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The Brave Little Toaster (1987) 4K 35mm Film Scan! (WIP)

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After nearly 35 years of staying stuck in Disney’s vault, a true HD version of The Brave Little Toaster is here!

This movie was originally released in 1987 to a limited theatrical release making prints of this film very hard to come by! This is also German print so not only is the printing guaranteed to produce really sharp results, but unlike the later US DVD this is uncensored!

EDIT: This has already been fully funded and scanned. Currently not accepting donations for this project. Thanks for all the help from the forum!

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/793259762896207892/956944346865860658/unknown.png?width=936&height=676

UPDATE FOR DONORS:
Raw scans and new encodes will be made very soon! Sorry for the long wait, but there has been quite a long queue so expect raw scans and encodes to be ready in early August at the latest! I am also in contact with Jerry Rees the director of the original film and Brian McEntee who helped color time the original film to help work on restoration and general guidance. Can’t wait to give more updated soon! Anyone who has access to the Google Drive folder will receive the raw scans in the same folder when they are ready.

BIG UPDATE 8/24/22:

A full ProRes encode of the scan including Analog LaserDisc audio from Greg Z is ready for download for DONORS! File size is about 190 GB rendered at 4K and a lower bitrate (possibly Blu-Ray compatible encode) will also be uploaded within the next few days. If you want access DM me!

Special thanks to Quazza for rendering the raw image sequence as ProRes, and helping me encode the final video sync ProRes files. This project wouldn’t be possible without his help! And thank you to everyone who helped support this project through donations and contributing to the project in general. Seeing this movie scanned was such a pipedream and is now a reality. Although I suppose he would want to remain anonymous huge thanks to the owner of the print for lending it free of charge to be scanned. Without him I wouldn’t have even known this film had prints out in the wild in the first place and I wouldn’t have had such a wonderful opportunity preserving it.

The project is not over of course. I plan on doing a full on restoration of the film with possible director’s guidance and help from members of Kineko Video for a public release. I don’t plan on keeping this scan private and I believe it deserves to be seen by everyone. I do apologize to those that can’t watch this right now and I hope you get to see it soon! I am willing to answer any questions regarding the project and I have a Twitter account where I post constant updates, screenshots, and information about the scan and the film.

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Oh man, really? …only a few weeks after I nearly give myself carpal t from cleaning those 2309 frames in photoshop?! The universe is wacky and near cruel with this stuff sometimes! 😃

But seriously, that’s cool news. I’m too poor to donate though. And also, the time I put in on Octorox’s has me feeling I’ve paid the Brave Little Toaster fan release gods their due. 😃

Good luck with this! Hopefully donations come your way

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me 😃

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WXM said:

Oh man, really? …only a few weeks after I nearly give myself carpal t from cleaning those 2309 frames in photoshop?! The universe is wacky and near cruel with this stuff sometimes! 😃

But seriously, that’s cool news. I’m too poor to donate though. And also, the time I put in on Octorox’s has me feeling I’ve paid the Brave Little Toaster fan release gods their due. 😃

Good luck with this! Hopefully donations come your way

Yeah, sorry to hear your work on your HD restoration might be going to waste now. Some things you might want to know is the scene where the PAL and NTSC DVDs have “ghosting” when the Lamp is dancing around is actually on this print as well and probably an error with an optical effect
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/767178964812169249/957008724755644476/unknown.png

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Venny said:

Yeah, sorry to hear your work might be going to waste now. Some things you might want to know is the scene where the PAL and NTSC DVDs have “ghosting” when the Lamp is dancing around is actually on this print as well and probably an error with an optical effect

Well, I’m going to stand a little behind Octorox (because of course I am!😃). Other than the opening (that I cleaned up) I think it’s a pretty darned good presentation and not necessarily so easily ready to be tossed in a rubbish bin in the future. Watching the rest of his release, all the dirt/specks combined could fit within one second of that opening section it was that clean. I know that dirtiness isn’t a be all and end all for this kind of thing, far from it, but…well, I just think/hope there’ll still be room for Oct’s version to exist when this one is done, just because. 😃 But maybe I’ll be proven wrong!

I’ll stop clogging your thread with this big biased-ness though.

Interesting about that ghosty bit. Man, I love the look of that aqua tile in the background in your frame there. Lots of nice artistry went into this movie!

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me 😃

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That’s awesome! I’ve never seen this movie but I’ve seen it’s need for a proper HD version and those frames look incredibly clean. If you need any help, I’d love to take a crack at it!

