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Film preservation is when a person takes old movies and preserves them into new ones.

The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain. A museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development open to the public which acquires conserves researches communicates and exhibits the A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage This focuses on Motion picture film For Still photography film see Photographic film. In the widest sense, preservation nowadays assures that a movie will continue to exist, as close to its original form as possible. [1]

For many years the term “preservation” used to be a synonym of “duplication” only. The preservationist’s goal was to create a durable copy without significant loss of quality. Film preservation now holds the concepts of handling, duplication, storage, and access. The archivist’s job these days is to protect the film and at the same time share the content with the public. [2]

It should be distinguished from film revisionism, in which long-completed films are subjected to outtakes never previously seen being inserted, new music scores and/or sound effects being added, black-and-white film being colorized or converted to Dolby stereo, or minor edits or other cosmetic changes being made, regardless of reason. For the critical reexamination of historical facts see Historical revisionism. An outtake is a portion of a work (usually a Film or Music Recording) that is removed in the Editing process and not included in the work's final Film colorization is any process that involves adding Color to Black and white, sepia or monochrome moving-picture images Film editing is an art of storytelling practiced by connecting two or more shots together to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an

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Film decay

See also: Lost film
An example of nitrate decomposition
An example of nitrate decomposition

Thousands of silent films were made in the years leading to the introduction of sound, but between 80 and 90 percent have been lost forever. A lost film is a Feature film or Short film that no longer exists in either studio archives or private collections A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image as opposed to a Silent film. A lost film is a Feature film or Short film that no longer exists in either studio archives or private collections Movies of the first half of the 20th century were filmed on an unstable, highly flammable cellulose nitrate film base, which required careful storage to slow its inevitable process of decomposition over time. The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Nitrocellulose (also cellulose nitrate, flash paper) is a highly flammable compound formed by Nitrating Cellulose through exposure to A film base is a transparent substrate which acts as a support medium for the Photosensitive Emulsion that lies atop it Most films made on nitrate stock were not preserved; over the years, their negatives and prints simply crumbled into dust. Many of them were recycled for their silver content, or destroyed in studio or vault fires. But the largest cause was intentional destruction. As film preservationist Robert A. Harris has said,

Most of the early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and the materials were expensive to house. [3]

Silent films had little or no commercial value after the silent era ended in 1930. As a result, silent film preservation has been a high priority among movie historians.

Because of the fragility of film stock, proper preservation of film usually involves storing the original negatives in climate-controlled facilities. The vast majority of films were not stored in this manner, which has resulted in the widespread decay of film stocks.

The problem of film decay is not limited to films made on cellulose nitrate. Movie industry researchers and specialists have found that color films (especially ones made in less expensive, less permanent processes than Technicolor) are also decaying at a rapid pace. Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation A number of well-known films only exist as copies of original production or exhibition elements because the originals have decomposed beyond use. Cellulose acetate film, which was the initial replacement for nitrate, has been found to suffer from vinegar syndrome. Because of the highly flammable nature of cellulose Nitrate film, by the beginning of the 20th century manufacturers had begun to introduce Cellulose acetate as a safe alternative Because of the highly flammable nature of cellulose Nitrate film, by the beginning of the 20th century manufacturers had begun to introduce Cellulose acetate as a safe alternative Indeed the preservation of color films has now been found to involve a compromise, because low temperatures, which inhibit color fading, actually increase the effects of vinegar syndrome, while higher (normal room) temperatures cause color fading.

Decay prevention

"Preservation" of film usually refers to physical storage of the film in a climate-controlled vault, and sometimes to repairing and copying the actual film element. Preservation is different from "restoration. " Restoration is the act of returning the film to a version most faithful to its initial release to the public and often involves combining various fragments of film elements.

