Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Disney re-working "Beauty and the Beast" in 3-D

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-20-2008, 09:27 PM:

I heard this on the radio today. It's going to come out in 2010. Very sad. I would love to see this movie on the big screen again, but not wearing those damn glasses.

They should do "Fantasia." At least then everyone could get stoned and it would have a point.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-21-2008, 02:15 AM:

I really don't see the point of this.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-21-2008, 02:40 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
I really don't see the point of this.

Joe.....say it loud, say it proud. Say it with a Mickey Mouse lisp in the side of your cheek.... MONEY! When has it ever been about anything else with the Big Rodent?

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 11-21-2008, 03:55 AM:

I think Walt's flipped in his grave so many times over what has happened to the Walt Disney studios over the years, that he has drilled through his casket and out of the cemetery.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-21-2008, 08:06 AM:

All three toy stories are also being reworked in 3-D.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 11-21-2008, 09:58 AM:

quote: Darryl Spicer
I think Walt's flipped in his grave so many times over what has happened to the Walt Disney studios over the years, that he has drilled through his casket and out of the cemetery.

Isn't he cryogenically frozen and stored under Epcot Center or something like that?

As for Disney movies being converted to 3D, they need to get to work on FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Robert Rodriguez said he always wanted to shoot it in 3D, and now he'd like to see it converted.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-21-2008, 10:14 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
All three toy stories are also being reworked in 3-D.

Yeah, but that makes a little more sense, because there is a new TS movie in 3-D to go along with them. "Beauty" is an adademy-award-nominated work of art and shouldn't be messed with. It's great the way it is. That's just my 2¢.

quote: Mike Schindler
Isn't he cryogenically frozen and stored under Epcot Center or something like that?

No, Disney was buried conventionally in California. The whole 'frozen' thing is one of those myths that won't go away.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-21-2008, 10:25 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Disney was buried conventionally in California. The whole 'frozen' thing is one of those myths that won't go away.

True. It's Ted Williams that is cryogenically frozen.

quote: Mike Schindler
As for Disney movies being converted to 3D, they need to get to work on FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.

I'll be in line with you for that one Mike. QT also said he'd open up a chain of Titty Twisters just like the one in the film if the opportunity presented itself. It'd be a good place to eat after the movie!

FYI - if you have a Blu-ray player the FDTD disc from Canada looks and sounds great but has none of the extras from the LD and DVD versions.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 11-21-2008, 10:46 AM:

I actually just got that disc. I'm very happy with it too. Though it would have been nice if FULL TILT BOOGIE had been included.

I'm okay with the TOY STORY movies being converted as well, because there is direct creator involvement. Is that the case with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-21-2008, 11:19 AM:

I have no problem with re-doing the Toy Story movies in 3D, on one condition: They move the virtual camera in all of the shots and re-render the entire movie.

If they're wasting time trying to fake the other eye, that would be a huge shame.

As for Beauty & The Beast... the only way they can re-do it in 3D would be to fake the second eye, which so far has always included various levels of suckyness.

Beauty & The Beast was fine the way it was. They already screwed it up once for the DVD release. Now they want to screw it up again. What a bummer. [Frown]

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-21-2008, 01:19 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Beauty & The Beast was fine the way it was. They already screwed it up once for the DVD release.

I suppose I could walk to your office to ask you this quicker than type it but...

How did they screw it up for the DVD? I never bought it so I don't know. I do remember the lame half-finished Laserdisc version.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-21-2008, 02:45 PM:

Maybe my memory is bad on this, but I swear the colors were tampered with on the DVD "original theatrical" version. After showing the movie for nine months, I thought I had a pretty good recollection of the color palette. But what's on the DVD was shockingly different to me as soon as I saw it.

Also, the dialog was changed slightly. There is one line in particular where the Beast stuttered and said "You wan-wanna stay in the dungeon?" That's gone from the "original theatrical" version on the DVD, and it's also gone from the "work in progress version" although it was on the original "work in progress" laser disk, and it was also on the original VHS versions if I remember correctly. The DVD is the first time I didn't hear it.

Maybe I'm picky, but if you're gonna say "original theatrical" then make it so. Clean it up? Sure. Don't tamper with the colors and start changing the soundtracks. Disney is of course famous for this, which is a bummer.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-21-2008, 03:51 PM:

What's wrong with "You wan-wanna stay in the dungeon?" I ask all my dates that!

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 11-21-2008, 05:23 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
No, Disney was buried conventionally in California. The whole 'frozen' thing is one of those myths that won't go away.

Huh? I always heard that he's being kept in a state of suspended animation. [Razz]

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 11-21-2008, 06:53 PM:

hyuk hyuk hyuk... [Big Grin]

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 11-21-2008, 08:50 PM:

Darryl: "I think Walt's flipped in his grave so many times over what has happened to the Walt Disney studios over the years, that he has drilled through his casket and out of the cemetery."

Disney was always about money from day one. He was an amazingly canny businessman, practically invented bigtime tie-in merchandising, invented the destination theme park, and painted it all with candy-rainbow hues branding Disney product as a "family-friendly beloved institution."

I too have become disgusted with Disney, mostly because the "beloved" act was getting threadbare and the cynicism was showing: "Buy my stuff and don't ask questions, I'm beloved, dammit!"

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 11-22-2008, 07:30 PM:

Remember the closer-you-get-to-Orlando, the harder the Mouse bites!

Walt was always very hard to deal with; about the only change is that now they are getting more viscious about it; therefore it is more offensive.

I have at least one theatre customer that won't play a Buena Vista film EVER again. Louis

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-22-2008, 11:14 PM:

Guy must not like money?

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 11-23-2008, 12:07 AM:

Sounds typical of the Mouse House..every time they advertise one of their classics' video releases as "going back into the vault forever", it seems that forever is only about one year in Disney Time. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-23-2008, 10:17 AM:

I still have a Boxoffice around here somewhere containing a Disney guy saying they would never "cheapen" their classic movies by releasing them on home video.

I guess "never" means "shortly."

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-23-2008, 11:34 AM:

Out of all the efforts to rework something into 3D, CGI-based movies like Toy Story are the only things worth the trouble since the entire movies can be completely re-rendered for a truly convincing 3D effect.

The The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D was okay, but not all that great. The 3D effect was fleeting at best. Superman Returns didn't work very well in 3D at all.

I'm very skeptical about anyone being able to make a 2D live action movie work convincingly in 3D. The only way to do live action in 3D is to shoot it in 3D from the start. This digital 3D conversion stuff is a bunch of costly, time wasting crap.

It might be slightly less difficult to convert a 2D animated movie like Beauty in the Beast into 3D. Still, even if Disney can make the 3D look convincing, at best you'll see a lot of flat 2D cut outs floating above other layers of 2D stuff. It still won't look like real 3D.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 11-23-2008, 07:16 PM:

Well something to consider. Even if you had the option to make a classically animated film in 3D from the start, how would you do it? How would it look? I'm not talking CGI, but regular cartoons. The closest real life analog would be the actual cells over the background in a multi plane camera. Animated in 3D, it really would look just like a bunch of 2D cutouts being animated in a 3D environment.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-23-2008, 09:53 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm very skeptical about anyone being able to make a 2D live action movie work convincingly in 3D.

You're probably right about that. I saw a demo of the original "Star Wars" in 3-D at the Great States convention about 3 years ago when they were all gung-ho to bring the trilogy out in 3-D. It looked semi-OK but I had absolutely no desire to see the whole movie that way.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-24-2008, 06:34 AM:

quote: Charles Greenlee
Animated in 3D, it really would look just like a bunch of 2D cutouts being animated in a 3D environment.

and

quote: Bobby Henderson
at best you'll see a lot of flat 2D cut outs floating above other layers of 2D stuff. It still won't look like real 3D.

Correct; which is exactly how 2D multiplane animation looks. So the difference then would be that while you feel the space between the planes, they will still be 2D, FLAT levels. And feeling that space between them might actually make the "flatness" of the layers much more pronounced. And how freakin sucky is that?!

quote: Mike Blakesley
I still have a Boxoffice around here somewhere containing a Disney guy saying they would never "cheapen" their classic movies by releasing them on home video.

Yah, Mike, I remember that. But then once they started seeing the big dollar signs written on the video wall, they reversed their own protestations and started releasing the earlier classics, but they said emphatically, absolutely, they would never, EVER release FANTASIA to video lest Walt send the rodent to chew off their genitals.....that classic was just too too classic of all their classics....it was a super classic. Releasing it would be anathema -- just too unspeakable for words. I guess "never EVER" means a bit later and unspeakable means, read my lips.

As for their "video vault." I have often fantasized owning a video rental store just for the sole purpose of, when Disney releases a video and they shout that it would only be available for a short time before it goes "back into the vault," I would buy a couple of thousand of them and just keep them in the back room....waiting. Then, when it's no longer available because the rest of the outlets have run out of them, I would put them out on the shelves and put ads in Variety and send email ads to all the Disney suits proclaiming that the Disney classic ISN'T in the vault at all, but can be purchased right here at Angels Video Emporium. Eat that Mouse House.

