Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/221535
Chace's Brian Jensen performed audio restoration on the 1934 classic, It Happened One Night. very slow drift in color from one moment to the next. The red, green and blue channels move away from each other based on the aging of dyes," Chernoff explains. "So a scene might start out looking normal, but by the middle it looks more red, and by the end it looks more green." Chernoff himself employed MTI Film's Correct color breathing software to analyze all the color dyes and to graph each frame; this enabled him to see if color changes were natural or unnatural. At the same time, senior colorist Jeremy Sawyer began the color cor- rection process, working under the supervision of Fox restoration producer Michael MacKinnon, and referring to a print of the film for guidance. "Michael strongly believes in having the restoration colorist look at the approved release print and try to match the original intent of the DP, " Chernoff says. While the North to Alaska negative was in good condition overall, and the popular film existed in its entirety, with no missing reels, Chernoff notes, "there's no such thing as a simple restoration. Even with relatively recent films, there's always something that went wrong — deep scratches, tears — that make the job more complicated than you'd expect." U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Chandler, Arizona-based Video Conversion Experts (www.videoconversionexperts.com) has been involved with restoring amateur films, independent films and government films for the past decade. Restoration of that content can be quite challenging considering issues such as color degradation of film stocks and the anything-but-professional conditions under which some footage was shot. The company boasts two film scanners. One is MWA Nova's Flashtransfer Choice2k+, which has many restoration features built in, says Video Conversion Experts' president and owner, Brad Hinkle. "It has the ability to do automatic color and exposure adjustments as it scans," he notes. "Professional film shot professionally will have very little variation in the color balance, and its exposure is always spot on, but this feature is very useful on amateur films." A Cintel Ditto pin-registered 2K/4K film scanner is also on hand; its DSCO technology removes surface damage on film, "scanning past the defect and looking into the image layer to recover information," Hinkle explains. With these tools at the heart of its operation, Video Conversion Experts aims to perform as much corrective and repair work as possible at the scanning stage. "It's always faster to get these things done at scan time than in the post process afterwards," says Hinkle. "In addition, you will get higher quality by doing the restoration at scan time." A recent project involved about 45,000 feet of 16mm print film from the US Geological Survey, which captured volcanic eruptions and other geological events during the 1950s.Video Conversion Experts has worked with the agency before; they typically need restoration performed before content is digitized and preserved. Kinograph solution now in development Funding is a critical part of the restoration process, and many films worldwide languish in a precarious state while they await underwriting or sponsorship for restoration. A solution for much of that content may be close at hand. As his Masters thesis in New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Matthew Epler developed Kinograph (http://kinograph.cc), an open-source project that makes film digitization affordable and scalable. Using components available on the Internet, a few 3D-printed parts and a consumer-level camera, Kinograph digitizes 35mm, 16mm and 8mm film at high definition resolutions with sound. It uses software to stabilize the series of captured images and extract optical sound. While Epler says he built Kinograph "for worst-case scenarios — far off corners of the planet with no or few resources and no hope of getting stuff to a lab," Kinograph could also be a middle-ground solution for large collections trying to make their assets useful and profitable, and for content urgently in need of rescue before it's lost forever. A USC Film School undergraduate who taught film in Brazil and the Middle East, Epler was inspired by 900 rusty film canisters he found in a garage in Jordan. "It was a lot of Russian Cold War propaganda, Vietnamese-language films, documentary footage after the Six Day War and royal visits by King Hussein," he recounts. "It was clear that without any equipment or funds, the only way to get these images out was as a thesis." The material is now safely stored in Jordan; he plans to digitize it as "the first major proof of concept" for the proto- 34 Post • November 2013 www.postmagazine.com type industrial version of Kinograph. Epler is currently trying to figure out "how to be open source and make a living" off the Kinograph concept. But "there's no reason why those two can't co-exist," he says. He plans to unveil an 8mm Kinograph, targeted to consumers, before the end of next year. "It will consist of open and free plans for how to build Kinograph with a camera of your choice and software that turns the captured images into a watchable high-quality movie with sound," he says. He may also supply Kinograph as a kit. At the same time, Epler is developing an industrial version of the system with specialty software. He's considering offering the professional Kinograph process as a mobile service featuring "a 12- to 24-machine farm in a mobile unit with all the technology. It would be a very efficient way to operate." Kinograph works with any camera that has a remote trigger cable. The industrial version will rely on high-speed computer vision cameras, which are "basically a raw sensor and lens — stripped down and robust," Epler says. The industrial version's proprietary software will have the ability to capture metadata, and he's "optimistic" about using the optical sound recovery tool developed at the University of South Carolina and now in the final stages of research. Epler expects that "people will be extremely skeptical" about Kinograph but hopes they will believe "it's worth trying something new and different that meets the needs of the time with the tools of the time." By Christine Bunish