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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Non-digital restoration of pink prints
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-28-2006 05:57 PM
Obviously this is a question asked by people who have collector's prints. If any exhibitor really thought he could make a respectible profit by playing a particular older title, one of which the studio doesn't have a decent print (if the studio doesn't have a decent print, it is usually because they have already determined that there is not a large enough market to strike new prints), then he can always put up the money to have a print struck. I know a number of outfits who travel playing their own compositions along with silent movies. They paid the studios to strike prints for their own use. So if an exhibitor really thought he could make $$$ from a title, there is an easier way than to try to accomplish what no one, not Kodak, not Fugi, have accomplished with all the modern R&D and film chemistry at their disposal.
But I know your angst -- I have many prints that are all magenta (a color, btw, that I used to like....not so much any more). I have toyed with the idea of experimenting with video projection. When I was at the 3D World Expo two years ago, Jeff Joseph ran a 3D print in which the only existing Left Eye print was faded, while the Right Eye print had good color. I was very surprised at the result. Even though one eye was looking at a very faded image, the brain seemed to ignore that bad color and rely on the good color that the other eye had access to. The picture looked much more like normal color than like faded purple. So, given that experience, I extrapolated a hypothesis:
Suppose you could get a DVD that has not been time-compressed in any fashion, and you had a faded print that was fully intact, i.e., no missing frames. Then let's say you would run both in synchronism and project each, the 35mm projector and the video projector, aligned perfectly on the screen, i.e., the images are superimposed on top of each other. My theory is that the color from the video and the high resolution of the faded print will blend together and the brain will combine the best elements of both, producing an image that looks very much like the high resolution of 35mm film, but with the balanced color of the DVD video.
Of course this is just a theory and even if it worked, it's execution would be absurdly complex and impractical. It would be fun to try though.
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Peter Berrett
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 602
From: Victoria, Australia
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 07-29-2006 04:01 AM
Actually I just found something quite interesting...
The following comes from the following thread
quote:
KODAK LIGHTNING LASER RECORDERS
The Lightning recorder's technology is unique in that it uses red, green and blue lasers to expose negative film. The three lasers write directly to each color layer of the intermediate stock. This combination produces images of unparalleled sharpness and color saturation. The system's 10 bit (per color per pixel) log space retains all the film's enormous density range, while the lasers' extremely wide dynamic range ensures that the quality of the new negative is absolutely optimised
Kodak's laser recorder polygon has 16 facets and spins at 6120 revolutions per minute (rpm). The imaging lens is a high-performance, color-corrected f/theta lens which was custom designed for the recorder. The digital datapath of the Lightning laser recorder also includes color matrix and aperture correction boards. The color matrix is used to help eliminate color crosstalk on the negative. The aperture correction board applies a compensating correction for the combined optical losses of the film recorder ensuring that the full detail and grain structure of the film is preserved.
It is extremely important that the grain content in the recorded shot matches exactly that of the original film, so that when an added effect is edited into the finished sequence there is no discernible change in grain, a telltale sign of an added effects shot. Cinesite outputs to 5242 intermediate stock, which is virtually grainless (ASA 3) and has the ability to record the grain pattern from faster stocks so that the digital transformation is unnoticeable in the final edit. The lasers that the Kodak system uses are more intense than CRT's and are able to record out the full dynamic range of any other scanned original negative stock. At Cinesite the lasers are calibrated to give a maximum dynamic range of 2.046 density units to match the capability of the 5242 stock. When used with the Lightning film scanner, the Lightning laser recorder's output is nearly impossible to distinguish from the camera original
If these lasers can, with such precision, expose negative film, then likewise they could be used for the purpose I have outlined.
Whether they would drill holes I don't know but maybe a new thin layer of film could be laid onto the new film, the lasers expose this to add the extra colors and then some sort of sealing process could be added?
It seems to me that technologically it is possible - it is just a question of whether anyone has ever tried.
Regards Peter
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-29-2006 07:15 AM
It's more a question of whether it would be economically viable than technically possible: my gut feeling is that it wouldn't.
Having a laser-out interneg made using a machine like this costs, at a bare minimum, around £250 per minute of footage, not including stock (for example, see this lab's price list). Even if it could be adapted to rejuvenate faded dyes, the cost is likely to be so large that you could have a new print struck (colour corrected using filtered light on a Bell & Howell 'C' printer, if necesssary) for a fraction of the price.
As others have pointed out, there would be no market for such a system as far as preservation is concerned. At present, photochemical methods (either filtered light printing to a dupe interneg or f/g pos, or, if you have a higher budget, making seps and a recombined interneg) are still a lot cheaper than 2k or 4k digital if the only problem is dye fading, though I don't imagine that being the case forever.
The reason this technology is so expensive is that the machines have a seven-figure price tag and run very slowly - around 30 seconds to scan a frame at 4k, and around 2 minutes to burn one. So, scanning or burning a feature takes days and sometimes weeks, which is why the cost of doing it per frame is so high. That's also why we don't have directly burnt release prints, but rather a lasered interneg which is then used to strike release prints the normal way. If burners which are cheap enough and fast enough to ever make it viable to burn an inventory of release prints directly ever come on the market, the likely print quality could be fantastic.
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Charles Greenlee
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 801
From: Savannah, Ga, U.S.
Registered: Jun 2006
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posted 07-30-2006 03:13 AM
Can't the film be transferred optically though filters to strike a 3 strip technicolor master. Thay way, you can tweak the component colors seperatly, possibly unsing exposure times, and then recombine them to a final print. Say your cyan is weak. You dupe it over to a technicolor master, and simply expose the cyan print a little longer, cause it to be better saturated in the final print. Yes, this requires your to make 4 prints or more in case of error(3 for the technicolor master, and 1 for the final print), but you may possibly bring back the color, without computer assist, or more expensive means.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-30-2006 04:48 AM
Yes, absolutely. Making a set of seps is the standard option for creating preservation masters from colour elements, where either the original has faded or you only have a combined positive (print) to start with. A less expensive option is to print through filtered light (the Bell & Howell 'C' printer has adjustable light veins which can be used to adjust the colour temperature of the light source to compensate for the faded original); but this isn't as effective on severely faded elements and of course it only gives you a chromogenic dupe. Seps give you the chemical stability of a b/w silver dye for preservation, whilst also recording the entire colour record.
The main drawback with seps is the cost and complexity. If I remember correctly, it was Robert Harris who pointed out that after Scorsese's fading awareness campaign in the early '80s, studios started making a set of preservation seps off cut camera negatives as a matter of policy, but often didn't bother making a recombined interneg for quality control. The result was that in some cases, serious registration errors were discovered many years later.
At AMIA last year we were shown a back-to-back comparison of a scene from Chinatown, once reprinted directly from the preservation seps and once from the 4k-scanned camera negative and cleaned up digitally. The digital version blew the photochemical one away - largely, we were told, because the latter had not been done with enough attention to quality control.
At the moment, the cost of digital intermediate restoration is still so high that in many cases, the photochemical route still costs a lot less to deliver an equivalent quality. I guess that Moore's Law means that this won't be the case forever, and at any rate photochemical restoration of colour faded elements needs the best lab guys and girls in the business, taking as long as the job needs, to get it right. The colour information is still there in the faded film; the trick is in making it visible to the naked eye again.
As for Kodachrome, I guess you could call it the ultimate home movie medium, having been invented by two people for whom photography was their hobby rather than their day job!
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