Yah, I know...it's a pretty pathetic fantasy life I lead.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-24-2008, 07:05 AM:

"Boo Moon", "Working For Peanuts", "Lumber Jack Rabbit", "Melody", and "Hypnotic Hick" all looked pretty good to me. I'll admit that a lot of times they may have looked like View Masters in motion, and some did a much better job at creating 3D than the others, but they were still fun to watch.

But now that I think about it, wasn't Beauty & the Beast animated in a computer? It was still hand drawn, obviously, but I think it was hand drawn in a computer, not on physical cells. If so, I wonder if they still have all of the files, and I wonder if they can easily slide the digital cells around inside of the computer and re-do all of the shots. If so, that would make things much easier to do than almost everything else non-CGI they have re-done in 3D to date.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-24-2008, 07:55 AM:

B & the B was traditional drawn animation that used computer rendering for the 3D ballroom sequence, but only for the backgrounds. I'm sure they also used the computer to track where the hand-drawn cells should go on top of that.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-24-2008, 12:11 PM:

Right, but I think the "cels" were either drawn directly in the computer or drawn on paper and scanned into the computer and then the shots were composed in the computer using the "digital cels". If that's the case, and they still have the "digital cels" then manipulating them for the other eye should be fairly straight forward because they won't have to artificially recreate what's behind the objects when they move them around.

I thought that Nightmare Before Christmas was probably one of the easier ones to re-do in 3D since there wasn't much (if any) motion blur to deal with. But Beauty and the Beast should be even easier because they probably still have all of the original elements layered in all of the original shots.

Of course it will be presented with one projector in most cases, so the end result will still suck a bit for 99% of the viewers.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 11-24-2008, 03:05 PM:

Wasn't Walt frozen until he could be brought back to life! If so then bye bye ice as to the shaking in the grave part. In any case I am saddened seened both major animation studios stopping hand drawn animation and sticking in 3D animation. It looks too adult. Nothing beats Beauty & the Beast, Alladin, Lion King e.t.c. Even Dreamworks Animation did the same. Remember Prince Of Egypt & the Road to El Dorado? Oh well, now we have Kung Fu Panda!!! WOW [puke]

Jack Black in Action [Eek!]

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 11-26-2008, 07:44 PM:

quote: Wayne Keyser was the last to post
Walt's flipped in his grave so many times over what has happened to the Walt Disney studios over the years, that he has drilled through his casket and out of the cemetery.

HAHAHAHA! LOL!
That's one of the best Disney lines I've heard in years!

I don't know if those stories about 'ol Walt being frozen are
true, but I chuckle every time I see a poster for "Disney On Ice".
There is a plaque on the Disney family mausoleum which states
he he buried there. But like Grant's Tomb, who knows for
sure who's buried there?

. . . and shouldn't Walt actually be buried in a "mouseoleum?

Plaque On The Disney Mausoleum
Forest Lawn Cemetary, Los Angeles

FYI> Disney is opening a major Walt Disney museum here in
San Francisco next fall. I pass the construction site every
day on my way to the theater I work at.

Entrance To Disney Museum Construction Site

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-26-2008, 11:00 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Right, but I think the "cels" were either drawn directly in the computer or drawn on paper and scanned into the computer and then the shots were composed in the computer using the "digital cels". If that's the case, and they still have the "digital cels" then manipulating them for the other eye should be fairly straight forward because they won't have to artificially recreate what's behind the objects when they move them around.

Beauty and the Beast and all the other "traditional" animated Disney movies had animation that started out as hand drawings on paper. They have used a variety of methods in transferring those drawings to acetate cels for inking or into the computer. Nevertheless, the most natural way of getting the job done was in drawing it by hand on paper.

I still contend the end result of converting a 2D hand drawn movie into 3D will end up looking like a bunch of paper cut outs floating on numerous layers.

To get the effect to work correctly a team of animators would need to hand draw a 2nd eye/camera view to compliment the first eye and figure out how to do it right. I have the utmost level of admiration for Disney's traditional animators because I know that is just a damned hard job to do. You have to produce great quality animation by hand and do so consistently like clockwork. Not many artists can really do that. You need incredible drawing talent AND you need one hell of a work ethic. It's like you have to be obsessed with the activity and that's all you want to do when you're awake. And you have to approach it that way to maintain that level of skill. Adding in the task of estimating a 2nd 3D camera view of existing animation just strikes me as being a huge pain in the ass to deliver.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-27-2008, 08:04 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
They have used a variety of methods in transferring those drawings to acetate cels for inking or into the computer.

Bobby, do you know it the acetate cells suffer from the same physical characteristics and shortcomings of tri-acetate film, i.e., do you think they shrink and can be subject to VS? If that is the case, it might be as labourious to align those elements as it is going back to do restoration of 3 strip techicolor matrixes. Unless the cells have different properties than film.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-27-2008, 09:06 AM:

It took some digging, but I found it. The system I was talking about is the "Computer Animation Production System", or CAPS. The Little Mermaid was the first to use it, but only for the final scene where they sailed away under the rainbow. The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature to use it for 100% of the movie, then Beauty & The Beast followed.

So, Frank... there are no cels. There never were. While Bobby may be right that the drawings were done on paper, they were scanned, cleaned up and "painted" in the digital realm. The shots were composed in the computer and then output to film.

Link.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 11-27-2008, 10:42 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
Bobby, do you know it the acetate cells suffer from the same physical characteristics and shortcomings of tri-acetate film, i.e., do you think they shrink and can be subject to VS?

I had an acquaintence who was a commercial animator. (TV spots, coroporate films, etc. Had a complete OXBERRY animation stand in his house- they had to dig a pit in his basement to accomodate its' 12ft height)

Anyway, he had STACKS of old cells sitting around from projects he'd worked on.

I once asked him almost the same question.

As I recall, he said the main problem was paint flaking off the more the cells were handeled.

Also, the cells had a tendency to stick together if you stored them without a thin piece of paper between them before stacking.

I do remember him saying that there was a certain brand of "cheap" cells that he used for low-budget projects that eventually would shrink slightly and turn a little yellow after about two years of storage. They were useless after that.

I also recall his entire basement studio had a sort of "plastic" smell to it.
(Sort of like new car seats!)
But I don't remember ever sensing a vinegar odor.

As for re-working and 'tweaking' classic films-
I remember back in the early 80's when Ted Turner was colorizing
everything, one writer quipped:
"I hear Ted's next project is to buy up all the Marx Brothers
movies and make Harpo talk"

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-27-2008, 12:48 PM:

Disney's CAPS system is mentioned in The Pixar Story, a very good documentary about the history of Pixar. It's on the 2nd disc of Wall•E. Some of the people featured in the documentary aren't with us anymore, such as the late Joe Ranft and the last of the "9 old men" Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Highly recommended.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-27-2008, 03:45 PM:

CAPS was only 2K. We all know that 2K is inferior, like the devil.

I'll have to watch that Wall-E feature, but usually the second discs are invisible to me out of sheer disinterest.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-27-2008, 11:12 PM:

Maybe instead of just 3-D-izing the existing Beauty, they are going to make a new computer animated 3-D Beauty and re-create the animation in snazzy new Toy-Story-like 3-D graphics. I wouldn't be surprised to see this. They already have the story and the score and everything, so it could be done on the cheap.

Otherwise I think it's going to look like Bobby predicts: a bunch of flat cutouts floating in front of a flat backdrop.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-28-2008, 07:38 AM:

Don't forget that there is a whole lot of 3D shading and texturing in that movie already on all of the characters. Just moving the shadows very slightly on everything will go a long way in convincing your brain that the characters are all solid.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-10-2008, 11:15 AM:

Found these quotes from the producer of the 3-D BATB on /Film.Com

quote:
We didn’t want to do the layers of flatness. There are some old Chip and Dale cartoons that do that. One of the first 3D movies is called Starchaser and it was just layers of flat, kind of viewmaster-looking flat. I think what we we want to do is not do that, and create a truly dimensional environment. It’s a very hybrid approach. There’s some proprietary software that Disney created for this, and it actually bends the drawings around geometry. You take a character like Belle or the Beast and you create geometry in the computer that matches the image on the screen, and then bend the original movie around that geometry, be it the character or a background, a tree, or a building or whatever. That creates very dimensional, round faces.

quote:
We wanted to deliver the original movie. We didn’t want to add new drawings or take away anything from the original movie. I think all you’ll notice is that now suddenly there is great depth to everything on the screen. The effect is somewhat like the Haunted Mansion Madame Leota when you go through the ride at Disneyland and they project a piece of film onto a mannequin head. When that projector hits the mannequin head, it bends the light around it and it looks like it’s 3D. It’s not unlike that, where you’re taking the film, a character like Belle, and projecting her on a digital, rounded surface mannequin head. When it hits that, it breaks out into a 3D looking object that then you can photograph with a right eye, left eye, and create the illusion of depth.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-10-2008, 11:49 AM:

quote:
The effect is somewhat like the Haunted Mansion Madame Leota when you go through the ride at Disneyland and they project a piece of film onto a mannequin head. When that projector hits the mannequin head, it bends the light around it and it looks like it’s 3D.

Well I've seen the Haunted Mansion within the last 6 months and I can tell you Madame Leota does NOT look 3-D, she looks like a face projected on a ball. Of course maybe with 3-D effects added (left/right eye material) it would be better. The Leota figure of course is just a 2-D image.