How Disney decides where to draw the line when it comes to restoring its classic films

Jim Hill

13 years ago

How does a well-intentioned restoration wind up being
thought of as a desecration of a once-popular motion picture?

That’s what Steven Spielberg seemed to be wondering earlier
this week at the 30^th anniversary screening of “Raiders of the Lost
Ark.” During the Q & A session following this Los Angeles Times-sponsored
screening, the topic of “E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial” ‘s 2002 release on DVD
came up. And Spielberg publicly admitted that he now regrets some of the
changes that were made to that version of this much-beloved movie (i.e. editing
out “You’re not dressing as a terrorist” line, digitally altering the guns that the Feds were
carrying in the film so that they now appeared to be walkie-talkies).

In hindsight, Steven now feels that he shouldn’t have listened
to all those parents groups who complained about the original 1982 version of this
Amblin Entertainment production. And that – by making the changes that he did –
Spielberg somehow managed to “ … rob the people who love E.T. of their memory
of the film.” Which is a mistake that this Academy Award-winning director seems
eager not to ever make again.

I bring this issue up because … Late last month, I got to
take part in a WebEx Online event where I then got the chance to chat with the
folks who rode herd on the restoration of the 70^th anniversary
edition of “Dumbo” (which hits store shelves next Tuesday). And as part of that
presentation, this dedicated team actually talked about having to deal with the
very same issues that Spielberg struggled with with his revised version of “E.T.”
That – when you work in the preservation & restoration business – you don’t
want to make so many fixes & futzes to a film that the audience then no
longer recognizes this movie as the one that they once saw in theaters.

Take – for example – this group’s 2004 restoration of the
first theatrically-released Mickey Mouse cartoon, 1928’s “Steamboat Willie.”

“We actually did a pristine restoration on that black-and-white
cartoon. We took the flicker out, we took the weave of the film out and we
cleaned it up,” Dave Bossert, the artistic supervisor of Walt Disney Animation
Studios‘ Restoration and Preservation Team explained. “And when we were done, ‘Steamboat
Willie’ was absolutely perfect looking. So then we screened the restored
version of this cartoon. And afterwards, we all just sat there and said ‘This
doesn’t really look right.’ At least from an artistic point of view.”

So they then showed this restored version of “Steamboat
Willie” to Roy Disney. And while Roy applauded the work that Bossert and his
team had done, he pointed out that – by cleaning up this iconic cartoon & then
restoring the print to the point that it actually looked better than most
contemporarily-produced animated shorts – they’d accidentally drained some of
the hand-drawn charm & historical significance out of “Steamboat Willie.”

“And Roy absolutely agreed with us that you cannot make it look
that perfect, because that wasn’t the way that ‘Steamboat Willie’ was created,
with the technology of that day, and it just didn’t feel right,” Bossert
continued. “So it was our group – if you
will – groupthink that you had to leave a little bit of grain, weave, light
flicker, for it to feel of the period.”

Mind you, as they’re working on a film, Disney’s Preservation and Restoration Team also try to take consideration the filmmakers’ original
intentions. Take – for example – the wire-removal work that they just did while
restoring the Studios’ 1954 live-action release, “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.”

This is a photo of the first version of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” ‘s giant squid battle.
Which Walt Disney disliked so much that he spent $250,000 on an 8-day-long reshoot.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

“When they were originally shooting the giant squid fight in
‘20,000 Leagues,’ Walt went to huge effort to hide those wires. But when he saw
the footage of what was originally supposed to be a daylight fight, Walt went ‘Oh,
this is not working.’ And the Studio then went back at great expense and
re-shot this sequence at night to kind of help the squid look more real and to
hide some of its mechanics,” explained Sarah Duran-Singer, the Senior Vice
President of Post-Production with Walt Disney Studios. “So by going in now and
digitally removing some of the more obvious wires … Well, I feel like we’re
actually honoring the filmmakers’ original intentions. Which was to hide – as much
as possible – how the giant squid figure in this fight sequence from ‘20,000
Leagues’ was really being manipulated.”

