{"id":1136,"date":"2007-12-25T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-25T12:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/12\/disney-cartoons-aspect-ratios-bad-transfers\/"},"modified":"2007-12-25T12:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-25T12:27:00","slug":"disney-cartoons-aspect-ratios-bad-transfers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/12\/disney-cartoons-aspect-ratios-bad-transfers.html","title":{"rendered":"Disney cartoons, aspect ratios, bad transfers."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

David Bordwell<\/a> posted an interesting item recently on the various aspect ratios used by Jean-Luc Godard, and the difficulties that arise when projectionists and DVD producers try to crop them or mask them to fit standard screens. I am glad I am not a Godard buff, and so I do not have to grind my teeth every time a poorly framed DVD of one of his films comes out \u2014 but I feel a similar frustration whenever I see a new \u2018Walt Disney Treasures<\/a>\u2018 set.<\/span><\/p>\n

I griped about this here<\/a> and here<\/a> when More Silly Symphonies: 1929 \u2013 1938<\/i> came out last year, and the frustration continues with two new sets that came out earlier this month. I have only watched about half of The Chronological Donald Volume Three: 1947 \u2013 1950<\/a><\/i> so far, but I can\u2019t help thinking that at least some of these cartoons seem a little \u2026 pinched. Examples abound, but two screen captures from Drip Drippy Donald<\/i> (1948), in which Donald Duck turns his head when the phone rings, will suffice for now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, I suppose it is possible that the animators always intended for Donald\u2019s face to be cut off like that by the edge of the frame, but somehow I doubt it.<\/p>\n

Then there is The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit<\/a><\/i>, a collection of extremely rare silent cartoons that were produced by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Studios shortly before they created Mickey Mouse for themselves. Granted, some allowances have to be made, since many of these cartoons have been lost altogether, and some of the surviving films are in pretty bad condition. But one look at frames like this and you just know<\/i> that the people who transferred these images to DVD were either deliberately or sloppily cutting off part of the picture:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Note the word cut off at the top, and the way the hand-drawn frame is almost cut off to the right. Incidentally, this image is a terrific early example of Disney\u2019s obsession with rear-end humour, something I first noticed several years ago while watching Pinocchio<\/a><\/i> (1940; my comments<\/a>), Melody Time<\/a><\/i> (1948; my comments<\/a>) and other early Disney films.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the Oswald cartoons, like all the other Disney cartoons, are handled fairly inconsistently: some of them are \u201cwindowboxed\u201d, which means they are set within a black frame which may or may not be cropping part of the image; some of them fill the screen but you suspect the edges have been cropped just the same; and some of them have black bars only along the sides or along the top and bottom, and again, you suspect that at least some of the time the DVD producers have cropped part of the picture.<\/p>\n

Here are two examples \u2014 from Trolley Troubles<\/i> (1927) and Sky Scrappers<\/i> (1928) \u2014 where some sort of picture loss would seem to be indicated by the fact that the words used to signify sound in these silent cartoons are cut off at the edge of the frame:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Matters are just as bad, and possibly even worse, when you turn to the even older Disney-Iwerks cartoons that are included on this set as bonus features. Note how terribly off-centre the opening iris shot in Alice\u2019s Balloon Race<\/i> (1926) is:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That last frame is where the iris stops; for the rest of the shot, two corners of the image on the DVD are obscured and two corners are not. And then note how the band member on the far left of the following shot is cut off by the edge of the frame:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But what really takes the cake is this bit from the end of Bright Lights<\/i> (1928), where the DVD dissolves \u2014 in mid-shot! \u2014 from a fairly clean print to a fairly beat-up print:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, I have no problem with the dissolve itself; if the clean print comes to an end after this point and the only surviving copy of the remaining footage is from a beat-up print, then you have to work with what you\u2019ve got. But note how the beat-up print is \u201cwindowboxed\u201d, and in a way that clearly crops part of the picture; and note how the lion\u2019s foot is now pushed right to the edge of the black frame, where before it would have had a little more breathing room.<\/p>\n

This sort of thing turns up all the time on these sets, and it really shouldn\u2019t have to. One of this disc\u2019s bonus features is a scene from Sagebrush Sadie<\/i> (1928) that now exists only in the form of the original pencil sketches that were done for the film. The pencil sketches are stacked on a light table and animated just as they are \u2014 and as you can see from the screen capture below, we get to see the entire<\/i> sketches, right to the edge of the page and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now why can\u2019t they do something similar for the actual films, and show us the complete image, exactly as it is on the filmstrip?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Bordwell posted an interesting item recently on the various aspect ratios used by Jean-Luc Godard, and the difficulties that arise when projectionists and DVD producers try to crop them or mask them to fit standard screens. I am glad I am not a Godard buff, and so I do not have to grind my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDisney cartoons, aspect ratios, bad transfers.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Bordwell posted an interesting item recently on the various aspect ratios used by Jean-Luc Godard, and the difficulties that arise when\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/12\/disney-cartoons-aspect-ratios-bad-transfers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Disney cartoons, aspect ratios, bad transfers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Bordwell posted an interesting item recently on the various aspect ratios used by Jean-Luc Godard, and the difficulties that arise when\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/12\/disney-cartoons-aspect-ratios-bad-transfers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-25T12:27:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/R3ClmxbDuTI\/AAAAAAAAA9I\/Tf916on-sbM\/s400\/cap737.bmp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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