Yellow Submarine confirmed

Official press release: London – March 20, 2012 – The Beatles’ classic 1968 animated feature
film, Yellow Submarine, has been digitally restored for DVD and Blu-ray
release on May 28 (May 29 in North America). The film’s songtrack album
will be reissued on CD on the same date.

Currently out of print,
the film has been restored in 4K digital resolution for the first time
by Paul Rutan Jr. and his team of specialists at Triage Motion Picture
Services and Eque Inc. Due to the delicate nature of the hand-drawn
original artwork, no automated software was used in the digital clean-up
of the film’s restored photochemical elements. This was all done by
hand, frame by frame.

Bonus features for the Yellow Submarine DVD
and Blu-ray include a short making-of documentary titled “Mod Odyssey”
(TRT: 7:30), the film’s original theatrical trailer, audio commentary by
producer John Coates and art director Heinz Edelmann, several brief
interview clips with others involved with the film, storyboard
sequences, 29 original pencil drawings and 30 behind-the-scenes photos.
Both Digipak packages will include reproductions of animation cels from
the film, collectible stickers, and a 16-page booklet with a new essay
by Yellow Submarine aficionado John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer,
Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios).

Lasseter writes in his
essay, “As a fan of animation and as a filmmaker, I tip my hat to the
artists of Yellow Submarine, whose revolutionary work helped pave the
way for the fantastically diverse world of animation that we all enjoy
today.”

Directed by George Dunning, and written by Lee Minoff, Al
Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal, Yellow Submarine began its
voyage to the screen when Brodax, who had previously produced nearly 40
episodes of ABC’s animated Beatles TV series, approached The Beatles’
manager Brian Epstein with a unique vision for a full-length animated
feature.

Yellow Submarine, based upon a song by John Lennon and
Paul McCartney, is a fantastic tale brimming with peace, love, and hope,
propelled by Beatles songs, including “Eleanor Rigby,” “When I’m
Sixty-Four,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “All You Need Is Love,”
and “It’s All Too Much.” When the film debuted in 1968, it was
instantly recognised as a landmark achievement, revolutionising a genre
by integrating the freestyle approach of the era with innovative
animation techniques.

Inspired by the generation’s new trends in
art, the film resides with the dazzling Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol,
Martin Sharp, Alan Aldridge and Peter Blake. With art direction and
production design by Heinz Edelmann, Yellow Submarine is a classic of
animated cinema, featuring the creative work of animation directors
Robert Balser and Jack Stokes with a team of animators and technical
artists.

“I thought from the very beginning that the film should
be a series of interconnected shorts” remembers Edelmann. “The style
should vary every five minutes or so to keep the interest going until
the end.” These styles included melding live-action photography with
animation, 3-dimensional sequences and kaleidoscopic “rotoscoping” where
film is traced frame by frame into drawings. The entire process took
nearly two years, 14 different scripts, 40 animators and 140 technical
artists, ultimately producing a groundbreaking triumph of animation.

On
April 24, Candlewick Press will release a new, compact hardcover
edition of the Yellow Submarine picture book, a read-aloud journey for
the whole family. Featuring the lighthearted wit of the film’s script
alongside original artwork from the movie that has charmed children and
adults through several generations, the beautiful, 40-page book will be
sold by retailers everywhere and on the Beatles Store
(www.thebeatles.com). An interactive digital version of the book is
also available as a free download on Apple’s iBookstore for iPad, iPhone
and iPod touch at www.iTunes.com/TheBeatles