Conversely, while they’re scanning these movies for
restoration (which – in “Dumbo” ‘s case, anyway – involved going frame-by-frame
through 3.2 miles of film. 275,352 frames, to be exact), Disney’s Restoration
and Preservation Team also tries to fix those glitches that – if the original
filmmakers back in the day had had the time or the technology – they would have
undoubtedly fixed as well.

“As we’re cleaning up and inspecting each individual frame,
we’ve done things like removing reflections of the cameramen or of the light
spilling into the room when someone accidentally opened the door to that camera
room just as this frame was being shot,” Bossert said. “When we look at these movies
as closely as we do while we’re doing our restoration work, you’ll notice all sorts
of oddities that really weren’t meant to be in the finished version of these films.”

As part of the Studio’s 1951 featurette, “Operation Wonderland,” Walt demonstrates
how the camera animation set-up works. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved

One of the other challenges that Disney’s Preservation &
Restoration Team had to deal with while working on this particular animated
feature had to do with the extreme economic conditions that “Dumbo” was produced
under. To explain: As the 1940s were getting underway, the Studio was just
coming off the release of “Pinocchio” & “Fantasia.” And since these two
animated features had been prohibitively expensive to produce and hadn’t nearly
done as well financially as Walt would have hoped, a decision was made at the
Studio level to take a far different approach with “Dumbo.”In that this
particular animated feature was to be made for as quickly and as cheaply as
possible.

“And because ‘Dumbo’ was a lower-cost production and the
Studio was trying to save as much money as they could, they would reuse cells,”
Duran-Singer said.

The way that this process worked was: After the animation
had been completed and it had been hand-inked & painted on an acetate cell,
it was then photographed. And once this footage was developed & screened,
and Walt and his team had then looked at it and said “That’s okay” … Well, then
these ink-and-paint covered pieces of acetate were sent to the cell washer. Where
all of the ink & paint were scrubbed off of that piece of acetate so that this
cell could then be used again in the production of another piece of animation.

“And here’s a fun piece of trivia for all you animation
history buffs out there,” Dave Bossert chimed in at this particular point in
the WebEx Online conference. “Chuck Jones actually got his start in the
business by working as a cell washer for a little while here at Disney. Chuck
got his start here.”

Anyway … The problem with reusing pieces of acetate that had
been through the cell washing process was that it often scratched the cell
material. Not to mention introducing some warpage, expansion and shrinkage to
the acetate. Which eventually became obvious when this repainted cell was once
again placed on the camera stand and then photographed.

“So now – some 70 years after the fact – we’re now able to
scan movies like ‘Dumbo’ and then fix many production mistakes like this. Make
these films look as good if not better than they did when they were originally released
to theaters. But before we do anything like that, we always ask ourselves ‘Should
we?’ ,” Duran-Singer states. “Since we don’t want to repeat that ‘Steamboat
Willie’ situation … Well, we’ve had some very lively debates. We constantly ask
ourselves: if they had the time, the money, or the technical expertise, would
the Disney animators & artists who originally worked on this move have
fixed that? We always try to have Walt and the original filmmakers help guide
our choices here. We never want to change the original intention of any of the
films that we restore.”

Of course, what helps in a case like this is when you can
bring in animators who actually worked on these films back in the day and then
hear their opinions on how the restoration of a particular animated feature has
turned out. Case in point: That time back in 2002 when they showed the recently-cleaned-up version of “Bambi”
to Disney Legends Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.

“I’ve been at Disney for 24 years now. And that particular
screening of ‘Bambi’ was probably the most nerve-wracking moment of my career,”
Duran-Singer remembered. “When the lights went up, I was just petrified as we
all turned around and waited for Frank & Ollie’s reaction. And to see them smile and say, ‘It’s beautiful. It’s how we intended it,’ was just so
satisfying for the whole team.”

Sadly, as the years go by, it becomes harder & harder
for Dave & Sarah to bring in folks like Frank & Ollie to come consult
on these film restorations. Which is why Bossert & Duran-Singer find
themselves increasingly turning to Disney’s Animation Research Library and the
70 million pieces of art that Lella Smith & her staff have on file there. So that they can then make color comparisons
between the actual backgrounds that were painted for these animated features
and the way that these backgrounds now look in the scanned nitrate negatives
and then make the necessary color adjustments.

