examples of collections & film restoration & preservation...

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Besser-Cineteca Mexicana, 27/7/09

Film Restoration & Preservation

Howard Besser NYU Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program

http://besser.nyu.edu/howard http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/


•  Of course this requires scientific processes including: –  Chemistry (for analog restoration & preservation) –  Computer skills(for digital restoration and preservation)

•  But this also requires important non-scientific processes: –  Curatorial (historical research, contextualization) –  Collection management (record-keeping, tracking,

planning)


Film Restoration & Preservation-

•  Examples of Collections & Problems •  Digital Works •  4 Distinct Digital uses •  What is reformatting? •  Scientific approaches to reformatting •  Why we need more than science


Examples of Collections & Problems



Cinemateca Brasileira (video storage)


Svenska Filmhuset

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Univ of GA Walter J Brown Media Archives






Storage-Main Smithsonian


Storage-Main Smithsonian


Storage--Smithsonian History Museum

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Storage-Smithsonian History Museum


Hogan Jazz Archive Tulane Univ




Vinegar Syndrome Deterioration

Image Permanance Institute


Acid Detection Strips at NYU Library (Internship)

Because of deterioration, we need to ReFormat


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Digital Works

•  Can be –  “born digital” (recorded with a digital

camera, edited on a digital editor), or –  “Digitized” from Analog works (film), or –  “Hybrid” (combining “Born digital” elements

with “Digitized” elements, or Digitizing as an intermediate step between original film and new film master


Most Common Digital Sizes

•  For ReFormatting (TeleCines) and Display (Projection) –  2K (2048×1080) –  4K (4096×2160)

•  Most cameras today are roughly 2K, as are most projectors

•  Laboratories are often equipped with variable-size reformatting specifically for intermediates


4 distinct Digital Uses-

•  Digital Restoration •  Digital Projection •  Digital Preservation •  Digital Access


Digital Restoration

•  Use digital or hybrid techniques, and end-product can be output to film or digital form

Digital Restoration output to film is the most widely used today


Digital Projection •  Use DCI-compliant projectors to show films in digital

form •  But projectors are really made for contemporary

Hollywood films, so they may cause deep problems for the Film Archive world: –  Only support 24 and 48 fps –  Fixed Aspect Ratios, meaning that Scope prints must use less

pixels (currently being addressed) –  Built-in security, matching cinema content to a projector number

•  FIAF has been trying to influence the SMPTE standard


Digital Preservation-

•  Expensive & requires large set of skills •  Requires a very large infrastructure to

maintain


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Digital Preservation

•  Requires new file formats and new physical strata at regular intervals

•  Needs a serious Managed Environment •  Requires staff with knowledge of

computer storage, metadata, migration strategies, obsolescence issues, as well as curatorial

AMPAS Digital Dilemma�http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma/


Digital Access-NFB


Digital Access-Merce


What is reformatting?

Besser-Cineteca Mexicana, 27/7/09 Besser-Cineteca Mexicana, 27/7/09

Difficult Materials become obsolete relatively quickly

•  The physical carriers decay or become obsolete

•  The technology required to view the carriers changes frequently

•  The encoding formats needed to decode the content shift

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Obsolete or deteriorated Physical Carriers


Obsolete Carriers & Info Techn


Obsolete Carriers


Obsolete Carrier viewing Technology?


Kodak stops making some films


Old Video Formats (www.vidipax.com)

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List of old Audio Formats Format Description Years in UseWax Cylinder Records 2- or 4-minute formats, wax

or wax compound1888– 1929

Recordable Disc Records(Direct or Acetate Discs)

7”, 12”, or 16”, recorded at33 or 78 revolutions perminute (rpm). Generallyvinyl on a paper, glass ormetal base

