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PICTURE & SOUND RESTORATION www.postmagazine.com 28 POST NOVEMBER 2016 THE GRADUATE It's hard to believe but Mike Nichols's The Graduate will mark its 50th an- niversary next year. The iconic com- ing-of-age story, available from The Criterion Collection, was refreshed recently with a new digital transfer by Deluxe Culver City and color grading by Harbor Picture Company (www. harborpicturecompany.com) in New York City. "The film still feels contemporary in many ways," notes Joe Gawler, senior colorist and a partner in Harbor Picture Company. He's done close to a 100 titles for The Criterion Collection over the years, starting well before the current practice of making 4K scans from the negative. "When I began, we took projects mastered in SD and remastered them in HD," he recalls. "Now, we're taking the approved HD masters, scanning the negative at 4K and, in this case, referencing the approved HD transfer that Mike Nichols signed off on. While the HD master served as a guide for The Graduate, we can still optimize certain scenes without affecting the intent of the filmmaker." Nichols died in 2014. Deluxe Culver City scanned the 35mm original camera negative on a DFT Scanity in 4K resolution. There was no major damage to the film, but dirt, debris, scratches, splices and warps were manually removed by a team at The Criterion Collection in New York City using Digital Vision Phoenix and MTI Correct. Gawler was tasked with col- or grading files on his Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve V.12 with "no extra processing baked in — no noise reduction, no grain management," he explains. "The characteristics of a negative are different from an IP, so there was more latitude to play with the overall look of the image. But the intent was always to come close to what a film print of the era would have looked like. I worked hard to give as true a representation of that as possible. And it was important to have the HD transfer that Mike had approved so I wasn't taking all those decisions upon myself." Gawler employed some custom curves and tools in Resolve's RGB mixer to give the negative more of a print look. He put windows on the left or right side of a frame to balance any color inconsistencies arising from slight movements in the negative. The color pipeline that Gawler employs through Resolve enables him to "maintain flexibility for whatever deliverables Criterion might need in the future," he points out. "I don't just bake in Rec. 709. I can easily change the output display for a digital cinema master." He's also mindful of "how quickly HDR content is coming down — we're already doing that for Netflix and Amazon. If we need The Graduate in HDR, I can change the output display to 1000 nits and not lose the work I did for the Rec. 709 master. Managing the color pipeline has become impera- tive for futureproofing your work." The audio restoration was per- formed by The Criterion Collection. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the original 35mm magnetic audio tracks. The 5.1 surround remix, approved by Nichols, was created from the 35mm magnetic tracks and the original soundtrack recordings. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum and cracks were manually removed from both soundtracks using Avid Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation and iZotope RX4. At the Criterion Collection, Lee Kline and Russell Smith supervised the transfer. ROMEO AND JULIET Franco Zeffirelli's highly-acclaimed 1968 film of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" is playing to theatrical audi- ences worldwide in a restored version created by Roundabout Entertainment in collaboration with Paramount Pictures and Park Circus. The timeless tale of young romance, renowned for its stunning visuals and age-appropri- ate cast, is part of Shakespeare Lives, an international program of special events commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death. The project was made possible through funding from the British Council and British Film Institute. Paramount Pictures' Archive Preservation group created new 4K scans of the original 35mm camera negative, which was determined to be complete after some detective work was done. "There are always urban legends about the existence of longer versions of movies, especially Italian versions of Romeo and Juliet," says Ron Smith, executive director of mas- tering and restoration at Roundabout Entertainment (www.roundabout. com) in Burbank. "But we were work- ing from the genuine final version." Roundabout's restoration team addressed dirt, tears, scratches and gouges — damage that might be ex- pected of a popular movie of the era whose negatives were used to make additional film prints for theatrical re-releases. Working in 4K in realtime using Nucoda for image processing and MTI Film's DRS for clean up, "we did frame-by-frame repairs of tears and film damage and frame-by-frame dirt and scratch removal," says Smith. "This wasn't a film that lent itself to auto- mated tools; it was a manual project. There was so much detail, especially in the costuming. In the big dance sequence, for example, automation would have taken all the sparkle of the glitter and sequins right out." Another challenge was how to handle several duped sections so those inserts conformed to the body of the film. "Over time, the negatives used to make additional film prints in- evitably sustained emulsion damage, stains, tears and persistent scratch- es," Smith explains. "Those damaged sections were often replaced with second- or third-generation film materials. With a movie so immersive, you want everything to be uniform and smooth with no distractions." The opening titles and closing cred- its also required particular attention. "It was really kind of shocking how bad the main title was," Smith recalls. "In those days the titles were all optical, which fades at a different rate than the negative and is prone to be dirty and grainy." The opening titles were set Harbor Picture's Joe Gawler Harbor Picture Company performed color grading on The Graduate. The Graduate