Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFF on Blu Ray

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-03-2009, 02:01 PM:

SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFF will be released on Blu Ray on Tuesday and from all of the reviews I have read, it promises to be awesome. I still remember my mother taking my sister, my brother and I to see it at the Waipahu Theatre when we were little and enjoying it. I have seen it in a theatre many times after that and was very excited when it was released on laserdisc and DVD. I was very pleased with the picture quality when they were first released. I could see how much better the DVD was to the previous laserdisc release and from the images I have seen online from the BD, I am sure the Blu Ray will blow the DVD away.

Blu Ray is great when within a two week period, one can see two classic films like THE WIZZARD OF OZ and SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFF restored to maximum perfection and released in the high definition home video format.

-Claude

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 10-03-2009, 04:39 PM:

Got an E-Mail from Amazon yesterday that said that the disc shipped. I should have it on Monday or Tuesday!

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-04-2009, 03:51 PM:

Best Buy had a very nice offer a few weeks ago when they advertised a free metal Steelbook case for everyone who pre ordered the Blu Ray with a $7.50 deposit. I took them up on the offer and got the case. It is very nice and sturdy. The steelbook comes with a nice cover but does not have any text at all except for the movie title. The case comes with a slip cover and it too does not have any text.

-Claude

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-07-2009, 07:32 PM:

I picked up SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFF in Blu Ray from Best Buy yesterday but did not get to watch the entire movie but only a few scenes because I had two rental title from Blockbuster I had to see last night. I was very impressed with what I saw and very pleased with the BD. Unlike the recent PINOCCHIO and later Disney classics, the color was not vibrant but subdued most of the time. The remastered sound I believe now 7.1 DTS Master Audio for those who have the playback equipment , sounded just fine in 5.1 DTS from my Denon receiver. The set has a very generous selection of bonus features and a standard DVD. in the three disc set. I might add, the steelbook case I got from Best Buy for pre ordering SW&TSD looks great with the discs.

-Claude

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-07-2009, 08:23 PM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa was the last to post
DWARFF

All right, I can see making this error once (in the thread title yet) but to do it twice more, is sort of insulting to this great film. However, you get points for not writing "DWARVES" which I've seen in several places over the years.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-07-2009, 09:47 PM:

DUWOFFS

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 10-07-2009, 09:49 PM:

FYI, if you order it on Amazon (which has it marked down to $19.99) and enter the coupon code SNOWHITE, you'll save an extra $10, leaving it at $9.99 plus shipping.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-08-2009, 11:08 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
However, you get points for not writing "DWARVES"

I had a good friend who - with his Camden NJ accent - referred to an Oscar-winning Best Picture as "Dances With Woofs".

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-08-2009, 03:01 PM:

Mike,

I have alway made an effort to correct my spelling whenever I write and the error I had made misspelling Dwarfs was one that I had not caught and corrected. It was a honest error and was definitely not meant to be insulting to the film I have come to love long before you and probably your parents were born! [Frown]

-Claude

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-12-2009, 09:53 PM:

I bought the disk as well and was majorly impressed that all the cell dust was gone. Blu-Ray wins over film again [thumbsup]

.

As for the color balance you'd have to see the YCM refrence reel which is undoubtdly nitrate in order to know if it's close or not.

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-12-2009, 10:16 PM:

quote:
It was a honest error and was definitely not meant to be insulting to the film I have come to love long before you and probably your parents were born!

Well, not quite...my parents were born seven years before the film was made! [Smile]

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 10-13-2009, 05:18 AM:

I saw two nitrate reels of "Snow White", and was surprised how muted the colors appeared, with an overall warm tone. It was unlike any other time I've ever seen the movie.

And BTW, my parents were born in the 1920s, well before this movie was made. [Wink]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-13-2009, 10:23 AM:

Thats interesting Hillary, I don't know anyone else that has had that privilege. It may be the way the color balance was intended. GWTW was also somewhat muted but they say that was done on purpose. When Technicolor did a job for the studios they kept a YCM reference reel of every film they worked on. This was brought out and used for color matching if another order of prints was made years later. I know that Disney has their YCM reels stored so in theory the Blu-Ray should be very close to how the original looked.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-14-2009, 02:14 PM:

You can thank Natalie Kalmus for the muted look in the nitrate print of SNOW WHITE. Kalmus was the wife of Herbert Kalmus the inventor of the Technicolor process and they were divorced but she had a very important role with the company as THE color consultant of every Technicolor film up to 1949. Many D.P.'s in the motion picture industry considered her a 'bitch' but she managed to get her way most of the time in dictating how the Technicolor process was used by insisting that color in a film should not be too lavish but subdued.

-Claude

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 10-14-2009, 03:33 PM:

Right Mark, it might have been the taste at the time (in addition to Mrs. Kalmus' iron rule) not to splash the screen with too much color. At least on the features, lest such a prolonged exposure to saturated hues would weary the eyes. [Roll Eyes]

I was a bit disappointed seeing those reels. I was expecting an unprecedented (to me) level of chromic purity, and it was as far from my expectations as could be (unless it would have been B&W [Wink]

). Just like GWTW, it's likely that the originals are so different from what we're used to, a perfect "original release" restoration might not go over well.

And Claude, I seem to recall reading that Walt Disney was one of several producers who eventually was able to override Natalie Kalmus' edicts, sometime after "Snow White" though.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-27-2009, 03:33 PM:

I've seen original release nitrate reels of Pinocchio and the Mickey Mouse cartoon where Mick is a magician and Donald is heckling him. Both were very vivid.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-27-2009, 08:37 PM:

quote: Hillary Charles
I was a bit disappointed seeing those reels. I was expecting an unprecedented (to me) level of chromic purity, and it was as far from my expectations as could be

Hmmm, maybe Disney people looked at those reels and that's why they decided they needed to be "restored."

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-29-2009, 11:28 AM:

Actually, Frank, maybe they did! In order to utilize Technicolor it was in the contract that they - in most notable cases Natalie Kalmus because she chose to be the advisor on most major productions - had the final say about color in the film. It's well known that she was constantly at odds with the filmmaker's preferences.

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 10-29-2009, 03:14 PM:

Don't get me wrong. The reels looked very good, with more subtlety than I was expecting. But in my naiveté, back then I thought everything (especially animation) in Technicolor would positively glow with color and that was not the case. It doesn't surprise me that the shorts and later features would be more saturated, as the artistic misgivings about the process subsided and it was exploited for more than its novelty.