Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/426326
www.postmagazine.com 28 POST NOVEMBER 2014 cess eliminates practically all small dirt and anomalies, including all scratches not through the first layer of emulsion," ex- plains Balazs Nyari, president of Cineric. Digital restoration supervisor Seth Berkowitz and his team tackled the first leg of the process before handing off to senior colorist Daniel DeVincent. They used Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Reviv- al, Pixel Farms' PF Clean and Cinnafilm's Dark Energy to deal with remaining dirt and scratches plus stabilization issues and image flicker. Every problem remaining after the wet-gate scan was magnified "five-fold in the opticals, including flicker, mottling and streaks that sometimes obliterated the frame, so we had to interpolate an entire new frame," says Berkowitz. "The opening credits, for instance, where you're fading through the stars and clouds, were so obscured by strange big scratches that we had to generate new ones from whole cloth." DeVincent says the film's VFX shots — featuring the flying saucer, which landed on Washington, DC's Ellipse, and Gort, the giant robot who stands guard over it — were pretty well done. "You don't see model lines so much; they did a very good job with them so even the saucer's doors open and close pretty seamlessly," he reports. Gort's metallic suit viewed in 4K does resemble "painted rubber foam" though, DeVincent says. "You can see the zipper clearly in some shots, but we decided not to mask it." "If anything, the zipper is charming," says Berkowitz. DeVincent, who used Autodesk Lustre in a suite equipped with Christie digital projection, gives kudos to cinematog- rapher Leo Tover's "beautiful black and white photography, most of which was interiors — well lit and quite easy to work with. But the opticals were more con- trasty, a little flarey, so if you were match- ing a shot the highlights jumped out. We needed to tamp them down a bit." But in terms of overall grading, "there was nothing I had to alter to bring the film up to what audiences expect to see today." Fox sent a reference print "so we could get a feel for the way it was meant to be projected," he adds. And once DeVincent finished his first primary grade he sent a digital copy to Fox in LA for review and notes. Schawn Belston, executive vice president, media and library services at Twentieth Century Fox, oversaw the restoration. "We try to achieve a very photographic look to the color grading process," DeVin- cent says. "We have a lot of experience working with film, so coming at digital restoration from that perspective enables us to keep a filmic look." Lustre is a "very good tool for getting a film look," he says. "It's designed to work with raw files, and I've always found it very malleable." Cineric delivered a new negative to Fox as well as 4K files archived on LTO tape and a DCP for digital projection. "The Day the Earth Stood Still was a lot of fun to work on," says Berkowitz. "We don't get a lot of sci-fi through here and it has a very unique feel — it wasn't a 1950's sci-fi B film." FOTOKEM — OKLAHOMA! The 60th anniversary of director Fred Zinneman's film of the Rodgers & Ham- merstein musical Oklahoma! occasioned a 4K restoration for new Blu-ray and DVD releases by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. It also got the red carpet treatment at the TCM Classic Film Festival at Hollywood's Chinese Theater last spring. FotoKem (www.fotokem.com) senior Oklahoma! needed a 4K restoration for its 60th anniversary Blu-ray and DVD release. Fotokem colorist Mark Griffith (inset) used DaVinci Resolve to repair badly-faded and discolored edges. FILM RESTORATION