In most cases, when a film is chosen for preservation or restoration work, new prints are created from the original camera negative or the "composite restoration negative" for general viewing. The original camera negative (OCN is the film in a Motion picture camera which captures the original image

The composite restoration negative is a compilation of duplicated sections of the best remaining material, recombined to approximate the original configuration of the camera original negative at some time in the film's release life, while the original camera negative is the remaining, edited, film negative that passed through the camera on the set. This original camera negative may, or may not, remain in original release form, depending upon number of subsequent releases after the initial release for theatrical exhibition. The original camera negative (OCN is the film in a Motion picture camera which captures the original image

In traditional photochemical restorations, image polarity considerations must be observed when recombining surviving materials and the final, lowest generation restoration master may be either a duplicate negative or a fine grain master positive. A fine grain master positive is a photographic term. It is also known as a fine grain master or fine grain and is a high-definition black-and-white intermediate

Preservation elements, such as fine grain master positives and duplicate printing negatives, are generated from this restoration master element to make both duplication masters and access projection prints available to future generations. A fine grain master positive is a photographic term. It is also known as a fine grain master or fine grain and is a high-definition black-and-white intermediate

When restoration and preservation budgets are lower the images are transferred directly to video or digital media for easy transport and copying. Film preservationists would prefer that film images be eventually transferred to other film stock, because no digital media exists that has proven truly archival, while a well developed and stored, modern film print can last upwards of 100 years.

Today it is universally agreed that the foundation of film preservation is proper protection from external forces while in storage along with being under controlled temperatures[4]. These measures retard deterioration better than any other methods and is a cheaper solution than replicating deteriorating films.

While some in the archival community feel that conversion from film to a digital image results in a loss of quality that can make it more difficult to create a high-quality print based upon the digital image, digital imaging technology is increasing to the point where the resolution in filmed images and digitally transferred images are equal.

The movement

In 1926 Will Hays asked studios to preserve their films by storing them at 40 degrees at low humidity in an Eastman Kodak process, so that "schoolboys in the year 3,000 and 4,000 A. William Hays (and the nicknames Bill Hays and Will Hays) may refer to William Hays (general, American Civil War Union general Eastman Kodak Company ( is an American multinational Public company which produces imaging and photographic materials and equipment D. may learn about us". [5]

In 1935, New York's Museum of Modern Art began one of the earliest institutional attempts to collect and preserve motion pictures, obtaining original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies, and the world's largest collection of D.W. Griffith films. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street between Fifth The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928 David Llewelyn Wark "D W" Griffith (January 22 1875 &ndash July 23 1948 was a premier pioneering Academy Award -winning American Film director. [1] The following year, Henri Langlois founded the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, which would become the world's largest international film collection. Henri Langlois ( November 13, 1914 - January 13, 1977) was a pioneer of Film preservation and restoration. Cinémathèque Française hosts the largest archive of films movie documents and film-related objects in the world [2]

For thousands of early silent films stored in the Library of Congress, mostly between 1894 and 1912, the only existing copies of them were printed on rolls of paper submitted as copyright registrations. The Library of Congress is the De facto National library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress Paper prints were an early mechanism to establish the copyright of motion pictures by depositing them with the Library of Congress. [6] For these, an optical printer was used to copy these images onto safety filmstock, a project begun in 1947 and continuing today. An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film Projectors mechanically linked to a Movie camera. [7]

The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film was chartered in 1947 to collect, preserve, and present the history of photography and film, and in 1996 opened the Louis B. The George Eastman House is the world's oldest Photography Museum and one of the world's oldest Film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester Mayer Conservation Center, one of only four film conservation centers in the United States. [3] The American Film Institute was founded in 1967 to train the next generation of filmmakers and preserve the American film heritage. The American Film Institute ( AFI) is an independent Non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 [4] Its collection now includes over 27,500 titles. [5]

Beginning in the 1970s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, aware that the original negatives to many of its Golden Age films had been destroyed in a fire, began a preservation program to restore and preserve all of its films by using whatever negatives survived, or, in many cases, the next best available elements (whether it be a fine-grain master positive or mint archival print). From the onset, it was determined that if some films had to be preserved, then it would have to be all of them. In 1986, when Ted Turner acquired MGM's library (which by then had included Warner Bros.' pre-1948, MGM's pre-1986, and a majority of the RKO Radio Pictures catalogs), he vowed to continue the preservation work MGM had started. Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American Media proprietor and philanthropist. Warner Bros Entertainment Inc (or Warner Bros, Warner Bros Pictures) is one of the world's largest producers of Film and Time Warner, the current owner of Turner Entertainment, continues this work today. Time Warner Inc ( is the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered in New York City. Turner Entertainment Company Inc is an American media company founded by Ted Turner.

