TonyWDA

WaltWiz1901 said:
I’ll take your word for it regarding The Jungle Book, but I personally thought that film’s discrete surround remix fared much better than that for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Compare how the music playing over the opening credits (and a few other scenes) sound(s) on the 1996 releases with how they sound on the 2002-onward releases…it’s even more night and day than the differences between the matrix surround and discrete surround versions of “I Wanna Be Like You”.

That mix is the best way to appreciate the film’s score, but even that is not without its own problems. The soundtrack has no matrix-encoded surround information to decode despite being advertised as a Dolby Stereo track, so it’s only a standard stereo mix— in fact, in some scenes you can hear a doubled layer of score delayed by milliseconds in the phantom centre that was clearly supposed to be coming from the back of the room when fed through the right receiver. Not sure what happened when Disney mastered the disc audio but it makes fixing other dialogue/music sync issues, that do occasionally crop up, a flipping headache to correct.

These kinds of problems are most evident, for example, in the sequence where Rabbit gets lost in the woods; it’s almost impossible to ignore the music echoing in the centre field a split second after you hear it from the left and right, and Rabbit’s call for help near the end of the sequence clips pretty badly. Another mixing faux pas that drives me crazy is when Tigger talks to the narrator near the end of the film. For some reason, the mixer layered the score that’s supposed to be playing underneath the dialogue with the instrumental to what sounds like the “Wonderful Thing About Tiggers” reprise, resulting in a frustrating cacophony of music that was clearly not originally intended.

Those are just the examples that come to mind as of this writing. Despite its minor problems, the mix is still the best the film has ever sounded, and a Godsend for anybody still waiting for Disney to drop the complete stereo score via their “Legacy Collection” line. But I’m kind of digressing; the whole point of this wall of text is to further what was earlier said about Disney’s inconsistent attention to the quality of presentation of their A/V. Back to Fantasia, its last release obviously focused more on the video presentation than that of the audio, and it’s been that way since the 1990 Fantasound reconstruction. Again, the write up I linked to earlier highlights the issues w/ the 2000 and 2010 DTS mix.

I think he meant to ask if I was going to remix the captured audio in 5.1, and yes, the plan is to fashion a new multichannel mix, but as previously mentioned, it depends heavily on the quality of the source material and capture, so I can’t promise anything at this point. Once the mono and stereo audio has been digitized, I’ll know for sure what I’m working with. HDR for the video is a must. Once you’ve seen Fantasia properly projected with just the right amount of luminance, there’s no going back— some of those special effects really pop in 35mm, and you really won’t get the full effect in SDR.

Disney is wildly inconsistent with the A/V quality of some of their titles. The Jungle Book is another one that comes to mind. If ever you can, listen to the 1990 Dolby Stereo soundtrack; it’s noticeably more enveloping and consistently separated than the 2007 Platinum Edition mix, despite the latter being presented in discrete surround. Sound effects pan more frequently in the Dolby Stereo mix, and while the underscore for almost every song is mixed in broad mono that sounds flat as a pancake in the Platinum Edition (”Trust in Me,” “My Own Home,” and the closing “Bare Necessities” reprise being the only exceptions), you can hear separate music stems at play in the Dolby Stereo mix. The differences between 1990 and 2007 “I Wanna Be Like You” in particular are like night and day. (I’ll probably post the A/B comparison videos here soon.) So, yeah, there’s trade offs between both options— few scenes have broad mono score while most are in true stereo, and it isn’t always the same scene in both mixes.

For those interested in Fantasia’s audio history, I’ve explained it here.

That’s incredibly appreciated, but the project is currently self-funded. The aim for both prints is a 4K HDR scan, which-- factoring in hard drives, shipping, pre-scan film cleaning-- is altogether going to be so ridonkulously expensive that the goal would have taken forever to reach through crowdfunding alone, if it ever got there at all.

I bring it up here in the first place simply for fans of the film, Disney, and preservation in general to look forward to the project’s completion. And in regards to the funding goal…

Reel 1 contained the first 14 minutes of the film (introduction by Deems + Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), and Reel 4 had the other 2/3 of the Rite of Spring. Worst case scenario, the mag print that I have for the soundtrack is thankfully complete without a single splice, so for the time being I can substitute the missing IB Tech reels with the same ones from the mag print. In fact, the plan was to have both prints scanned anyway so that any missing footage from the Tech print could be patched using the mag print scan, whether it was the occasional missing frame or, in this case, a whole two reels of Technicolor footage.

Thank you very much. n__n

I’m trying to make as much progress as I can given the circumstances. Already tried one scanning facility that turns out some seriously great work, and I should be getting samples from the mag stereo reels over the next few weeks. I’ll update as soon and as frequently as possible.

