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www.postmagazine.com 4 POST NOVEMBER 2014 BBC RESTORES AGATHA CHRISTIE'S CLASSIC MISS MARPLE MURDER-MYSTERY SERIES BOREHAMWOOD, UK — BBC Studios and Post Production's (www.bbcstu- diosandpostproduction.com) Digital Media Services team has completed full restoration on the classic British murder mystery series, Miss Marple, bringing the picture quality up to date for 21st-century audiences. Based on the stories of crime/ mystery novelist Agatha Christie, and starring Joan Hickson, the original BBC episodes have been remastered for BBC Worldwide's DVD and Blu-ray release in North America. The new HD box set includes the fi rst episode of the series, "The Body in the Library," fi rst broadcast by the BBC 30 years ago, as well as "Murder in the Vicar- age," "A Murder is Announced" and "The Moving Finger." "As with any full-scale restoration, the starting point is to source the best quality original materials. For us this was the original A/B negative rolls," says colorist Jonathan Wood. Made in the 1980s and early 1990s, the BBC's Miss Marple series was shot on 16mm fi lm and then transferred to analog tape for broadcast. While digi- tal master copies have been produced previously, these have been simply copies of the original tape with the same inherent defi ciencies. This is the fi rst time anyone has returned to the original A/B negative rolls to create what Wood describes as a "proper digital master." According to Wood, this gave the studio "a huge increase in resolution, as well as access to the full picture area, enabling us to dramatically im- prove the overall picture quality." There were around four reels of original 16mm A/B negative rolls per episode, which were supplied by BBC Information & Archives, along with the original prints and audio magnetic tracks. Wood says that the original A/B negative rolls were far from perfect, with varying levels of surface dirt, emulsion digs, fi ne scratching and scuffi ng. The fi rst step was to chemi- cally and ultrasonically clean the 16mm negatives, before scanning them in at 2K resolution to create DPX fi les that the team could work with. "When viewed at 2K, it was very clear the material would require con- siderable work to bring it up to the HD quality expected by 21st-century audiences," recalls Woods. "As well as the dirt and scratches, there was a noticeable amount of image instabil- ity and extremely-high levels of grain in places." Once the scanned images were conformed to the print guide pic- tures, some automated processes were applied to help stabilize the im- ages and reduce the amount of grain and tiny dirt marks on the negatives. The many other remaining defects were then dealt with by intensive manual digital clean-up work, where the team restored the images frame by frame. The team also did exten- sive shot-by-shot grading and scene matching to ensure consistency throughout the episodes. "One of the biggest challenges with Miss Marple was maintaining an even quality and color balance throughout the episodes, espe- cially as the source material varied considerably in both exposure and grain levels," explains Wood. "It was important that a neutral, yet high-quality image with natural tones was retained, in keeping with the way that scenes were originally lit during initial recordings." Wood, who also worked with Amanda Whitby and Sheona Hender- son on this restoration, relies on DFT's Scanity for the studio's re-mastering, archiving and restoration processes. For more on restoration tech- niques, turn to our feature on page 26 of this issue. BITS & PIECES Opening credits (above) and scenes here from "The Moving Finger," episode of BBC's Miss Marple. Before (L) and after (R) restoration, which was perfomed using DFT's Scanity.