The Program
The Motion Picture Film Lab: “Past, Present and….”
Andrew Oran, FotoKem
How has the motion picture film lab business evolved, technically, logistically, and geographically, over the last 100 years? How has it adapted, and stubbornly survived, in the digital era? Where can you get your motion picture film processed nowadays? Tune in for an overview.
The Academy Digital Source Master: A Future-Proof Deliverable
Andy Maltz, AMPAS Science and Technology Council
Dr. Wolfgang Ruppel, Technology Consultant
The Academy Digital Source Master is a new, suitable-for-delivery-and-archiving file format specification supported by six SMPTE standards and the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES). Learn how the Academy Digital Source Master leverages the Interoperable Master Format App #5 and other standards to dependably deliver and archive your motion picture and television content.
Burden of 10k Dreams
Anthony Matt, Prime Focus
Laurel Warbrick, Home Box Office
20 years ago, the transition from SD to HD mastering demonstrated a 630% jump in format resolution. The quality was clear to both professionals and consumers. HD/2K film scanners ran non-stop for years re-scanning entire film libraries to create HD deliverable masters. The transition from HD to 4k mastering, while initially embraced by professionals, received a tepid reception by consumers due to screen size, view distance and other factors. Currently, the combination of HDR mastering with 4k resolution creates an experience that the general public can see is significant improvement upon HD. The desire for 4K HDR content has created demand for film library re-mastering.
Many in film re-mastering and preservation community believe this to be the apex format for both deliverables and preservation. However, camera and display manufactures are now offering 6K and 8K capture and display systems. Not to be out done, film scanner manufactures are now offering 8K and 10K HDR film scanning for 35mm film. Is this just a ploy by manufactures or does 10K scanning offer some increased value with regards to film mastering and preservation? Contributing factors such as, image cropping, post processing, temporal resolution, film stock, and production decisions make the resolution any given scene a moving target. Laurel Warbrick and Anthony Matt will share their findings from a recent 10k scanning test and what it reveals about the benefits and the burden of mastering film in higher than 4k resolutions.
So Many DETOURs: The Long Road to Restoring a Film Noir Masterpiece
Michael Pogorzelski, Academy Film Archive
Heather Linville, Library of Congress
After nearly a decade of half-starts the restoration of Edgar G. Ulmer’s canonical film noir DETOUR was finally completed in 2018. Academy Film Archive Director Michael Pogorzelski and former AFA Film Preservationist Heather Linville will discuss the production of Ulmer’s film, it’s history as an orphan film in the public domain, the cadre of archives and partners who were brought together for the restoration and the technical solutions employed to make this Poverty Row feature look and sound better than it ever has before
The Art of Subtitling
Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum & Rialto Pictures
An important part of film restoration today is one often overlooked: subtitling. Subtitles, introduced at the beginning of the talkie era, were first added sparsely to foreign language films, the belief being that people didn’t go to the movies to read. In recent years, new technology has allowed them to be sharper than ever, both visually (no more “white on white”) and textually. The best subtitles, though, are those the audience doesn’t notice. In this illustrated talk, Bruce Goldstein, repertory director of New York’s Film Forum and founder of classics distributor Rialto Pictures, will give a history of subtitling and translation (along with dubbing) in the movies and his own insights as subtitle editor for over 50 classic films.
Case Study – Restoration of the Dunning Color Process
Jaime Busby, Gotham Photochemical (GPC)
Alan Boyd, Archivist
One of the recent discoveries from the Alan Boyd Archives is a lost 1936 Nitrate film entitled Snickerty Nick and Buzz the Pirate Bee, starring then child actor Billy Barty as the eponymous hero of the piece, a mischievous Bee. The film is remarkable for having been made originally to entertain sick children in hospitals, but is even more remarkable for having been one of the few celluloid relics to have been photographed in Dunning Color, a subtractive two color process (red/blue) which was invented by the same family who created the Dunning Traveling Matte process, used heavily in the original King Kong. This presentation will begin with a history of both the film and of the Dunning Color Process, followed by an explanation of how Gotham Photochemical partnered with the Alan Boyd Archives to restore the Dunning Color palette, as well as the other restoration processes involved, including audio transfer restoration. Presentation will conclude with a screening of the new restored 35mm print.
Machine Learning “Frame Compare” Engine for Restoration and Remastering
Jason Brahms, Video Gorillas
Alex Zhukov, Video Gorillas
Video Gorillas Bigfoot solution decreases the amount of manual labor currently required to conform feature film and episodic television programs during the remastering & restoration process by leveraging Video Gorillas patented computer vision / visual analysis technology, Frequency Domain Descriptor (FDD) which finds like “interest points” common across a series of images / frames. By comparing the frames from the reference picture to the scans Bigfoot can efficiently reconstruct the timeline, using the sequences of frames that have the most interest points in common. Once the results are validated they can be exported as an EDL for use in downstream finishing workflows. In addition to the conform capabilities, Bigfoot can also be used to determine the differences (differential analysis) between “picture cut” versions of feature films and television episodes (i.e. Theatrical cut vs. Director’s cut). The results from this analysis include 1. Frames that are unique between the 2 cuts, 2. Frames that are common between the two cuts (in the same sequence), 3. Frames that are common between the two cuts that have been shifted / moved. Video Gorillas is a media-focused product and services company that develops state-of-the-art video technology incorporating machine learning, neural networks, visual analysis, object recognition, and live streaming. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles with engineering based in Kiev.
Intertitle Recreation: New and Persnickety Methods
Allen Perkins, Metropolis Post
A survey of original language copies of films by the same company from the same time period may reveal a visual pattern to the intertitles. These patterns hint at how intertitles may have originally looked in films that no longer exist in their original language. Not all typefaces or hand lettering styles used in old intertitles have been digitized and included in font packages. Thus, film restorers who recreate intertitles have direly needed a simple, accessible workflow for the resurrection of any typeface or hand lettering style as a font. Allen will demonstrate a technique that accomplishes this.
Several fonts will be shown that were created by extracting characters from original intertitles. One of the fonts is based on a typeface used in many 1910s Universal films and was extracted by Jesse Pierce – one of Allen’s classmates from the Selznick program. The other fonts, extracted by Allen, are based on hand lettering styles seen in Metro Pictures films released in 1917. This font creation technique does not require extensive knowledge of typography or expensive font making software, and it can result in fonts that perfectly duplicate the specific functionality and rigid look of a typeface and the organic variation provided by a hand lettering style.
Also demonstrated will be a technique of gate weave transcription, or the precise tracking of an original intertitle’s natural bobbing movement, and the copying of that movement to a digitally recreated title. When character extraction and gate weave transcription is combined with proven methods, such as digital tints and film grain, the result is astonishingly authentic-looking intertitles.
Mold Happens!
John Polito, Audio Mechanics
Elizabeth Kirkscey, Paramount Pictures
One of the vaults at Paramount Studios experienced a fault, causing the temperature and relative humidity to rise over one weekend last summer. Even though the vault was repaired immediately, those two days of increased heat and humidity caused mold spores to grow on a large number of music reels in the collection. Part of the collection had been exposed to water damage at a previous storage facility and may have carried in dormant spores, but regardless of the source of the problem, the incident quickly brought to light the critical nature of maintaining stable and correct environmental conditions as a strategy for ameliorating the effects of previous unknown storage conditions. Elizabeth Kirkscey from Paramount Archives and John Polito from Audio Mechanics will discuss the discovery, assessment, and remediation plan that followed.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
The Kinemacolor Digital Restoration
Davide Pozzi, L’Immagine Ritrovata
Mass Digitization Challenges and Solutions
Paul Stambaugh, Prasad Corporation
Rotana, one of the largest Arabic Feature Film Content Libraries in the Middle East, embarked upon the task of digitizing and restoring its assets totaling more than 1600 titles. This case study will provide an insight into the project, the challenges in terms of process flows, manpower management, logistics, infrastructure, regional sensitivities, aesthetics, time management, quality control and other aspects which had to be addressed. The objective of the presentation is to provide an in-depth understanding of the learnings that would help other such large digitization and restoration projects anywhere in the world to plan and implement their projects in an efficient and better way including planning for the unexpected.
The “Nitrofilm” Project: New Technologies and Practical Solutions for Digitization and Preservation of Optical Sound on Nitrate Films
Jakub Stadnik, The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music
An overview of the audio digitization and restoration work that was carried out by the author as part of the “Nitrofilm” project to preserve the most valuable collection of Polish pre-war films. The case study, “The Two Joans” (1935) will explain theoretical and aesthetical aspects of audio restoration, paying special attention to the workflow around the IMAGE TO SOUND TOOLS system and the aspect of authenticity in audio restoration.
Understanding the History, Techniques, and Tools of Stereo Film in the 1950s and 60s to Optimize Presentation and Restoration
Nicholas Bergh, Endpoint Audio
The various wide-‐screen/stereo formats of the 1950s are often considered a reaction to the popularity of television, but the underlying stereo sound recording theory and techniques used for these films had already seen many years of development and were simply waiting for a proper vehicle for their use. For example, Bell Labs/Western Electric, who manufactured the sound equipment for Cinemascope and Todd-‐AO, had been successfully making stereo recordings for over two decades. Furthermore, studios like 20th Century Fox had been actively performing their own in-‐house motion picture stereo experiments for over a decade. By the 1950s, Fox in particular had developed a very specific approach to stereo that they outlined in detail and then consistently executed in dozens of feature films. Cinemascope and other widescreen formats became the vehicle to allow the previous stereo experiments to be practical.
This presentation will trace the early development of stereo sound in America and explore its evolution into the tools and techniques used to create stereo films in the 1950s and 60s. The Fox approach to stereo will be discussed in particular detail since it was the most ambitious and continues to be challenging to grapple with today. Understanding the building blocks of the stereo process is critical to improve modern appreciation and restoration of the early stereo films. Using a combination of digital monitoring tools, vintage equipment tests, and dissected vintage audio, it is possible to help demonstrate the complexity of early stereo films in ways that were not possible before.
Preservation Beyond the Final Feature: A Discussion Moderated by Andrea Kalas with Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
Craig Barron, Magnopus
Ben Burtt, Skywalker Sound
Andrea Kalas, Paramount Pictures
Like many studio Archives, the Paramount Archives contains “related materials” such as trims and outs, editorial paperwork, visual effects mattes and slates, audio materials, stills, and other materials. The Academy- Award winning effects specialists Craig Barron and Ben Burtt are also historians, and their interest in how sound and visual effect have been made and influenced the history of the science and art of cinema is unparalleled. On several occasions, Craig and Ben have spent many hours of their free time finding gems among the “related materials” of the Paramount Archives and turned them into entertaining and fascinating presentations. Their work has helped us understand the importance of preservation beyond the final feature, whether it’s how snow was made in It’s a Wonderful Life or how the red sea was parted in The Ten Commandments.