During the festive period, I've been experimenting on cleaning up the audio on a couple of cartoons using the open-source program Audacity (I know there are better, more sophisticated programs out there, but due to this credit crunch, I decided to restrict myself to free software). The first cartoon to get this treatment is the 1929 Aesop's Fable Wood Choppers, where my copy has a rather crackly audio. I managed to clean it up using a minimum amount of noise reduction, and in my opinion, the end result is adequate, if not great:
Krazy Kat's Alaskan Knights proved to be more troublesome. Bootleg-print aside, this one not only has a crackly audio, but it's also very faint and has a lot of background hiss. Minimum noise-reduction and low-pass filtering made it more audiable, but despite boosting the audio as well, it still comes out as quite faint, See what you think of it:
Showing posts with label mintz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mintz. Show all posts
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
The Lost Columbia Cartoons - Major Google
Major Google was the last of the Barney Google cartoon quartet, and, like the previous three, this is a lacklustre effort. Even with the absence of sound on the surviving home movie prints, you can still visually see why the transfer from printed to animated cartoon was not successful.
The cartoon apparantly survives in the Columbia archives as a B&W print (don't know if it is with or without sound) and a redrawn (but silent) version. I've managed to obtain copies of two silent, truncated home movie versions. Sadly, there's not enough material to make a almost-complete reconstruction as each one is 2-and-a-half minutes long and only a few differences in each print. However, I've uploaded the best-looking of the two prints for your viewing pleasure.
As always, the video will be available to view for a month.
The cartoon apparantly survives in the Columbia archives as a B&W print (don't know if it is with or without sound) and a redrawn (but silent) version. I've managed to obtain copies of two silent, truncated home movie versions. Sadly, there's not enough material to make a almost-complete reconstruction as each one is 2-and-a-half minutes long and only a few differences in each print. However, I've uploaded the best-looking of the two prints for your viewing pleasure.
As always, the video will be available to view for a month.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
The Lost Columbia Cartoons - Dreams on Ice
This 1939 cartoon, directed by Sid Marcus, is apparantly non-existant in the Columbia archives, but does survive in the collectors'/traders' circuits as a 16mm B&W print. This is one of a handful of "Sparky" cartoons, where he attempts to do ice-skating by flooding his bedroom with water and opening his window to let the freezing wind through.
IMHO it's a drab, Disney-esque cartoon, but nevertheless, here's the complete short for you to enjoy:
Available to view for 1 month.
IMHO it's a drab, Disney-esque cartoon, but nevertheless, here's the complete short for you to enjoy:
Available to view for 1 month.
The Lost Columbia Cartoons - The Herring Murder Mystery / Hollywood Sweepstales
A double-bill of short clips for you, today.
The Herring Murder Mystery (a 1943 cartoon which apparantly only exists in the Columbia archives as a segment of the first two minutes) features the story of a herring pickler, who, after being arrested - and thrown into the sea - by the fish police, is on trial for murder (well, he did pickle them to death!).
Presenting here is a short segment from a complete print. Personally, it's shad roe, shad roe, shad roe to me!
Another short clip below is taken from Hollywood Sweepstakes, a 1939 cartoon (directed by Ben Harrison) that is officially missing in the Columbia archives (but survives among us collectors as a 16mm colour print). It does feature a host of celebrity characitures, but they're mostly token - it's really about a pony's attempt to win a derby. Here's the second half of this cartoon for you to enjoy:
The Herring Murder Mystery (a 1943 cartoon which apparantly only exists in the Columbia archives as a segment of the first two minutes) features the story of a herring pickler, who, after being arrested - and thrown into the sea - by the fish police, is on trial for murder (well, he did pickle them to death!).
Presenting here is a short segment from a complete print. Personally, it's shad roe, shad roe, shad roe to me!
Another short clip below is taken from Hollywood Sweepstakes, a 1939 cartoon (directed by Ben Harrison) that is officially missing in the Columbia archives (but survives among us collectors as a 16mm colour print). It does feature a host of celebrity characitures, but they're mostly token - it's really about a pony's attempt to win a derby. Here's the second half of this cartoon for you to enjoy:
Clips are available to view for a month.
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