1929– 1960s

Recording Wire Spooled wire, usually in 15-to 30- minute lengths, onedirection only

c. 1945– 1955

Open reel recording tape 1/4”– 2”, 3”– 10 1/2" reels,1 7/8– 30 inches per second(IPS) speeds

c. 1945– Present

Compact Cassette 1/8” tape in hard case, 1 7/8IPS format

1965– Present

Microcassette/Minicassette Very small 2-4 cm cassettetapes

1977– Present

Digital disk, MP3, and otherdigital recorders

Audio recorded directly indigital files to optical disksor internal hard drives

2000– Present


Disaster Recovery-New Orleans


Lost Tapes, Found SoundsExhibition Harold Schellinex

We can’t keep all the equipment for all film formats

•  Nitrate •  8mm •  Super 8 •  Cinemascope •  55mm-


55mm AND Cinemascope


Why do we Reformat? •  Because we cannot sustain the original object (its

physical characteristics are deteriorating too fast) •  Because continued access and handling of the

original object will rapidly decay its physical characteristics (so we create a surrogate for users and store the original in very good conditions, away from users)

•  Because viewing the work requires some kind of technology, and we can’t keep that technology working very far into the future-

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Edison


Metal sound recording Disks Casa Rui Barbosa


Paper print (LC Dayton)


Record Turntables


Slide Projector


Limitations of Reformatting

•  Authenticity issues (more later) •  User behaviors (newspaper, book,

video game, …) •  Users mistaking the reformatted work

for the original

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Critiques of Reformatting

Mainly User Behaviors

•  Can’t view outside the library

•  Only sequential access

•  Viewing and studying is awkward

•  … Besser-Cineteca Mexicana, 27/7/09

But unless we Reformat, we totally lose some kinds of works

(particularly audiovisual works like film) •  50% of all titles produced before 1950 have vanished

(approximate number as of late 1970s) •  This reflects full-length features; survival rates are much lower

for other types (studio newsreels, shorts, docs, independent, …), and these “orphans” are particularly in peril

•  Fewer than 20% of features from 1920s survive in complete form; survival rates of 1910s is <10% (& none of these are negatives)

-Film Preservation 1993: A Study of the Current State of American Film Preservation, Vol 1: Report, June 1993, Report of the Librarian of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/film/study.html)

Scientific approaches to reformatting


Restoration-Scratches (On the Waterfront)


Restoration-Splices/Scratches


Restoration-Opernball


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Restoration-HP Labs


Color Restore (VidiPax)

RCI Color Restoration


RCI Color Restoration


Restoration-Panorama Stitch


Restoration-Panorama Stitch


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Metropolis


Lost Horizon


Why we need more than only science


Commercial Reformatting Issues: PR at 1967 re-issue of GWTW •  “Spherical Blow-Up” •  “In the Splendor of 70mm. Wide screen and full

stereophonic sound!” •  “For the thousands who remember its unparalleled

drama, action and romance! For the new thousands to whom the wonders will be revealed for the first time! Breathtaking spectacle, inspired acting by the greatest cast ever assembled! The screen's most exciting love story! The most-talked about picture ever made!”

•  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/taglines


But most people didn’t know that 70mm widescreen is different shape than 35mm normal


Change in Aspect Ratio forces cutting

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Pan and Scan example

•  7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Stanley Donen, MGM, 1954 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan


This meant eliminating part of the frame


Eliminating even in famous scenes


But the re-release wasn’t governed by artistic concerns

•  Intellectual Property is owned by MGM, not by Fleming or Selznick

•  MGM is motivated maximizing profit, not in maintaining artistic integrity

•  Bigger is always better

•  Not radically different than another blow to artistic integrity/originality in Atlanta 20 years later…


Atlanta was also home of 1980s Colorization movement


Sometimes even the Director wants to go back and change their original film

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Star Wars 1977 vs 2004


Someone needs to maintain the integrity of artistic works

•  This means preserving original versions – even when commercial interests want to

replace the older version with something new and fancy

– even when the “artist” wants to use more recent technological developments to “improve” their work


Film & other Media Archivists

•  Preserve original works •  Provide access to older versions •  Maintain the integrity of the “original” in any

restoration process •  Champion works that do not have commercial

entities pushing for their preservation and distribution

•  Try to make sure that works are viewed within their original context-


Viewing Context (images like in Dayton-Hudson)

