based on a cat and mouse chase in the familiar settings of a house or backyard. Fastforward to their newer counterparts (incidentally directed by Chuck Jones) and you'll see a sophisticated setting like a Spaceship or France, with better graphics, but almost *no* wit or simple but *clever* plots that were common in the episodes of old.
The same holds for the Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse and other classics. The trend seems to be towards slicker animation, with little or *no* emphasis to creative wit/humor. The newer cartoons are all rehashes or remakes of the successful plots with smaller "Tiny Toon" versions of the characters.
I prefer completely new (and independently produced, I think) cartoons like Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog, etc better to these incredibly non-creative rehased versions of the classics, that the studios seem to want to cash in on.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
half assed restoration'. But no, gotta blame the Digits. Where's the personal responsibility. The Digits had nothing to do with this. I think what happened is they took a stab at restoring Popeye in the Land of the Goons and are now being, for all intents and purposes, blackballed. It was thought that all copies had been destroyed. Cultural sensitivity trumps culture, you know. Can't portray cargo cult and head hunters in a negative light.
If anyone has a pointer to a copy of 'Popeye in the Land of the Goons', I have been looking for years...
I wonder what you would say about Itchy and Scratchy!
:)
I would say that they are a parody of how violent Tom and Jerry were.
/. ++
Don't worry too much, they still have the original. When the tech comes along they'll do it right and be happy to sell them again. After a little more time they will repackage the first version again as 'classic cut version, the original footing'
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Here is David Mackenzie's website (mentioned in the WSJ article, but not linked), which shows a lot of examples:
http://lyris-lite.net/dnr.htmlGood point. One WB cartoon I haven't seen in decades is arguably the funniest. Can't find it anywhere:
In one (very recursive) scene, we find ourselves inside a movie theater, with a carefully illustrated scene of Bogart and Bacall playing on the screen. The "movie", of course, is the weird take of Jones, Freleng, et al. on live action: for example, Bogie casually tosses a flame-thrower to Bacall, instead of a Zippo, when she asks for a light.
At one point, something explodes in Bogie's face (hey, WB cartoon, gotta have at least one explosion). With his soot-covered face, "Bogie" suddenly does an impersonation of Rochester, Jack Benny's long-suffering man-servant.
Now, we can argue back and forth about the racism involved, but the sad fact is that it was a very funny short that fell well within even the most progressive norms of its day. (I honestly don't think any kids today would even get the Rochester joke -- if yours can, dear reader, you have some darn erudite children, I must say.)
Now, if this cartoon was produced today, it would be deemed offensive, and rightfully so. But shouldn't we be allowed to see these older shorts.. while not removing them from the context of their times?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
They removed the "mammy" voice from the black maid in at least one Tom & Jerry and replaced it with a generic white woman's. Only her legs (black) are shown when she is talking to them. Granted it is mildly racist by today's standards but I'd rather see the original and understand the norms of the time than to be treated like a mindless child who needs to be shielded.
I am sure most of you have seen Disney's Fantasia. Well, I have seen it, back in the days of my childhood, at a private projection (therefore, from an old reel). Even though it was very long ago, I have a very vivid memory of that event, because I have always loved classical music, and I thought that Fantasia had some of the best, most inspired and heartfelt, interpretations.
Then, about 4 years ago we purchased Fantasia on DVD, and as wewatched, I had the strange feeling that "this is just not right". I could not put my finger on it, but the music sounded devoid of excitement.
Then I remembered an old friend from primary school who had Fantasia on a very old VHS tape, and watched it. The picture had imperfections, the color was not as stable as on the DVD, but nothing that would bother me. And the music - well, it was completely different.
I came to the conclusion that, during the digital remastering, they must have done some DSP magic to remove noise and stuff, and actually killed it. Yeah, it's kinda the same music, it just feels wooden, to me totally useless. Why are the MPAA companies doing this? Obviously, because they don't care. I imagine that the larger majority of the public would not notice the difference, except that "hey, there's less noise, it must be better, right?".
Sigged!
This is what happened to _Fantasia_. Around 1985 or 1986 in the dawn of the CD era, Disney decided to digitally re-record the entire soundtrack following the original score exactly with a new orchestra. The VHS tape you saw no doubt contains the new recordings. A lot of people felt that the re-recordings were inferior to the original soundtrack, which was conducted by the great Leopold Stokowski. Disney decided to restore the original soundtrack for the DVD. In fact, the digital re-recordings have been out of print for some years and to my knowledge the only soundtrack CD available is now the original recordings conducted by Stokowski. Since you don't like the DVD music, I'm sorry, but it is what the original film had and what you liked was the re-recordings. I don't criticize you for a question of taste, but I want you to realize that the vast majority of fans of this film prefer the original recordings in all its faulty, mono sound. So you see, the VHS tape you saw is arugably the worst of both worlds - inferior video (even you admit this) and a re-recorded soundtrack in place of the original one.