Tom Oreb deserves some love!
So I picked up the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray yesterday and it is MINDBLOWING! The images and colors are absolutely beautiful. The transfer is flawless. However, there's one huge oversight on the disc that I want to bring attention to.
There's a pretty cool documentary on the dvd about the history of the film. They show tons of cool artwork and photos, including color film of Tom Oreb himself hangin' out with some animators. The thing that got my dander up was that they don't mention Mr.Oreb's name once. Oh, they show his artwork and talk about the evolution of the film's style; but they give all the design credit to Eyvind Earle. Now don't get me wrong, I love Eyvind Earle's work, but you can't really talk about the design of Sleeping Beauty without mentioning Tom Oreb. However, this is exactly what the producer's of this documentary did.
I get to hear how Mary Costa "painted" with her voice. I get to hear about how they used live action reference. I get a discourse on how Walt gave absolute design authority to Eyvind Earle, because he felt the studio had missed something by not staying faithful to a designer's work. The example used was Mary Blair. I love me some Mary Blair, but it seems like they wedged her into this documentary just to talk about her work, AGAIN. As far as I know, she had nothing to do with this film.
On the other hand, Tom Oreb, the guy who is responsible for the character styling of the film, get's no mention, no discussion... nothing. Also, they've omitted much of his work from the gallery section of the disc. The previous dvd has tons of model sheets and designs created by Mr.Oreb. Why they wouldn't keep this artwork for this disc I have no idea.
Anyway, I had to get on my soapbox a little bit. I'm glad that Disney released this disc, but it's really awful that they don't even mention Tom.
Tom, wherever you are, cheers to you man! Thanks for the beautiful work and the inspiration.
posted by shannon at 10:06 AM
18 Comments:
I just watched this on Blu-ray last night as well, and you're absolutely right....it looks AMAZING!! Everything is so vivid and rich.
I coudn't help but wonder if Disney had the color amped through DVR or not. Hopefully it's not far from how it's original state.
I didn't get the chance to check out the extras yet, so I had no idea that they skipped out on mentioning Oreb. That's terrible! I was really looking forward to seeing his model sheets in high rez.
At least they included the original dvd version in with the Blu-Ray edition.
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Agreed. They gave most of the character design credit to Davis and Earle. The colors are very vivid in this new release compared to the previous... a little too vivid I think. Some of the greens look nuclear and the reds are really blown out too. Still, it's a beautiful presentation and great to see it in it's full width. I was a little annoyed with some of the documentary work, where they spliced strange images into the photo backgrounds that weren't there before. I also wish the gallery section showed more backgrounds and model sheets (bigger would have been better too).
Hell yes bro!
My fiance and I were saying this exact thing this weekend as we watched our new version... It's almost a slap in the face to Tom Oreb ... I love the guys work and think he deserves way more attention than he's ever been given!
Maybe we could fight back by posting the discarded images from the old disc ;)
Might make me feel better about buying the new one!
Tom Oreb definitely deserves some mo' love.
By the way, can anybody tell me what's new in this latest edition of Sleeping Beauty?
Nothing in all the hype leads me to believe that this new edition is substantially different than the 2-disc special edition that came out in 2003.
I can't believe they'd just leave him out like that! Why mention Mary Blair when she didn't even DO anything on the movie and then leave out Oreb? It really makes you think that the people who produce these things just don't do their homework very well.
In any case, Tom Oreb is awesome. And everyone should be aware of his awesomeness.
I've done a fair number of interviews for Disney DVD releases, and I've spoken often of Tom Oreb's contributions to the films we worked on.
Unfortunately, we don't control the editorial process, so we never know what gets used or discarded.
There are many incredible Disney artists who are continually overlooked. I do the best I can to bring this to people attention.
Hi Floyd,
I didn't mean to suggest that the artists on the dvd perpetuated Oreb's omission. They actually mention him briefly on the commentary. I also understand that people's comments get edited.
I just wish that whoever produced the documentary, hadn't made it a point to incorrectly credit Earle with the character design; and absolutely ignore the primary guy responsible.
Of course there are plenty of brilliant artists besides Oreb they left out; Frank Armitage and Joe Rinaldi among them.
The point is, studios tend to heap a lot of credit on just a few individuals and ignore the vast majority of others.
Yes, Oreb is the man-deserves a book on his art. There's so little out there on him it's really only Amid Amidi who's brought to light his career & sketches when he was publishing ANIMATION BLAST
Perhaps Disney's new publishing slate will include Oreb's work in a book on concept artists-the book on STORY artists coming next year should be very interesting.
I'm gonna have to agree with you here..At least Oreb has a nice credit in the actual movie ..but it's part of Frank and Ollie's revisionist history to exclude him..look at the Illusion of Life..is he even mentioned in that? But I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the Sleeping Beauty blu-ray..It IS the best it's looked on video... so far .for the most part..it's very clear and it's the first time it hasn't been cropped...but it has major color issues as well as suffering from extensive dvnr.I recently saw the scene where Maleficent first appears in the theater and the colors do NOT look like they do on the blu-ray.They are way over saturated. There is also a flattening of the image caused by extensive "restoration" where textures have been eliminated, and ink lines have actually been eroded or erased..and finally there are telecine timing issues brightening the image sometimes to a radical deviation from the original intent.It looked like digital ink and paint, oddly.(here's a link to some screen grabs..http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/sd-dvd-film-documentary/277032-sleeping-beauty-2003-special-edition-vs-2008-platinum-edition-3.html#post3447001) I feel it's our job as animation fans to be very critical about this stuff because the studios are not. They rarely seem to care about animated films and shorts and often times the features are handled by the live action departments who have no idea of how to clean up animation. It's probably the best we'll get for a while though..I just think everyone who cares should complain. And Shannon...your stuff is awesome! haha.
Hey man
I'm sure you've seen this but just thought I'd send you the link;
http://animationmagazine.net/article/9144
How's everything going? Hows things at DW?
Hope everything is good.
Shannon Tindle,
Roy Foster here. How is that for a blast from the past? Remember taking a day off from Saint X to visit Indiana Univ. Bloomington, only to drive up to Indianapolis to go to a place called Keystone At the Crossing so you could pick up a statuette?!
I am a dentist now, still happily in Louisville. Happily married to another dentist, Lisa. We met in school and now have a 4-month old little boy, Grant.
I don't fancy myself as an artist, per se, but I can do some nice work changing peoples' smiles! I also like woodworking; so long as I stay away from the SHARP end of the tools!
If you have the chance to correspond, my e-mail is roydfoster@hotmail.com or our website (still under construction since I am doing it and don't have a clue what I am doing)is www.fostersmiles.com
Hope this finds you well!
Roy
all the art work is very nice. Web Designer | Web Hosting
Agree... I'm a big fan of Tom Oreb, he was an awesome designer. An unsung hero for sure.
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