Thanks. =)
I’ve wanted to talk about it here for so long now, but needed to make sure I at least secured enough of the right source material first before I could speak in confidence. As fortunate as it is that we’ll be getting (most of) an original Technicolor print preserved, improving the film’s soundtrack has always been this project’s primary objective, and I can’t wait to hopefully share samples of what I have in mind for that. =D

Not from a scan, just a picture (shoddily) taken w/ an iPhone. The final scan, Lord be willing, will look much better and properly timed.

Quite a few; LaserDiscs, reel-to-reel tapes, record albums, 35mm optical/magnetic audio-- just about anything and everything I can get my hands on. Again, this is all assuming that there won’t be any hiccups during the transfer process and the resulting sound quality is optimal for every resource. Already have the LaserDisc audio, working on getting the rest digitized.

So far, that’s the plan. All I can say for now is that I might see a digitized version of that mix soon, but nothing is set in stone and I’m doing my best to keep my expectations in check. There would still need to be some work done on the soundtrack before it’s presentable, though. One of the trademarks of the original mix is its aggressive pans, but they didn’t always occur precisely when they were supposed to, resulting in some minor signal bleed between the other channels. Probably not as much of a problem when the music is played through a stereo system, but it draws a lot of attention to itself through headphones. Thankfully, that’s a relatively easy thing to fix with very seamless results. In the event that I do any work on the audio, the original raw capture will be provided as a listening option. Again, this is all barring any unforeseen setbacks with obtaining it in the first place. Hoping for the best.

Updated first post w/ sample strip.

I wouldn’t have known about the Taylor footage in this release had you not brought it up on a Skype chat, so a big thanks to you for that. Luckily, SpringBoob over there uploaded some of the draft pages I could point to. =)

But yes, that release’s biggest draw for me is certainly the sound. It did go for sale on eBay some years ago and I still have not forgiven myself for refusing to bid on it knowing what I know now about the extra Deems Taylor audio. I don’t rule out the possibility of a 16mm blue-track Technicolor print existing somewhere, though, as I’ve seen IB Technicolor Pinocchio listings (more than once!) with the same blue tracks-- RKO credit cards and all.

Hey, all.

I’m currently in the planning stages of a very personal Fantasia preservation project, but for it to move entirely forward, I need some help. The film’s footage will be sourced from a (drop dead gorgeous) IB Technicolor print from 1954, which unfortunately lost reels 1 and 4 to the worst case of vinegar syndrome I’ve ever witnessed: completely unusable. If I can get those two reels from another 35mm IB Tech print comprised of 8 reels-- even if I can only borrow them for scanning, then we’re in business. (Not literally, this is strictly a non-profit preservation project, as it should be.)

The other problem involves the film’s master of ceremonies, Deems Taylor. As Fantasia’s original sound elements no longer exist, neither do Taylor’s complete commentary tracks, and all that has ever survived is what’s available in the general release version. Or so I thought; according to this post, studio continuity drafts for the 1942 release confirm that more of Taylor’s recordings did survive in that 81-minute cut. I guess this is a call to action of sorts to all film collectors/archivists and dedicated enthusiasts who happen to peruse these threads, that either have access to a reduction print or an original blue-track Technicolor print of this release or at least know where either may exist. I’m trying to include as many of the original soundtrack elements as possible in this homebrew, even if it’s just a minute or two more of commentary audio that wasn’t previously available, so locating a good copy of this release would be an enormous help.

I hope to share more about this meaningful project soon. =)

Scan Visual Elements
☑️ 1956 SuperScope Print (8/8 Reels)
☑️ 1969 Eastman SP Print (8/8 Reels)
🔄 U.K. Technicolor Print (5/6 Reels)
🔄 U.S. Technicolor Print (3/7 Reels)

Digitize Audio Sources
☑️ 1956 SuperScope Print (4-track Magnetic Stereo)
☑️ 1969 Eastman SP Print (4-track Magnetic Stereo)
🔄 U.K. Technicolor Print (Optical Mono)
🔄 U.S. Technicolor Print (Optical Mono)

Refurbish Audio Sources
⬜️ 1956 4-track Magnetic Stereo
⬜️ 1969 4-track Magnetic Stereo
⬜️ U.K. Optical Mono
⬜️ U.S. Optical Mono

Create Video Transfer
⬜️ Color-correct scanned footage.
⬜️ Apply mild cleanup to color-corrected footage.
⬜️ Edit corrected footage.

Create Audio Mixes
⬜️ 1940 Fantasound Mix*
⬜️ 1946 Monaural Mix

(*1956 General Release Version)

Nothing to worry about. The Fantasia on the 1990 reissue and 1991 VHS releases are one and the same, both running at about 119 minutes. Unless the theatrical reissue prints were played at 25fps instead of the intended 24, I’m not sure why someone would note that they ran 5 minutes faster than the VHS, because they most certainty did not. Disney, too, noted this on their anthology box set from 2000, and it is simply not correct.

The short answer, unfortunately, is no. The $100-$200 price range is likely to get you a good print scan if you know who to ask, but it’s definitely not enough to buy a dedicated scanner to do it yourself. Lasergraphics’ ScanStation units are fairly popular for this sort of thing, but the most “affordable” option is a whopping $50K, minimum.

I would pay close attention to the Kinograph website as the year goes by. This is a do-it-yourself 16/35mm film scanner that already has a second, improved model currently in development, the ballpark cost of which will be somewhere around the $1K-$2K range, I believe. With that, you then have the option of buying the same area imaging sensors that ScanStation and the like use for their units, if not better. Sony, for example, just released the Pregius 6.5K CMOS area scan sensor sometime last year, and it was reported somewhere on Cinematography.com that Lasergraphics was already testing it for future use because of its improved dynamic range and noise levels.

From what I understand, though, and somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, you won’t pull that much information off a release print by scanning anywhere above 2.5K resolution. Where a larger resolution scan succeeds, if memory serves, is in the amount of noise (or lack thereof) that it captures—- usually the lower, the better. Then you can downres to 2K resolution and still have a fairly sharp transfer with little to no distracting noise levels. But it’s only one of several factors; in the most general/blanket sense, if the camera you’re using also has large photoreceptors, regardless of what resolution you’re capturing in, then you collect information with less noise problems. You also want to make sure you’re using diffused lighting, which can do a great job hiding some really nasty surface scratches without having to perform a wetgate scan.

Hope this helped in some way, and that others with far more experience and expertise in using and building film scanners can chip in here, too. All the best in your preservation efforts! =)

I happened to be the one who bought this print much earlier this year. It had some pretty bad vinegar syndrome, almost all of the color was gone, and it was most certainly not a “1940 print.” It was a reprint of the general release version from the late 40s. Promptly returned it.

Fantasia suffered, man. For those unaware of the film’s troubled sound history, the long and the short of it is that the original nitrate stems, that made possible the final 4-track Fantasound mix, no longer exist. All that was left for sound engineer Terry Porter to work with for the Dolby remix in 1990 was a magnetic copy of the original mix made in 1955 (only one Fantasound print had survived by that point, so Disney worked fast to preserve what was left). In addition, he used notes by Stokowski himself that told mixers where to pan the sound and when during the film, so it would say things like, “Left wall…,” “Kill the fronts…,” “Back only…,” and so forth in order to correlate the movement of the sound with the movement on and off screen. For instance, the church bells near the end of Bald Mountain ring from the back of the theater as they were meant to, originally causing Carthay Circle Theatre patrons to turn around in their seats in complete disbelief that they were hearing what sounded like actual church bells coming from the back of the room.

Armed with Stokowski’s copious mixing notes, the resulting remix was as faithful a recreation of the intended Fantasound as anybody has ever gotten. So far, VHS tapes and LaserDiscs of that same reissue, fed through a receiver with Dolby Pro-Logic decoding, are the only way you can hear that mix, with hard pans to the left, right, front, and back. Pretty cool stuff.

The 60th Anniversary Edition DVD from 2000 has a 5.0 mix that, on paper, looked like it was going to be a discrete version of the same Dolby mix from the 50th anniversary edition, which would’ve been welcome, but the score never steps out of the front to move around the room as it did before. Plus, it sounds insanely compressed, even in DTS.

The 70th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray from 2010 has a 7.1 mix that is a truly curious case. The left/center/right Fantasound audio was not only DNR’d to death but also thrown to the back of the room (???) while a mono downmix of that very same information overpowers it from the front, narrowing if not completely erasing the original stereo image during playback. It’s like this throughout the entire film, not once moving around the room the way that it should. As a result of the previously mentioned (and excessive) DNR’ing, details in quieter passages have been filtered out along with most of the noise floor, and now sound muddied. What’s more, there’s this strange series of chirpy, crackling artifacts found in the upper frequency region during loud passages that’s almost impossible to ignore. A seriously troubled mix this one is, and to think it got a 5/5 on several well-known Blu-ray review sites.

