American Cinematographer - September 2000 - 163

Saving Past Classics at Cineric
by Eric Rudolph

Although total digital restoration of
feature films is still

prohibitively
New York City company
called Cineric Inc. is using computer
technology and photochemical processes
to preserve and restore disappearing
color-film treasures. Balazs Nyari,
founder and president of Cineric, says
that unlike many companies that do
preservation and restoration work,
Cineric's specialty grew directly out of
the principals' visual-effects expertise.
"Most restoration and preservation
companies come from a lab
background," he notes. "Our approach to
restoration is a direct outgrowth of our
experience in the Star Wars-era of visual
effects [during the late 1970s and early
'80s], As an optical cameraman, you had
to know how to perfectly line up a matte
and precisely register [multiple film
elements]."
This experience, along with "the
special skills required to make
costly,

a

scenes come to life
onscreen," accounts for much of Cineric's

highlights

yellowish. "If it is faded 50 percent
less,

we can

make

a

color mask that

or
re¬

that

expertise in rescuing damaged film
elements, Nyari explains. Several of the
company's principals were enlisted for
the visual-effects team of the 1982

also added

computer-game fantasy film Tron. Later,

lesser

they thought they might have success
adapting techniques used on that film for
restoration work. "We asked ourselves if
the color-mask

techniques we used to
obtain better color saturation and deeper
blacks

Phot

and turns the whites and

missing information."
Cineric has created film-length yellow
layers for such classics as Bell, Book and
Candle and The Seventh Voyage of
Sinbad. Magenta and cyan information is

composited

ICniocceurfr.te,sy

fade," Nyari explains, adding that such
fading gives deep shadows a blue cast

on

Tron could be used in film

restoration," Nyari recalls. "That was the

origin of Cineric's proprietary color-fading
restoration approach."
To correct serious color fading,
Cineric focuses on the yellow emulsion
layer. "The yellow layer is the first to

creates

as

needed, but to

a

much

restoring faded color films]. They are
constantly trying to improve [those
tools]."
However, Cineric does not simply
replace faded color layers. Its
technicians also work from whatever
material is available to create new,

pristine masters of beat-up classics.
Crisp notes that another long-term
Cineric project is the nearly completed

inspect film prints
at the New York-

based company.
Recent

restoration

projects have
included Bell,
Book and Candle
and Funny

Girl.

restoration of the Barbra Streisand

degree.

vehicle

Tom Heitman, Cineric's director of

the lead in

preservation and restoration, declined to
explain how the yellow matte is created,
saying only that it is a proprietary
photographic process made more
efficient by the use of a great deal of
computing power. Grover Crisp, vice
president of asset management and film
restoration
for
Sony
Pictures
Entertainment, says the Bell, Book and
Candle restoration was "very successful.
Cineric is at the forefront [in terms of

Cineric

technicians

Funny Girl. "Tom Heitman took
reconstructing a negative that
was in very bad shape," Crisp notes.
"Substandard duped portions and poor
opticals had been cut in," and the
original camera negative was badly
worn, having been used to make more
than 200 initial prints.
Heitman

worked

from

YCM

separation masters (made from the
original Eastman Color negative at the
time of the film's release) and several
IPs, among other elements, to create BAmerican

Cinematographer 161
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