Tangential thought, but I wonder if this had any affect on the Toy Story level in Kingdom Hearts 3. I suppose that would depend on the reference materials Square Enix received from Pixar/Disney.
The 'Toy Story' You Remember
241–250 of 348 posts
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not scaffolding in the same way, but, two examples of "fetishizing accidental properties of physical artworks that the original artists might have considered undesirable degradations" are - the fashion for unpainted marble statues and architecture - the aesthetic of running film slightly too fast in the projector (or slightly too slow in the camera) for an old-timey effect
Great examples. My mind jumps straight to audio: - the pops and hiss of analog vinyl records, deliberately added by digital hip-hop artists - electric guitar distortion pedals designed to mimic the sound of overheated tube amps or speaker cones torn from being blown out
- Audio compression was/is necessary to get good SNR on mag tape.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s an analog analogue: mixing and mastering audio recordings for the devices of the era. I first heard about this when reading an article or book about Jimi Hendrix making choices based on what the output sounded like on AM radio. Contrast that with the contemporary recordings of The Beatles, in which George Martin was oriented toward what sounded best in the studio and home hi-fi (which was pretty amazing if yo…
> There’s an analog analogue: mixing and mastering audio recordings for the devices of the era. In the modern day, this has one extremely noticeable effect: audio releases used to assume that you were going to play your music on a big, expensive stereo system, and they tried to create the illusion of the different members of the band standing in different places. But today you listen to music on headphones, and it's…
That's with a naive stereo split. Many would still put the bass on one side, with the binaural processing so it's still heard on the right, but quieter and with a tiny delay.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s an analog analogue: mixing and mastering audio recordings for the devices of the era. I first heard about this when reading an article or book about Jimi Hendrix making choices based on what the output sounded like on AM radio. Contrast that with the contemporary recordings of The Beatles, in which George Martin was oriented toward what sounded best in the studio and home hi-fi (which was pretty amazing if yo…
> decent German and Japanese components Whoa there! Audio components were about the only thing the British still excelled at by that time.
I wasn't aware of home hi-fi but British gear for musicians was widespread when I was growing up (Marshall, Vox, etc).
I was specifically thinking of the components my father got through the Army PX in the 60s and the hi-fi gear I would see at some friends' houses in the decades that followed ... sometimes tech that never really took hold, such as reel-to-reel audio. Most of it was Japanese, and sometimes German.
I still have a pair of his 1967 Sansui speakers in the basement (one with a blown woofer, unfortunately) and a working Yamaha natural sound receiver sitting next to my desk from about a decade later.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> now Is this still a problem? Your example video is from nearly twenty years ago, RAM is over a decade old. I think the advent of streaming (and perhaps lessons learned) have made this less of a problem. I can't remember hearing any recent examples (but I also don't listen to a lot of music that might be victim to the practice); the Wikipedia article lacks any examples from the last decade https://en.wikipedia.org/w…
Certified Audio Engineer here. The Loudness Wars more or less ended over the last decade or so due to music streaming services using loudness normalization (they effectively measure what each recording's true average volume is and adjust them all up or down on an invisible volume knob to have the same average) Because of this it generally makes more sense these days to just make your music have an appropriate dynamic…
This goes along with what I saw growing up. You had the retail mastering (with RIAA curve for LP, etc.) and then the separate radio edit which had the compression that the stations wanted - so they sounded louder and wouldn't have too much bass/treble. And also wouldn't distort on the leased line to the transmitter site.
And of course it would have all the dirty words removed or changed. Like Steve Miller Band's "funky kicks going down in the city" in Jet Airliner
I still don't know if the compression in the Loudness War was because of esthetics, or because of the studios wanting to save money and only pay for the radio edit. Possibly both - reduced production costs and not having to pay big-name engineers. "My sister's cousin has this plug-in for his laptop and all you do is click a button"...
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
> decent German and Japanese components Whoa there! Audio components were about the only thing the British still excelled at by that time.
I wasn't aware of home hi-fi but British gear for musicians was widespread when I was growing up (Marshall, Vox, etc). I was specifically thinking of the components my father got through the Army PX in the 60s and the hi-fi gear I would see at some friends' houses in the decades that followed ... sometimes tech that never really took hold, such as reel-to-reel audio. Most of it was Japanese, and sometimes German. I s…
Wharfedale (1920s) and Cambridge Audio (1960s) were there, and are still making great home hifi.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#247It's even worse with The Matrix where nobody is even sure any more how it was supposed to look, except definitely not as green as the DVD release. Noodle made a charming video about going mad researching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPU-kXEhSgk
The Matrix is an interesting one because it really caught on with the DVD release. So that was most peoples first exposure to it, not the theatrical release. Even if incorrect, if that was the first way you saw it, it is likely how you consider it "should" look.
It's a bit disingenuous to imply The Matrix did not catch on until DVD release. The Matrix broke several (minor) box office records, was critically hailed, and an awards darling for the below the line technical awards.
Having said all that. One of the most interesting aspects of conversations around the true version of films and such is that just because of the way time works the vast majority of people's first experience with any film will definitely NOT be a in a theater.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#248This is shockingly almost exactly the same conversation that goes on in the retrogaming community regarding pre-HD consoles. "The artists meant for this art to be viewed on a CRT".
The challenge is that everybody's memory is different, and sometime those memories are "I wish the graphics were rock sharp without the artifacts of the CRT". Other times our memories are of the crappy TV we were given as kids that was on its last legs and went black & white and flickered a lot.
The reality is that no matter what the intentions of the original animation teams were, the pipeline of artwork through film transfer to projection to reflection to the viewer's own eyeballs and brain has enough variety to it that it's simply too variable -- and too personal -- the really say what is correct.
Anecdote: one of the local theaters I grew up with was extremely poorly maintained, had a patched rip on one of the several dirty screens, and had projectors that would barely get through an hour of film without needing a "bump" from the projectionist (allowing the audience to go out and get more refreshments halfway through most films). No amount of intentionality by the production companies of the many films I saw there could have accounted for any of that. But I saw many of my favorite movies there.
I've come down with the opinion that these things are like wine. A good wine is the one you enjoy. I have preferences for these things, but they sometimes change, and other people are allowed to enjoy things in their own way.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#249Ever since raytracing graphics cards came out I've wondered why no game studio has ever tried to recreate the look and feel of Toy Story. There's something about the combination of detailed lighting, high-poly models, but low-eyes textures and primitive animations that really appeals to me.
I don't think Toy Story used raytracing. I agree it's a great look though.
Re: The 'Toy Story' You Remember
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Theres also a shit tone of dust, that needs to be physically or digitally removed, ie "busted" Is that because you're just leaving the film out in a big pile, or because it decays rapidly? I would have expected film to be stored in containers.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it builds a static charge as it runs through the projector and attracts dust. I say this because I remember holding my hand near moving film in our (home) movie projector, and as a kid enjoying feeling the hairs on my arm standing up from the static. Maybe professional gear protects against that somehow, but if not that'd be why.
Yep, most film (also photo) attracts dust like a magnet.
Kodak made a Static Eliminator to mitigate that with high voltage to an extent: