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PICTURE & SOUND RESTORATION www.postmagazine.com 30 POST NOVEMBER 2016 BURBANK, CA — Just 25 percent of films from the silent era survive today, according to Heather Linville, film pres- ervationist at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' Film Archive, which is celebrating its 25th anniversa- ry. "It's a sad percentage," she says. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to discover an American comedy like The Perfect Woman in a full, tinted 35mm nitrate print, shown as a distribution print meant for the French market. Part of the Academy's Lobster Films and Blackhawk Films/Film Preservation Associates collections, the film was co-written by the great Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and stars the popular Constance Talmadge. Many of the comedienne's films have been lost, so this only surviving ele- ment made it a priority for preserva- tion — and a boon to fans. The condition of nitrate stock can vary wildly, Linville reminds us. "You can open a can sitting in a basement and it's pristine, then the can next to it is a pile of dust," she says. "The Perfect Woman was in good condition — the best condition to preserve it before it starts to deteriorate." Linville has been supervising pres- ervation projects at FotoKem (www. fotokem.com) for 13 years, employing both straight photochemical and digital workflows. Digital now offers many advantages, including the ability to produce digital deliverables for screenings and, in the case of The Perfect Woman, the efficient creation of new intertitles. FotoKem's Andrew Oran, vice president of sales and operations for large format and restoration, explains, "We began by making a new duplicate negative from the nitrate print source as a backup element, then scanned the nitrate print at 4K with an ArriScan." Daniel Rapo was the digital restoration producer, and a team led by Gary Hoover and Jon Sutherland handled source print inspection, splice repair and perf wear. FotoKem colorist George Koran used Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve for color grading, minimal digital clean up, and select shot stabi- lization. He balanced the densities in an initial black-and-white pass, then created digital looks with amber and blue tinting, applying them to the scenes using the print as a guide. "If we had all the money in the world, we could have removed every bit of dirt or hair and made the film rock solid, but we felt it was more about capturing the original theatrical experience," says Linville. New intertitle cards, translated to English from French, were created digitally by a graphic artist in the style of the original French versions. The new cards were edited into the digital restoration and stretched to the prop- er length for readability. "When we inserted the new interti- tles, they originally looked too steady and called attention to themselves," notes Oran. Koran adds, "We didn't want to overcorrect the film. We wanted to honor the texture of the original source. We added grain, slight glow and flicker to the digitally generated English cards. We also added move- ment and jitter that we sampled from surrounding original footage." The restored film, as a 4K DCP, made its world premiere in August as part of the Academy's Archival Revival screening series. "Watching it with an audience was such fun," says Oran. "You could see how easily people relate to the universal human experience from 95 years ago." HOLLYWOOD — MTI Film (www.mti- film.com) recently completed an all- new 4K restoration of director Lewis Milestone's 1931 film, The Front Page. The months-long project was con- ducted for The Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with MTI Film's restoration team working under the direction of AFA director Michael Pogorzelski and film preservationist Heather Linville. The restored film made its world premiere at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey, followed by its European premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy. It also screened at Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The restoration team made a techni- cal presentation on the work at the recent The Reel Thing symposium in Los Angeles. Based on the 1928 Broadway hit, The Front Page centers on a tough- talking Chicago newspaper reporter. It stars Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien and Mary Brian, and picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The source element used for the restoration was a black & white composite print of the film's US ver- sion discovered in the University of Nevada Las Vegas's Howard Hughes Collection. The print was produced in the 1970s from the now lost original camera negative. Pogorzelski and Linville compared the print to surviv- ing copies of an alternate European version and noted significant differ- ences in action, dialogue and camera placement throughout. The US version has not been seen in decades. Restoration began with 4K wet-gate scanning of the complete 35mm print at ImagePro, Burbank. The scanned elements then underwent several stages of automated and customized restoration at MTI Film's facilities in Hollywood and Tianjin, China, using its proprietary DRS Nova technology. Although the source elements were in generally-good condition, a number of significant issues required close atten- tion. "Parts of the film were affected by chemical staining and mold," notes Jim Hannafin, MTI Film senior VP for business development. "One reel, in particular, was affected in its entirety." MTI Film restoration artists em- ployed a variety of newly developed DRS Nova features to address the staining issue as well as problems with flicker and warping. "We used all the tools in our toolbox, and did so in unconventional and creative ways," explains director of restoration and preservation Bridgid O'Donnell- Farquhar. "Our grain management tool allowed us to analyze and repli- cate the grain pattern of the original film elements. We used that to mute much of the fungus and mold stain- ing. Simultaneously, we replaced the grain in a manner identical to what it once was. We were very pleased with the results!" The film also went through complete color grading and remastering. Colorist Alex Chernoff notes that the aim was to create a consistent look that was as close as possible to what movie-goers experienced in 1931. "With films from this period, it can be a challenge to get the black levels and density right without losing detail," Chernoff says. "Some of the scenes in the newspaper offices were especially tricky due to the light level and the complexity of the en- vironment." The re-mastering process included the production of a new 4K film negative for archiving at Universal Studios' UDS facility. As a result of the team's effort, a neglected classic of American cinema can now be enjoyed by a new generation of film lovers. "Working on films like this engages our sense of pride," O'Donnell-Farquhar says. "This one became a passion project for our whole team because it was such a great film — and it shows in the end product." FOTOKEM RESTORES COMEDY CLASSIC, THE PERFECT WOMAN MTI FILM DELIVERS THE FRONT PAGE IN 4K The restored film made its premiere back in August.