Why still frames matter (Score 1)

Animation consists of still drawings that move. Each and every drawing is important to creating what some call "the illusion of life". Certain animators of the past were able to create incredibly lifelike animation where every frame was packed full of amazing personality and technical skill. I worked for the studio that produced Ren & Stimpy. We would have regular "theory nights" where we would gather together and analyze and study classic cartoons. We would still frame through great scenes and figure out what each pose was contributing to the action. One of the scenes we studied, and one of the greatest scenes ever animated, was Rod Scribner's animation of Daffy Duck doing a Danny Kaye scat in Book Revue. If you still frame through that scene, just about every drawing is funny on its own. At Spumco, we spent hours going over scenes like this. However, if you try to still frame through that scene on the most recent Warner Bros DVD, you'll find lines disappearing all over the place, and frames combining into a mush. The artifacting is clearly visible on the majority of the frames in the scene. One of the greatest bits of animation of all time is now completely messed up. There's no excuse for mangling a film as important as this. That executive at Warner Bros should be ashamed of that sorry excuse he gave for the lousy video transfer of this film. I don't care who the audience is for this DVD. Even kids deserve better than that. And I have news for the fella who produced the Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD... your transfer REALLY sucks. The digital restoration of Rocky & Bullwinkle is some of the most intrusive and ham handed work I've ever seen. If you haven't heard any complaints about it, you just plain haven't been listening. I produce animation for television. Every time I supervise a video edit session, the first thing I tell the engineer is to turn off all DVNR. They always say the same thing... "It's just a tool. I'm better than all of the other engineers. I know how to use it without any artifacting." That just isn't true. The engineers don't know what they're looking at. They proudly show me examples of their work, and I can clearly see artifacting even without touching the still frame. The studios depend on these guys to restore the films for them. The engineers set up filters that chew through the images, they master the DVDs and the studios send them off to be pressed by the millions WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT THEM. You and I get to do their quality control when we buy their shoddy goods and spot the obvious problems that flew right by the engineers and studio execs whose job it is to "restore" the films. The home video companies are asleep at the wheel. Write them and demand quality. That's the only way they are going to fix the problem. The fact that they refuse to comment when the Wall Street Journal calls them up shows that they just don't see it as a problem. Unless their customers raise a stink, it will only get worse. See ya Steve