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Major Disney 20K restoration

From: Brian Taves <briantaves1879~at~yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:45:38 -0700 (PDT)
To: jvf~at~gilead.org.il

The Program
Thursday . August 18
"The Mightiest Motion Picture Of Them All!"
The Digital Restoration of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Theo Gluck, Walt Disney Company
Jayson Wall, Walt Disney Company
The winner of two Academy Awards for Art Direction and Special Effects, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was Walt Disney's first live-action film to be photographed in CinemaScope and on the new Eastman Kodak 5248 color negative. Introduced in 1952, Eastman 5248 was an integral tripack safety negative using dye-coupler technology with an ASA of 25, balanced for tungsten lighting. The Technicolor dye-transfer process was utilized not only for the 1954 original release, but also the 1963 and 1971 re-issues. The original release prints, however, possessed a triple inventory of 4-track mag stereo-stripe at 2.55:1, optical mono CinemaScope prints in 2.35:1, and a "flat" pan and scan 1.37:1 35mm version with an optical mono soundtrack for non-CinemaScope theaters. At a total budget of nine million dollars, 20,000 Leagues was the most expensive film production Walt Disney undertook. It went on to become the second highest grossing film of 1954.
Supervised by Theo Gluck and Jayson Wall, the restoration team on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea first evaluated the A and B roll original camera negative. As was feared, both the yellow and cyan layers exhibited significant color dye loss. It was decided to test sections of various reels by scanning them at 4K on a Northlight at Warner Brothers MPI to further analyze the remaining color viability when using modern digital tools for color correction. This test proved very successful, and the team scanned all 24 reels of the original camera negative, along with a small section of Reel 1-A from the 1955 YCM separation masters to substitute a poor dupe replacement section cut into the original negative. Working with Disney's resident color consultant Bruce Tauscher and MPI colorist Ray Grabowski, the team referenced SD and HD video masters that were approved by director Richard Fleischer in the late 90's, along with the Studio's 1954 dye-transfer 4-track mag
 print as color guides for this restoration. Unlike most dye-transfer prints, this element did not exhibit the normal wide latitude of timing shifts from scene to scene, section to section, or reel to reel that commonly afflict this process. All three elements were very similar in color value (within each format's respective limitations), so maintaining the original look of this classic feature was not clouded in ambiguity.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was also one of the first films to be photographed in CinemaScope using first generation Bausch & Lomb anamorphic lenses. Unfortunately these lenses had an inherent distortion known today as "the CinemaScope Mumps". CinemaScope Mumps occur due to the variable "squeeze" coefficient throughout the focal plane. This causes the anamorphic effect to gradually drop off as objects approach closer to the lens. This results in images being slightly overstretched in the horizontal plane, most noticeably on actor close-ups. Using original on-set production and publicity photos for accurate sizing reference, the restoration team removed much of this distortion by digitally squeezing in the image .5%. Since the original camera negative of 20,000 Leagues was actually shot perf to perf in 2.66:1, this new restoration has gained 1.6mm of image on the left side and .25mm on the right side of the frame-all of which had heretofore been
 concealed by the mag track in original prints. This "mumps" correction enabled us to faithfully reconstruct the original 2.55:1 image as seen in first-run theaters during the 1954 and early 1955 theatrical engagements.
The team's goal was simple: to create state-of-the-art digital archival and service elements to ensure that Walt Disney's finest live-action feature would always remain available in "first day of release" quality, true to the filmmakers' vision. The original tagline sums up 20,000 Leagues Under TheSea perfectly: it's still "The Mightiest Motion Picture Of Them All!"

Brian Taves
Received on Mon 22 Aug 2011 - 06:45:46 IDT

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