[net.music.classical] Ruined Music - actually ruined profits

rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (08/20/85)

[]
Walt Disney's Fantasia (I saw the original and spazed out) was
initially a financial flop. It seems the people who disliked
classical music disliked Fantasia because of the music. Those who
supposedly liked classical music were exercised about his choice
of cartoon images.  How DARE he...etc. Going on half a century later,
most people can accept it for what it was.
Irony - the Disney peolple in their desparation for money appear to
have ruined  the film. First by blowing up and masking the pictures
to some wild new format, then by rerecording the sound out of synch.
I doubt very much if they even have an original print anymore. Each
frame was exquisite, suitable for framing. The sound was like 7 track
stereo with surround sound. Like three of the tracks were volume control
tracks giving an effect like dbx noise reduction. I have some stereo
discs somewhere that still sound quite respectable. If they could
put it out today like it was in 1939, they wouldn't have to
apologize to anyone for technical quality.

-- 

"It's the thought, if any, that counts!"  Dick Grantges  hound!rfg

reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (09/04/85)

In article <1311@hound.UUCP> rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) writes:
>I doubt very much if they even have an original print anymore. 

I would be fairly surprised if they didn't.  Disney has always recognized
the value of re-releases, more so than any other studio, so they always took
care of their prints, particularly of the animated films.  The original
negative is the original negative, and nothing since done to it would change
it, so the only question is whether they still have it.  Probably they do.

>If they could
>put it out today like it was in 1939, they wouldn't have to
>apologize to anyone for technical quality.

A minor point, but there would have to be great and numerous apologies if
they put the film out the way it was in 1939, since it was first released 
in 1940.  I doubt if Disney sat on it for any length of time, so it probably
was finished some time in 1940, not 1939.
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
				reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher