American Cinematographer - September 2000 - 18

with faded originals, can, with lesser
faded material, give a finer representa¬
tion of the information held within the

MOVIECAM

original. While it's nice to see a
image on screen, this is also not

camera

better

film restoration.

The

reason

Rear Window that

needed work

that the shot from
we

call "The Kiss"

initially was not that it had

ingrained dirt, scratches, etc., but rather
was an optical dupe created in
1954 from dry-gate separation masters
which had faded beyond usability. It was
initially worked on by Pacific Title/
Mirage, who optically replaced the
yellow layer via its proprietary methodol¬
ogy, and was later sent on to Cinesite for
additional work. The major problem was
an extremely faded element. Mr. Mina
only saw this shot after restoration.
There are many areas in which
people are losing sight of what film
restoration is all about. Many entities
misuse the term. Probably the most egre¬
gious is Disney Home Video, with its
constant "restorations" of films that have

been restored, but rather digitally
a form which has

cleaned and modified to
no

relevance to the

CineSpeedMeter2

favorite:

Reads Monitor Scan Rates To ,001Hz

Mermaid.

Checks for

Light Flicker
Frequency

original. A personal
Disney's "fully restored" Little

No matter what the

terminology,

Monitors Generator

studios and video distributors would have

Checks Camera Frame Rates

the

public believe that many old films
going to video have been in some way
restored. Although there are tools avail¬
able today within the realm of digital
video transfer that create

a

cleaner and
cleaner

image. The original film can still be
one

is

working in film

the

cinematographer of a film is unavail¬

able, the director,

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camera

operator or

production designer can be a good bet for
on bringing a film back to its origi¬
nal look. The point is to find someone
knowledgeable and not work in a
vacuum. A single surviving print will
generally offer little guidance. Even if one
can locate original dye transfer Techni¬
color prints, the difference between them
can be dramatically different and should
advice

once

if

done

properly, but there is an everincreasing danger of poor laboratory
work, which actually can create addi¬
tional damage. This work should only be
done by laboratories that have the tech¬
nical expertise necessary to handle what
are essentially antique rolls of film.
-

Robert A. Harris
James C. Katz
Bedford Hills, NY
Los

Angeles, CA

Technicolors Rami Mina
letter

replies: The
by Messrs. Harris and Katz accu¬

rately states that Technicolor Restoration
Company was not responsible for the
major restoration efforts on Rear
Window. Our primary involvement was
with the completion of timing the
answer print in preparation for the dyetransfer matrices and prints. Any implica¬
tion to the contrary was not intentional.
By all accounts, Universal Studios, was
quite pleased with the results.
Harris and Katz also imply that
very few, if any, laboratories and studio
restoration groups have the ability to
truly restore a film. As they have worked
four films

somewhat understandable

a

restoration, it should also be noted that if

IlGHTLItNE

film elements needs to be done

on

When

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duping elements show
than ever. While a
multitude of sins can generally be hidden
on video, this is becoming more and more
difficult. The task of properly restoring
now more

better-looking image, this has nothing to

a mess.

New York/ Barbizon Electric
Miami/ ESS International
Denver/ Film/Video Service Equipment
Vancouver B.C./ PS Northern Lights

flaws of many

do with film restoration. It's
video

Stocking Dealers:
Hollywood/ Mole,Gunner, Birns & Sawyer

gospel.
higher quality of DVD
images and major advances in transfer
technology and image compression, the
With the

through

that it

not

not be taken as

over

the last decade, it is

they would
However, though the
things they downplay (inspection, repair,
timing, etc.) do not constitute preserva¬

have this notion.

tion
-

or

restoration in and of themselves

as we

all know -

they do go hand-

in-hand with the entire process that
preservation technicians at laboratories
must deal with every day Unfortunately,
Harris and Katz gloss over the real point
of the article, which is the importance of

cinematographers' involvement in the
preservation and restoration of their
work. We at Technicolor will continue to

give cinematographers the prominent
place they deserve in this work.
■
American Cinematographer - September 2000

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