The Preservation and Restoration of Disney’s Classic Dumbo

Walt Disney Animation is releasing another classic film from the vault. A 70th anniversary edition of Dumbo will be released on Blu-ray this September. But this will not be the Dumbo you remember from your childhood.

Disney has completed a beautiful restoration of the film. During the restoration process the biggest question they asked themselves is what was the artist’s original intent? With that thought in mind they restored the film to look they way they feel it was meant to be.

During this 7 month project, Disney took the original negative and scanned 275,352 frames of film, that equals about 3.2 miles of film. By using the original, they were able to digitally capture the film as Walt Disney’s original artists intended. They were also able to remove any fingerprints, shimmers, rings, or scratches that they found. This gave them a sharper image and made the colors look truer to what the artists had originally wanted.

Disney also restored the sound for the film. Unfortunately most of Disney’s original soundtracks were destroyed leaving only 35 mm magnetic masters. But they were able to locate an original  print of Dumbo with the help of UCLA that had the original soundtrack and were able to digitize it to use in the mix. On the Blu-ray release you will be able to hear the soundtrack cleaned up for 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound. Or if you would rather hear the pops and clicks of the original, there is an option to watch the film in the original mono.

Also included in the Blu-ray release of Dumbo is the Disney View Feature. Older films have a different aspect ratio than the televisions that are in most homes. This is why you have the black bars on either side of some films. Disney began hearing some complaints from consumers about this so they came up with an idea to but a wallpaper on both sides of the picture. They brought in artists to paint backgrounds that were representative of the sequences of the film. In Dumbo, these paintings represent different circus themes. This is also an optional feature so if you would rather watch them film without them you can.

Many hours of research went into the restoration of Dumbo. You can see an elephant fly, the way Walt Disney’s artists intended, on Blu-ray September 20th, 2011.

Related articles

• Sneak Peek: Storybook Circus at Magic Kingdom (chipandco.com)
• Disney’s Dumbo 70th Anniversary Edition Coming to Bluray/DVD/Download

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