Which kind of brings things full circle here … Since – just as
film fans have complained about Spielberg’s retooled “E.T. : The
Extra-Terrestrial” with its guns-that-were-turned-into-walkie-talkies – some animation
fans have grumbled about how bright the colors are in these recently restored
Disney classics.

“We’ve gotten a lot of push-back on that issue,”
Duran-Singer admitted. “Which I understand. Given that so many of us saw these
movies in theaters during our childhoods. ‘Pinocchio,’ for example. My
childhood memory of that Disney animated feature was that it was dark. It was
loaded with dark reds, heavy browns and a lot of wood. But when we scanned that nitrate negative,
what did we see? All of these beautiful
pastel colors. These pinks, these lavenders. And Pinocchio’s eyes were so blue.
That’s when we began to realize that the prints of ‘Pinocchio’ that had been
out in theaters for decades now were not color-timed off of the original. Which
is why our memory of this movie is totally different than the one that people
who saw ‘Pinocchio’ during its original theatrical release back in 1940 have.”

In situations like this, where people are going to compare
how the newly restored Blu-ray version of a Disney classic looks on a high-def
screen versus the way that they remember this same film looking when it was
projected theatrically … Well, obviously there are going to be differences.
Especially when you consider that the film print that you were viewing then was
probably several generations away from the original negative.

But based on their research, not to mention conversations with
the Disney Legends who actually worked on these films as well as the reference
material that they regularly pull from the Animation Research Library, Dave
& Sarah are very confident that the restored versions of the movies that their
unit at the Studio produces are great representations of what these Disney
classics actually looked like when they were originally released to theaters.

“You’ve gotta remember that – when we were working on restoring
‘Bambi’ – we had Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Tyrus Wong coming in to look
at our work. And these were the artists who originally worked on that film,” Bossert
said. “So to have those three approve of our restoration effort … Well, I’d much
rather make Frank, Ollie & Tyrus Wong happy than some ‘Bambi’ fan who
vaguely remembers what that movie looked like when they saw it at their local
cinema 25 years ago. I can sleep comfortably at night knowing that I made those
three guys happy.”

Which isn’t to say that the efforts of Disney’s Preservation
& Restoration Team can’t ever be improved. Take – for example – this unit’s
recent decision to revisit the work that they did on “Bambi.”

“We restored ‘Bambi’ back in 2003. And that was the first
restoration job that we did by scanning the original successive exposure negative,”
Duran-Singer stated. “But because the tools that we use have improved and our
artists’ knowledge have grown so much over the past seven, eight years … When
it came time to produce a Blu-ray version of ‘Bambi,’ we immediately decided to
take another run at restoring this animated feature. Because we know, given
everything that we’ve learned since 2003, that we can do a far better job this
time around.”

I have to admit that this was the part that I liked most of
this “Dumbo” WebEx Online event. The fact that Disney’s Preservation &
Restoration Team was comfortable with the idea that they could revisit films that
they’d already worked on. That Bossert & Duran-Singer acknowledged that,
given the improvements in technology and film preservation techniques that will
undoubtedly arise in the years ahead, that it then just kind of made sense to
acknowledge that the restoration & preservation of Disney’s classic movies would
be an on-going process. But – at the same time – Dave & Sarah knew where &
when to draw the line, so to speak, when it came to the sorts of changes & “improvements”
that they could / should be making to these Disney films.

Which kind of makes me wish that Bossert & Duran-Singer
had had a conversation with Spielberg before he “improved” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.”
But given that Steven – during the Q & A portion of this week’s 30^th
anniversary “Raiders of the Lost Ark” screening – did float the idea that, when
“E.T.” comes out on Blu-ray, the version that will be available for purchase will
the 1982 original rather than the 2002 version of this Amblin Entertainment
production … Well, maybe Spielberg is learning, all on his own, where the line
is. At least when it comes to tinkering with much-beloved motion pictures.

Now if someone could only show George Lucas where this line is.

Your thoughts?

The article was updated / corrected on September 15, 2011 to fold in additional information