Doctor M said:
I never did color correct Little Mermaid. I just matched the one second to the new DVD color palette.
I did see Little Mermaid in theaters, but I couldn't tell you which was more accurate. The new color scheme really does seem a little better than the original which looked kind of crappy.
Supposedly, the people that originally worked on the film 'approved' the colors, but I think that's Disney holding a gun to them telling them they should approve what they see.
We're trying to get some distribution going on these films... if we can figure out how.
As far as Sleeping Beauty, odds are older is better, but you're going to loose the added image gained in the 2008 Platinum unless you do a lot of work color correcting the whole thing.
I'd assume the 2003 disc is the original color scheme based on the screenshots here: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/34969/sleeping-beauty/
I know Disney has been messing with colors on new transfers, but I'm starting to think a lot of that is the change to a digital process is providing a more true color than the older photography processes allowed.
That said, I can't imagine the animators didn't know what they were compensating for. It may come down to a matter of taste without original animators stepping forward and saying what's right or wrong.
I'm assuming that's what Ron Dias was talking about. Did he actually SAY that the new colors aren't right?
I know you didn't color correct Mermaid. Ariel's tail just seems too green in the new DVD to me but I've never heard much discussion outside the sound mix. There has been complaints about Alice and Peter Pan and both Sleeping Beauty restorations and a slew of others. I think only Dumbo and Pocahontas haven't had their colors questioned of late. You're not the first to suggest that they may be more correct than before. I think i remember someone pointing out how one BD restoration was closer to the unrestored VHS than the previous restored DVD, as though they were correcting a past mistake. That's what makes these difficult along with those formats shoddy color reproduction.
I seem to have made it unclear that I meant the restorers weren't using the film color tests, not the animators. That's what Ron said. That they (the restorers) ignore the color tests and use the cels as reference instead and the animators (those still with us on the older films) are rarely consulted. He said they usually were unaware that colors would be chosen according to how they'd photograph. Yes, he did say the Bluray colors were wrong. My uncertainty was that it had just come out and I wasn't centain if he knew it was rerestored and color corrected or if he was complaining about the previous DVD assuming it was the same which I'd also heard claims of inaccurate color. This was a very brief conversation in the end at a meet and greet. Hence why I wouldn't know which to adjust it to, along with the problem of the BD having a bunch of new visual information. I do know that the biggest differences between the two are that the BD has Briar Rose's blouse constantly changing colors, and the glow is absent when she's being bewitched.