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WOW! This is wonderful to hear, and I will look forward to the finished product. I’d love a peek at what’s here now, too.
One of my first questions was whether this is finally OAR. It must be since it’s a film print, but it looks super close to 1.33, perhaps it’s 1.67.

Thank you for bringing this to us. Stoked!

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

WOW! This is wonderful to hear, and I will look forward to the finished product. I’d love a peek at what’s here now, too.
One of my first questions was whether this is finally OAR. It must be since it’s a film print, but it looks super close to 1.33, perhaps it’s 1.67.

Thank you for bringing this to us. Stoked!

No problem! I have been wanting to get this scanned for about a year now so finally seeing it happen is unreal. Also this print isn’t matted fir 1.33.1 it’s actually a wider and taller aspect ratio than that so you could do a 1.66.1 or 1.78.1 crop of the movie if you wanted!

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Venny said:

Also this print isn’t matted fir 1.33.1 it’s actually a wider and taller aspect ratio than that

I can’t wait to see all the boom mics and matte boxes in frame

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Are you suggesting it was something like an open matte? I am picturing the flashing lights on the periphery of the image during the start of “On the Edge,” and the left and right sides are further away.

EDIT: I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say it’s taller and wider than 1.33:1. Unless it’s because of the rounded corners, assuming it’d be projected with those just cropped out.

Dude, the kids and I are gonna have a repeat movie night in the near future. Never thought I’d see this movie in its OAR.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Are you suggesting it was something like an open matte? I am picturing the flashing lights on the periphery of the image during the start of “On the Edge,” and the left and right sides are further away.

EDIT: I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say it’s taller and wider than 1.33:1. Unless it’s because of the rounded corners, assuming it’d be projected with those just cropped out.

Dude, the kids and I are gonna have a repeat movie night in the near future. Never thought I’d see this movie in its OAR.

So pretty much the 35mm frame has a lot more picture on all sides of the frame. The DVDs use a crop that cuts out more of the sides and some of the top and bottom to get the 1:33:1 aspect ratio. With this print you could theoretically make a 1:66:1 version which would have more frame on the left and right than the DVD, but less on the top and bottom, a 16:9 framing with even more on the left and right, or a slightly taller and wider 4:3 framing. It’s pretty great because it means the movie can be shown in the aspect ratio the directors intended away from the home video releases and it can be presented in 4:3 like the VHS and DVD release. So there are all kinds of cool release that can be made with this print

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Hal 9000 said:

Interesting… how will it be presented for this project? Full image with rounded corners?

Probably cropped to 4:3 but the full-frame will be shown so with rounded corners

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IMDB suggests an intended ratio of 1.85:1, despite a 1.78:1 frame. That’d be intriguing to see. If the full frame is released in high quality I’d crop it that way and see how it plays. Joy!

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Highly recommend going with 2 encodes for this one: full frame and theatrical 1.85. It was animated to be seen in the latter ratio.

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SpacemanDoug said:

The US DVD was censored?

When the TV is trying to get them to visit the dump, he reaches into a drawer of photos. One of these has a scantily-clad lady. Originally she had stars censoring her, though for home video she is wearing a bikini or tank-top. Goes by real fast, almost Jessica Rabbit-level censorship.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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This is awesome, I’d love to help out via donations or whatever it would take so I could see the finished product! 😄

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I would love to donate to get access to this! I have been waiting years for anything like this to come along. Please, let me know how I can get involved. Thanks!

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Zachariah said:

I would love to donate to get access to this! I have been waiting years for anything like this to come along. Please, let me know how I can get involved. Thanks!

Just PM me and I can send you the PayPal to donate to!

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Starbond9 said:

This is awesome, I’d love to help out via donations or whatever it would take so I could see the finished product! 😄

Just PM me and I can send you the PayPal to donate to!

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The folder with proxy files has been updated with a temporary video sync. Splices were fixed and missing frames were replaced with frames from the PAL DVD, VHS audio was muxed in, and the video was cropped down

https://youtu.be/gA23739nxYI

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I am very interested in this and can’t believe I missed this thread before! I would be happy to donate to this project!

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potatowes said:

I am very interested in this and can’t believe I missed this thread before! I would be happy to donate to this project!

Just PM me for details on how to donate!

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Just discovered this today but-
I’m super, super… SUPER excited for this!