Recently, Paramount Pictures announced the release of the 4K Ultra HD restoration of the cinematic classic, The Godfather, for its 50th anniversary. Similarly in 2020, Warner Bros. released the 4K Ultra HD version of Peter Jackson’s 20-year-old fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and its prequel, The Hobbit Trilogy. What may seem like unnecessary renewed editions of old films with better definition and extra behind-the-scenes features, in reality, represents a lot more for the cinematic art form.
Prior to the 2010s, movies were generally shot in 35mm or 70mm celluloid film, and when stored at the proper humidity and temperatures, they can last “400 to 500 years minimum,” according to Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Hard drives that store digital versions of modern films, in contrast, are not built to last nearly as long. In fact, a consumer hard drive only has an average life span of three to five years. Thus, celluloid film still remains the best medium for film preservation, but the story isn’t that simple.
Every time a film print is shown, it runs through spools, sprockets and gets exposed to dust and the hot, bright light that ultimately projects the images onto the screen. The result, therefore, is scratches, tears, and worn edges on the prints, and those stored improperly grow mold and collect dirt over the years. Furthermore, older movies, those shot before the 1950s, were recorded on cellulose nitrate film. The nitrate, compared to modern polyester film, deteriorates faster, and the film would shrink and release various acids that eventually make the film so brittle that it crumbles to dust. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, half of the American movies made before 1950 are lost due to this reason, and only less than twenty percent of the films produced in the U.S. from the silent film era survived. Many others, such as the first sound film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, The Broadway Melody, are only left with incomplete versions. Therefore, to protect these pieces of art and preserve our cultural heritage, it is necessary for later generations to conduct restorations for classics like The Godfather or The Lord of the Rings.
The ideal start of a restoration process is to begin with the original camera negative of the movie, the film that reeled through the camera to capture the original image, because every duplication from the negative, whether it’s a positive print for viewing or another negative print, loses quality from the true picture. The restorers would search for the original negative and other possible copies to gather as much information about the film as possible. For the restoration of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, for example, the team obtained original copies of the film from Warner Bros.’ libraries around the world that stored three million pieces of preserved film in total. After acquiring the various versions of the film, the restorers begin removing the dirt, mold and fixing the tears from the negative, and if the print contains too many scratches, the film may be fed through a wetgate scanner that baths the film in chemicals which fill in the scratches on the negative. When Christopher Nolan led the restoration of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for its 50th anniversary, the cleaning and repairing process alone took more than six months. After cutting and joining films together as needed into a version that best reflects the original form of the movie, the print is then scanned into digital files. Though the definition of celluloid film is not determined by pixels, the standard 35mm film can be converted to digital images with resolutions of approximately 6K, and 70mm film can be converted to 13K images. However, technology still limits the quality of the films’ digital scans. In 2K, the scanning takes about two days. In 4K, the highest resolution possible for general consumers, the process takes four times as long, so scanning a 90-minute movie in 4K Ultra HD would take at least a week. In the digital version, restorers continue to repair damages to the original film frame by frame by manipulating the pixels, and each frame may take up to four hours to complete. The artists then apply a color timing, the film equivalent to digital color grading, to the digital copy that adheres to the original film version as closely as possible.
But film restoration is as much an art as it is a science, especially in the modern digital realm. The evolution of technology often offers more artistic freedom to restorers than what was available for the original filmmakers. Thus, to keep the restored version authentic and as close to the film’s original intended look as possible, members of the original production are often invited to supervise the remastering process, ideally, the director. However, instead of preserving the original look, sometimes the filmmakers would use the chance to further polish their films. As Peter Jackson remarked about remastering of his Middle Earth saga, “it’s fun to have all the toys out,” and filmmakers “didn’t have all this stuff to play with in the old days.” Jackson took the restoration as an opportunity to add a few finishing touches to his six movies and draw a conclusion to his masterpiece. Shot over a span of more than ten years from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Battle of the Five Armies, films display some visual inconsistencies simply due to the technological advancements over the years. The Lord of the Rings films were shot on 35mm film with the color timing of the first movie being the “old-fashioned, photo-chemical” process and the next two using digital color timing, and The Hobbit Trilogy was shot in digital 4K with another completely different color timing technology. With today’s HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology, however, Jackson was able to readjust the colors of all six films in a more detailed way that yields a wider range of contrast and colors and, at the same time, give a more consistent look to the saga. Furthermore, the restoration also upgraded the audio to a more modern format. With Dolby Atmos, the surround sound enhances the viewing experience for audiences even at home to be more immersive compared to the original DTS-HD format. As a result, the 4K HDR restoration allowed Jackson to complete and modernize the beloved story of Middle Earth.
With the completion of the restoration, the remastered version of the film is re-released in home media and sometimes even in theaters as a new edition, which represents the best quality of the original film that modern technology would allow, and another negative film print is made through the restored version to be properly preserved for posterity. Film restoration and its home media releases from VHS, to DVD, to Blu-ray, to 4K UHD Blu-ray represent an act of preserving the great pieces of art that is our cultural heritage and introducing them to future generations in the best quality possible.
Monthly Movie Vote!
Last month, I asked you to vote for your favorite streaming service, here’s the result!
Without a surprise, Disney+, with films and shows from our favorite franchises, is TPSers’ favorite streaming service. In terms of the streaming services that TPSers are subscribed to, though, Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video have almost equal popularities.
For next month, vote for your favorite movie trilogy! Submit your answer here: https://forms.gle/hwfmxT7RiVPi1tfd6
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“Color Timing – Correction – Grading.” World of Visual Effects, https://sites.google.com/site/worldofvisualeffects/color-timing—correction—grading.
Drucker, Robert. “Film Restoration Today: The Elusive Perfect Viewing Experience.” MUBI, 30 Apr. 2021, https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/film-restoration-today-the-elusive-perfect-viewing-experience.
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