GeorgeC wrote:Wasn't Cinderella filmed in fullscreen (1.33:1) anyway?
Yes - that's what I meant - good that they were preserving this ratio and not trying to mess about with it.
Lady And The Tramp was 1955, and was animated in 2.35:1 for an anamorphic CinemaScope print. There was also a little known Academy (1.37:1) version that was sent out to non-CinemaScope theaters (as with the move to Dolby Stereo and the digital revolution now, some theaters were not widescreen capable).
Interestingly, this "fullframe" Lady And The Tramp was a completely reversioned edition of the feature. Like the recent Pixar "re-composing", characters were moved around frame and wider frames often had imaging added to them top and bottom, as well as the usual optical pan-and-scan technique. It was likely Walt was looking forward to when Lady And The Tramp would play on TV (as well as the non-widescreen theaters), but I really hope that both versions will be present on the upcoming DVD, as it really would be a fullframe version worth seeing.
Sleeping Beauty, the Studio's next film, was animated on the same customed drawing boards, but printed to Technirama 70mm film (a non-anamorphic widecsreen process). This yielded better results and was also used for The Black Cauldron (1985). All the Studio's films between 101 Dalmatians (1961) and Fox And The Hound (1981) were animated and shot to a 1.37:1 frame (this includes Mary Poppins, Bedknobs And Broomsticks and Pete's Dragon). The Rescuers is the odd exception, being animated to a true 1.66:1 frame.
All of Disney's post Black Cauldron films have been 1.66:1 framed, apart from the 2.35:1 Atlantis, which was anamophically squeezed to a Panavision release print.
There is a great difference between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 - just check out the differences between the LaserDisc Beauty And The Beast (at 1.66) and the DVD release (at 1.85)!
Plus, all of Disney's VHS fullscreen transfers come from the 1.66 version, meaning less cropping from the sides (though still losing a quarter of image). Just see how much difference is gained when comparing the top and bottom of the 1.85:1 Lion King LaserDisc (when Simba "grows up" walking along the log in front of the moon) and the VHS: the moon is sliced off top and bottom in the 1.85 theatrical/LD print, whereas we see the whole moon and more in the VHS. The DVD puts things right with a full aperture 1.66 image, which shows both sides, top and bottom.
But, yes, in answer to your question, all Disney films including Cinderella were fullframe, as were its followups Alice In Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). After the two 2.35:1 features, the Studio produced 1.37:1 films again, which were framed "open matte" for masking off top and bottom in theaters.
Hope that helps!
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