Post Magazine

December 2019

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www.postmagazine.com 44 POST NOV/DEC 2019 T hrough the advanced technologies of digital restoration tools, studios are able to transform damaged, aged and faded classic films for new generations to discover. P A T T O N FotoKem (www.fotokem.com) has restored doz- ens of films, bringing deep film knowledge and a dedication to creative intent and aesthetic to digital preservation efforts. Most recently, 20 th Century Fox asked the studio to restore the multi-Oscar winning Patton. The mandate was to create an SDR version and new 4K DCP, 4K HDR, 4K UHD and DSM (dig- ital source master) versions for archives. To tackle this important project, FotoKem, working under the supervision of Schawn Belston, SVP of mastering at The Walt Disney Company, went back to the five- perf 65mm original negative. "Scans of the original negative result in an incred- ibly detailed, grain accurate file for HDR versioning, especially when scanned at 8K," notes FotoKem's Andrew Oran, SVP and GM of feature sales and marketing. Working from the five-perf 65mm camera negative, FotoKem scanned at 8K, archived raw 8K scans and then scaled to 4K for clean-up and color. "Our pipeline allowed us to make the new versions look as close to the original as possible." In order to do this, the team at FotoKem began with addressing flicker, dust, dirt and damage on the negative. Because the original film negative was textless, subtitles had to be skillfully added back in from scratch, to translate German dialogue to English for several scenes. The original duplicate negative used for printing was also digitized, to provide a frame-accurate reference for the duration and look of the recreated subtitles. Additionally, a few old-school visual effects from the original version — such as string used to make things and animals move — were now apparent in the 8K scans. "With today's improved viewing envi- ronments and scanning technology, there's always a philosophical consideration to restoration work when it comes to 'fixing' what some may perceive as 'imperfections' in the new version," notes Oran. "Keeping the original intentions of the filmmakers is always paramount in our work, and we consider it our job to discuss each and every one of these instances with the studio — or the filmmakers if they are available." In the case of Patton, all strings were left untouched. The HDR color pass also presented a new way to see the film. Clouds and details on metals were more visible, as well as details on walls and maps. HDR allowed FotoKem colorist Kostas Theodosiou to dig into the darks and highlights during the grad- ing passes on a Resolve. "Because we have 70mm film and digital capabilities, I was able to view both DIGITAL RESTORATION BRINGS BACK LOST MASTERWORKS AND CULT CLASSICS

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