Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1055354
www.postmagazine.com 30 POST NOVEMBER 2018 further deterioration," says Crisp. "Additionally, [the original camera negative] was used as the printing negative and is seriously damaged in a number of areas. Since the film was a low-budget western there were no preservation or back up elements made at the time, such as YCM protec- tion masters." The 35mm original negative was sent to Cineric in New York, where it was inspected, minor repairs were made and it was scanned on the company's proprietary wetgate 4K scanner. The 4K files of the raw scan were sent to Roundabout Entertainment in Santa Monica, where Crisp worked with Sheri Eisenberg on the color grading. Using a FilmLight Baselight color corrector they were able to grade the film so it was closer to its original Technicolor look. At the same time, the digital repair work — removal of dirt, stains and film tears — was performed by Cineric over a three-month period. "Fading in Eastman color negatives of the '50s and '60s is a major problem, and this film was a good exam- ple," notes Crisp. "The fading was not consistent across the field, so in some reels the fading was worse on one side of the frame than the rest, for example, making the restoration of the color diffi- cult and time-consuming. Sheri was able to use a variety of options, including power windows over power windows in some cases, in order to deal with the differential fading, which involved a lot of manual manipulation." Once Cineric returned the restored files to Roundabout, "we reviewed all the work with a split screen between the raw scan and the re- stored files to check for any anomalies or artifacts that might have been the result of digital repair work, making sure the film grain was intact and not altered and determining what else needed to be done in terms of image restoration," Crisp continues. "We wanted the final image to be as authentic as possible to the original achievement on film." Then Roundabout began the final color grading process in P3 color space and conformed audio to the final picture. Additional image restoration was done with the Baselight color corrector. Hollywood's Deluxe Audio performed the audio restoration from original 35mm mono sound mas- ters. "They were in need of restoring to eliminate pops, crackles, distortion and other anomalies accu- mulated over time," Crisp reports. MULTICOM — THE CONVENT Beverly Hills-based Multicom Entertainment Group (www.multicom.tv) is a global independent distribu- tion company with an extensive IP library. In the last six years it has acquired 1,200 titles or 5,500 hours of content ranging from theatrical releases to cable programs and home video products. Much of the purchased product had no digital masters and no tape-based media, only raw film. To ready this content for digital distribution, Multicom decided to establish an in-house resto- ration service. To date, it has completed 35 films or television episodes for release on Blu-ray and theatrical runs. Titles include the Academy Award- winning documentary The Long Way Home, the horror film Slaughterhouse Rock, the classic The Adventures of Pinocchio and the romantic biopic The Whole Wide World. Last year, Multicom invested in a Blackmagic Design Cintel Scanner with a Cintel Audio and KeyKode Reader to scan 35mm and 16mm film, which enabled it to handle "ten times more product at much better quality" than when using outside services, reports Andrew Baritz, executive director of digital operations and business development at Multicom. "We average 40 to 60 hours in post to complete a restoration." In Multicom's Inglewood office, the company's film storage and capture vault houses 75,000 physical elements. The processing room has a Blackmagic Design Teranex 2D Processor with multiple DeckLink cards for SD capture that's used for color reference; the room also has inspection and cleaning tables to prep elements. "We choose the most high-quality assets available and some- times go chasing for missing elements," says Baritz. "The archive team does a reel-by-reel inspection and handles cleaning and repair to ensure the best product for the safety of the scanner." Inglewood's back room houses the film capture station with Cintel Scanner, Promise Technology's Pegasus RAID storage and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio. "We scan the film to acceptable data capture levels Roundabout performed color correction. Deluxe audio restored the soundtrack. Ride Lonesome was very faded. Cineric took on the restoration.