I’ve heard professional captures of the magnetic stereo mix from a SuperScope reissue (not from poita’s upcoming project, but from a collector who owns a 1963 stereo print) and the film is much better heard this way than through anything else officially available to consumers. In addition, Fantasia also had what sounded like a dedicated mono mix-- it wasn’t just a fold down of the 4-track stereo mix. Different sections of the orchestra were better prioritized here than they were in the stereo version, and because of several technical tells I am thoroughly convinced that what you’re hearing really is a dedicated mix that sourced the original stems before they were forever lost to time… with an exception made to what sounds like an alternate take for “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The Nutcracker Suite; doesn’t line up with the stereo mix at all. Julietta Novis’ first “Ave Maria” towards the end of the film sounds like a different take, too, but the rest of her vocals and the segment in general sounds otherwise identical to the stereo version.

It’s a shame neither the mag stereo nor the optical mono tracks were just given as clean a capture as possible and offered as a listening option; both sound great.

Excuse me? I know what you’re thinking of. It’s the original theatrical release.

That’s not what he was referring to. There’s a 73-minute work-in-progress version of The Lion King that used to be available on a private torrent site.

monks19 said:
Hi. About IB prints, it’s important to note that this print might date from several generations and since then, the color maight have been manipulated several times (among othe factor). At this point, I don’t think we’ll be able to get it 100% accurate with all the elements we have (I might be wrong, though).

Oh, of course! I’m well aware that the '69 print I got to see was several generations away from the original 35mm elements (could’ve sworn I pointed that out somewhere in my last reply). Still, there were one too many times during both screenings I attended last year where the color palette was strikingly similar to what we ended up getting on the 2010 restoration. Again, this doesn’t for a second mean that the Superscope print should therefore look the exact same way. Accurate to the original color timing or not, I just found it so fascinating that what I saw at the MoMA was so close to what’s on the Blu-ray.

Also, even though I’d hoped desperately for the magnetic stereo track, I was still blown away by the quality of the optical monaural mix. Completely dry and not nearly as hissy as I was expecting it to be-- noise levels were extremely low and the dynamic range was very good, too. The LaserDisc has the same mix on the analog tracks, and while it’s totally listenable it still has noticeable reverb. Kinda wish Disney had just cleaned up the optical mono, put it on the LD and left it at that. Ah, well…

titanic said:

Thank you very mnuch for the info.
Wow, i had never thought that those shots had indeed a sky blue backgound.
i was so used to the dark-almost black background and it also made sense narratively…

Anytime! I’m happy to help anyway that I can. ^-^

I swear I’m NOT trying to turn this into a Beauty and the Beast color discussion, but I can certainly empathize with finding a color choice (or discrepancy) making more sense in the body of the narrative. Remember how in the VHS version of BatB the Beast was almost silhouetted in both the prologue and his introduction scene in the castle den? I LOVED that. It made it far more menacing to leave the details of his body mostly to the imagination, save for his white teeth and the sclera of his eyes.

Likewise, that darkened background in that Toccata shot certainly gave the abstract imagery more focus. =D

EDIT: I… think my TV from way back wasn’t properly calibrated or something, 'cause I just went back to both of those scenes and the Beast is very clearly seen. Disregard everything I just said. xD

Last summer, the MoMA screened a 35mm I.B. Tech print of Fantasia… twice. Naturally, I attended both screenings knowing it’d be forever until I’d see the film in that format again. x)

Before going to either screening, I went in ready to take mental notes in order to properly compare the color palette from the 35mm print to that of the Blu-ray. (I believe somebody on the Blu-ray.com forums pointed out that same 1990/2010 shot comparison, titanic.)

On the 35mm I.B. Tech print, that Toccata shot was extremely close to what is seen on the Blu-ray. No darkened backgrounds, all blue. In addition, most all of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Dance of the Hours, The Nutcracker Suite– all nearly identical to the Blu-Ray. Hardly anything was difficult to make out and the colors were incredibly vibrant. The other segments, Rite of Spring, The Pastoral Symphony, A Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria, I swear were somewhere in between the 1990 and 2010 restorations. Some shots looked like the BD, others more like the murky 1990 print. I can’t explain it, but that’s exactly what I remember thinking after walking out of both screenings. (God, I wish there were pictures of what I saw readily available!)

Now, does this mean that the Superscope print, therefore, should line up exactly w/ what I saw last summer? Not necessarily. Especially considering the print I saw was from 1969, and I don’t know enough about the Technicolor process (or what the original Fantasia negatives even looked like) to call out an “accurate print” when I see one. But I’m just throwing this all out there for anybody who perhaps heard of the screening and was unable to attend for whatever reason. In any case, the Superscope stills posted so far all look incredible and I can’t wait to finally see this print in full.

(If nobody can tell by this point, Fantasia ranks as my absolute favorite Disney film, so this entire project means a great deal to me. Major kudos to everybody involved. ^-^)