I submitted some images to Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research group on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/161346744015168
They compare original cel materials with frames from a DVD of the Fleischer/Famous Superman cartoons. The post hasn’t been approved, and I have my doubts that it will be. I previously gave the Max Fleischer Superman Blu-ray from Warner Brothers a favorable review, despite the Archive Collection team being taken off of the project for reasons I don’t know.
The reviews by hardcore fans have been scathing, with the consensus being that, for all its faults, the 2009 Warner DVD is vastly better and truer to the original cartoons. Comparisons between images from the raw HD transfers and the restoration work that was done on them for the Blu-ray release can be seen here.
https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/115440/maxfleischerssuperman.html
The guy who produced this video review goes so far down the proverbial rabbit hole, he’s beyond all reasonable hope of returning.
Here are the images I submitted. My idea is, if the old DVD is preferred over the Blu-ray, how does it compare to the original cels? There aren’t many still in existence, and with an acknowledgment that the paint on the underside of the cels may be faded, they look nothing at all like the colors as presented on the DVD.
My point about the Blu-ray image quality is that it gives an inkling of how the cartoons might have looked if it had been possible to scan the original cels digitally, rather than being photographed in Technicolor. The Technicolor process requires combining three strips of film, one for each primary color, with each layer having its own grain. The Fleischer/Famous Superman cartoons have always seemed especially grainy, compared to other Technicolor cartoons. Not too bad in SD DVD, but revealing to the point of distraction in HD Blu-ray. I’d compare it to the dust that plagued the layers of glass on Disney’s multi-plane camera. Technicolor’s color saturation is appealing, but it can also go too far, along with changes in contrast.
The mastering software used on the Fleischer Superman Blu-ray set has removed Technicolor’s triple-layer grain and subdued some of the candy-coated colors. For better or for worse, the cartoons look nothing like they do in any of the previous releases. This is what makes the latest set interesting to me. There’s a happy outcome yet to be realized, and I agree with the majority opinion in wanting to see the raw transfers done over once again, but this time supervised by Jerry Beck and the Warner Archive Collection team.
Thanks, Brian. This is a low-traffic blog and new viewers are appreciated. The overlap between art and technology in animation has always interested me.
Doug,
Yeah, very few people are aware of SE Technicolor. Disney started using it about 1936-1937 and they continued to use it (supposedly) into the 1970’s. Somewhere on the internet there’s an interesting interview with Robert A. Harris on the restoration of “Sleeping Beauty”, which not only used the SE Process, but was also photographed in Super Technirama 70. Harris said the negative on “Sleeping Beauty” is 3 miles long. I think I read that Disney actually used SE-Technicolor until “The Little Mermaid”, when they switched to color film stock. I honestly don’t know when they stopped it completely. There’s a little internet chatter that the uncut negative on “The Black Cauldron” still exists and its in Super Technirama 70 with SE Exposure. Disney’s official site says SE-Technicolor was used on some of the “Roger Rabbit” shorts, too. The benefit on animation is that the color on an animated film won’t fade over time, so it makes sense that Disney used it for a while. It probably disappeared when Disney came-up with their CAPS system; which eliminated the ink-and-paint department completely, but that’s just a guess. BTW, I like your Blog.
Brian – Thanks very much for the information and insight. Technicolor’s Successive Exposure Process was unknown to me. It sounds like a perfect technology for its time to photograph animation in color, cel by cel.
The “Superman” cartoons from the 1940’s were not produced in the Technicolor 3-Strip Process. They were photographed in Technicolor’s Successive Exposure Process. They weren’t grainy during original release. They were IB Tech prints. The color was most likely close to the cel images you posted. Though, Dye Prints could vary. Successive Exposure, or SE-Technicolor, uses one strip of black-and-white film with a rotating filter of yellow, cyan and magenta over the camera lens. Each cel gets one exposure with each filter. The negative then has 3 of the same cel set-up images with each corresponding primary color. Grain isn’t a problem. Alignment upon release, or realignment for shrinkage during storage, isn’t a problem. The “Superman” cartoons probably appeared grainy for years only because people were likely watching dupes of this Public Domain title. Its a shame, then, that with the OCN apparently properly vaulted, the people who transferred these 1940’s cartoons botched the job with modern software. Its also ironic that no one has pointed-out in any review of this “Superman” set that Disney has been handling they’re own catalogue titles the same way since “Snow White” was remastered from the OCN in the 1980’s. Many of the animators were still alive for Disney’s 50th Anniversary release of “Snow White” and many of these same animators were consulted, but their insights were wholly ignored by the studio. When asked how they thought of the new, and much brighter, edition of “Snow White”, one animator commented: “I liked the colors. They weren’t the colors we used, but I liked the colors.” It took almost 40 years before Disney corrected the issues on “Snow White”. I doubt Warner will listen to any fan complaining about this new Fleischer “Superman” transfer, not even Jerry Beck. That’s showbiz folks.