Historical Research


Extra Material


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La Venganza de Pancho Villa (Edmundo &Felix Padilla, 1930-34, restored 2008)


The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa�(Gregorio Rocha 2003)



Fox Newsreels NY Street Scenes & Noises


Fox Newsreels (naming): NY Street Scenes & Noises


Fox Newsreels (background): NY Street Scenes & Noises


Fox Newsreels (shot locations): NY Street Scenes & Noises

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Fox Newsreels (dating): NY Street Scenes & Noises


Fox Newsreels (then & now): NY Street Scenes & Noises


Fox Newsreels (then & now): NY Street Scenes & Noises


Television Pictures March 12, 1931

Unedited material used in a Fox Movietone newsreel

project by Kara van Malssen, Sean Savage, Paula Felix-Didier, Lindsay Herron


Clip #2 Ernst Fredrik Werner Alexanderson

in the General Electric “House of Magic” •  “We have succeeded to

photograph the television image on a moving picture film. Important events that in the future may be intercepted by the television camera and broadcast to all corners of the world may thus be recorded on the film and kept in readiness in moving picture houses for projection of a lifetime some minutes or hours after the event.”

•  Cuts to close-shot: “We hope that this will be one

more step to widen our horizon and to make all people our neighbors.”


•  The scanning disk "is perforated with 48 small holes, three sixty-fourths of an inch in diameter which are arranged in a spiral on the outer edge of the disk..."

•  Clip continues later on tape after a repeat of Clip #1

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Early experiments with television


Limitations

•  48 lines of resolution (not a life-like image)

•  Audio: synchronization & pitch

•  Required the subject be in close proximity to the apparatus


What we were able to verify. Date.

First successfully recorded image shown to the public.

Alexanderson.

The apparatus.

Was edited and shown in theaters.

Preserving newer media formats


Who is preserving DVD Extras?


Who is preserving YouTube? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkmczhkrKYA


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iTunes-U UCB Campus Events


iTunes-U Duster Video


Do we trust iTunes to preserve these?


Possible endless need for reformatting implies

•  Possible loss with each generation •  Requires managed environment •  Can lead to © violations-


Managed Environment

•  More than temperature & humidity control

•  Periodic monitoring of the works •  Periodic monitoring of the technical

environment for viewing the works (software, systems, hardware)

•  Trusted repositories


Storage Media

•  Removable media (like CDs) is not a long-term answer

•  The long-term answer requires ongoing management, and involves regular migration or emulation. This solution is only viable with storage on spinning disks-

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Storing on CDs becomes a big problem over time


Consumers replace their CDs with a hard disk (& so should archives)


Plain DVDs are no longer the latest format


So, with electronic works, the focus should be less on stable temperature

(Helsinki underground vaults)


And less on the construction of Vaults (Helsinki underground vaults) Paradigms Shifts needed

Old New Physical preservation

atmospheric cntrl ongoing mgmt

What to save? artifact idea + ancillary material & documentation

Cataloging Individual work in hand

FRBR

Later access Artifact & documentation

Restaging, ancillary material & documentation Besser-Cineteca Mexicana, 27/7/09

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Your Challenges as an Archivist

•  You are custodians of our Heritage •  You need to make sure that that Heritage

endures (preservation) •  You need to make sure that that heritage can

be used for research, education, etc. (access) •  We live in a media-saturated era, and new

media works pose continuing challenges for us


•  Of course this requires scientific processes including: –  Chemistry (for analog restoration & preservation) –  Computer skills(for digital restoration and preservation)

•  But this also requires important non-scientific processes: –  Curatorial (historical research, contextualization) –  Collection management (record-keeping, tracking,

planning)



Film Restoration & Preservation •  http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/ •  http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/Talks/ •  http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/ •  http://www.nfsa.afc.gov.au/screensound/screenso.nsf/


Film Restoration & Preservation •  http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/ •  http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/Talks/ •  http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/ •  http://www.nfsa.afc.gov.au/screensound/screenso.nsf/

examples of collections & film restoration & preservation...

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