ww12345

Oh, d@mn! I hope we can raise the funds to get it saved. For those not in the know, a "cutter" cuts prints up into 4 frame strips to sell on eBay...

Cool! Now we're at $490...

stretch009 said:

There was an Alice in Wonderland movie in 1950.  It wasn't Disney though, you must be talking about the animated Disney one from 1951.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_%281951_film%29

 

Yes, that's correct.

As some of you know, Disney has been less than accurate with their release of the 1950 animated feature Alice in Wonderland. In addition to some changed colors, many of the groundbreaking original effects were changed, reconstructed digitally.

Recently, a rare IB Tech (no-fade, original colors) print has come up for sale. There are a number of us who would like to see it preserved. Unfortunately, it, like most Technicolor prints, is very expensive. The price is $750. We would like to purchase it and preserve it, but need help funding the project. At the present time, we have a few members who have donated $250 to the preservation. This leaves us with $500 to go. We are asking for your help - no amount too small - in donations to help us preserve this piece of cinematic history. Will you help us?

Spaced_Ranger, I love it when you post - it's like a pro magazine article or something. You never fail to impress!

OK, we have an opportunity to buy a 35mm IB Tech print of Alice in Wonderland for $750. I'd be willing to put up $150 - if we could raise enough money to buy the print we could do a bang-up job of preserving it... Just putting it out there.

I bought an earlier copy of that, and if it is the educational short (for schools) it has been severely edited down. The Pastoral in mine runs about 6 minutes in total. I believe we have the same copy - the eBay one is mounted on an 800ft reel, and runs about 20min, which is approximately the same running time and length as mine.

Hi Fullframe!

I sent you an email, but I'll post here, too. :)

I'm ww12345 (William) and I'm in So. Cal.

I understand your hesitation with loaning out any prints - I'm the same way! That said, I would trust Poita to work with prints that even I am nervous handling! He's transferring a fair amount of high value prints for me right now, and I trust him completely - a truly stand-up guy. Maybe we could work something out behind the scenes for you to let us borrow the print with some kind of deposit or something. Heck, if you wanted, you could give me a ring (or vice versa) and we could hash out details over the phone. 

Anyway, I'm sure all here are glad to have you here. I'll be sending you some links of what we have so far, so we'll be in touch. 

OK, I'll see if I can get that done and reposted sometime tonight...

Also, if anybody wants to take a guess at the edge-code markings to reference a date, be my guess. The 16mm neg appears to have been an Eastman neg, but was printed over onto Fuji LP stock (a stock which many people claim doesn't exist, but check the edge-codes for yourselves).

OK, if someone can tell me how to save images from that eBay auction, I'll post them up here. I have the page open still in my browser, so I can save the images and post them along with the 16mm images. It took a lot longer than I figured to find the exact frames referenced in the auction, but I did it.

These scans had the white and black levels auto-corrected (based on soundtrack) - they don't represent the true colors, but are really, really close IMHO.

Here's the full album with the unresized and unrecolored pictures:

http://s1238.photobucket.com/user/ww123-2008/library/Snow%20White%20-%20Fuji

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. Here's a quick and dirty scan of the frame in question. Of the 24-48 frames around that section, this is one of only like 3 or 4 that are double exposed. The only thing I can figure is the early animation "cheat" techniques that Disney was working with at the time (like double frames and such...)

Scans from Snow White are coming in just a few moments.

With regard to the scan that Dr. M posted on the previous page, I am scanning those frames right now. From what I can tell, that is an error from whatever medium that screenshot came from - it does not appear on the original print. The plot thickens... :)

Yeah, I'll see if I can get some posted today - maybe even from those same scenes as the 35mm print.

For what it's worth, here are some photos taken of my 16mm IB Tech Sleeping Beauty. As I said, "muted colors" don't necessarily mean original. I have a print of Pinocchio on low-fade stock (LPP, IIRC) and the colors are pretty vibrant. I estimate the date of that print somewhere around 1982 or '83.

Here is that controversial scene from SB with the "green orb":

And the final scenes, to really show eye-popping color:

Also remember that the cut-off date as it were for true low-fade Fuji (which this print undoubtedly is - no Fuji-purple cast as was common for pre-84 stock) is 1984. Now, I suppose that it could have been a 1983 restoration printed the following year on 1984 Fuji stock, but I'm dubious.

I think the seller has the dates wrong. I wonder if he's confusing it with the 1993 restoration. I don't remember, nor could I find any info on an '83 restoration. The only stuff I could find/remember reading was about the rerelease for the 50th in 1987...

Yes, you're right - I do have a Fuji copy from approx. '84. In fact, I'll check both those frames right now and see what they look like.

I agree on the muted colors (as most of the Disney early stuff tended to be fairly muted) but muted colors don't necessarily make a print "original." I have a 1971 IB Tech print of Sleeping Beauty (that I believe was discussed somewhere in this thread or over at AMPS) that has really bright, vibrant colors. Now I know that the artists and the sensibilities changed from '37 to '59, but I don't think muted vs. nonmuted is always the tell...

Fuji and LPP put it at least after 1983... Interesting use of the word "reissue," as well. That makes me think that it is a restored copy. From some polls I've read on different film-collecting fora, the reissue/remastered early '90s copy is the print most collectors seek out.

Weird... I wonder if that was a computer glitch in the Disney scanner?

Something to remember, and not to disagree with you Doctor M, but I don't think that is what SW is supposed to look like. Scanning was in its infancy, and Disney even admits they changed the palette a bit. I agree that it looks good, but from a preservationist/archivist standpoint "good" does not always equal "correct."

Mitch said:

'Its amazing and lucky that didn't suffer from DISC ROT

Lol - what? You know this is from a film print, right? 0% chance of disc rot with film...

Wow, Spaced Ranger - that's really, really cool! I'm definitely impressed! That gives me hope for some faded 16mm films I'll be working on soon. 

No, not yet. I did with a few other titles by that seller, but I don't know if he passed my contact info on or not... You're welcome to try - maybe you could get through where I couldn't. (Not being sarcastic or anything; please try! You never know...)

Oh, definitely. I once paid nearly that for a 16mm IB Tech print of Horror of Dracula. Just saying, as far as crowd-sourcing, $1200 is a lot to raise. The interwebs are full of stingy people who want something for nothing... They are also full of people willing to donate their time, money, and energy, but those people are fewer and farther between. Not to mention that whatever funds donated would have gone toward one person getting a killer print...

Here's hoping, though, that someone here got it.  :)

$1200 plus shipping. Wow...   :O

I don't know that we could have raised that kind of cash in 7 days. Even 12 people would be $100 a pop.