The cause for film preservation came to the forefront in the 1980s and early 1990s when such famous and influential film directors as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese contributed to the cause. Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (Hon (born December 18 1946 is an American Film director, Screenwriter and producer. Spielberg became interested in film preservation when he went to view the original master of his film Jaws, only to find that it had badly decomposed and deteriorated — a mere fifteen years after it had been filmed. Jaws is a 1975 thriller / horror Film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley 's best-selling Scorsese drew attention to the film industry's use of color-fading filmstock through his use of black and white film stock in his 1980 film Raging Bull. Raging Bull is a 1980 Biographical film directed by Martin Scorsese, adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from the memoir

The film preservation movement has resulted in a number of classic films being restored to pristine condition. In many cases original footage that had been excised -- or censored after the introduction of the 1934 Production Code in the U. Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor For the television broadcasting term please see Production code number. S. -- from the original print has been reinstated.

Another high profile restoration by staff at the British Film Institute's National Film and Television Archive is the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, which consists almost entirely of actuality films commissioned by travelling fairground operators for showing at local fairgrounds or other venues across the UK in the early part of the twentieth century. The British Film Institute ( BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film television The National Film and Television Archive is the former name of the BFI National Archive. The Mitchell & Kenyon Film company was a pioneer of early commercial movies based in Blackburn in Lancashire, England at the start of the 20th The collection was stored for many decades in two large barrels following the winding-up of the firm, and was discovered in Blackburn in the early 1990s. Blackburn ( is a large town in Lancashire, England. It lies to the north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley The restored films now offer an unparalleled social record of early 20th Century British life.

In the age of digital television, HDTV and DVD, film preservation and restoration has taken on commercial as well as historical importance, since audiences demand the highest possible picture quality from digital formats. Digital television (DTV is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete ( digital) signals in contrast to the analog signals used by High-definition television (HDTV is a Digital television Broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems (standard-definition DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is

Individual preservationists who have contributed to the cause include Robert A. Harris and James Katz (Lawrence of Arabia, My Fair Lady, and several Alfred Hitchcock films), Michael Thau (Superman), and Kevin Brownlow (Intolerance and Napoleon). Robert A Harris is a film historian and preservationist who specializes in restoring the large-format widescreen films of the 1950s James C Katz is a film historian and preservationist who has restored and reconstructed a number of classic films Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 Epic film based on the life of T My Fair Lady is a musical Film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical My Fair Lady, based in turn on the play Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 Michael Thau is a Film editor and preservationist who is most notable for recent restoration and production work on the Christopher Reeve Superman Superman (also known as Superman The Movie) is a 1978 Superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the Kevin Brownlow (born on June 2, 1938 in Crowborough, Sussex) is a filmmaker film historian, Television documentary -maker Intolerance Love's Struggle Through the Ages, a Silent film directed by D Napoléon ( 1927) is an epic silent French Film directed by Abel Gance that tells the story of the rise of Napoleon Other companies such as the UCLA Film and Television Archive have also preserved and restored films; a major part of UCLA's work includes such projects as Becky Sharp and select Paramount/Famous Studios and Warner Bros. cartoons whose credits were once altered due to rights taken over by different entities. The UCLA Film and Television Archive is an internationally-renowned Visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of Becky Sharp is an American film released in 1935 and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and Distribution company, based in Hollywood California. Famous Studios, renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956 was the Animation division of the Hollywood film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 Warner Bros Entertainment Inc (or Warner Bros, Warner Bros Pictures) is one of the world's largest producers of Film and

A number of "lost" movies have become legends in themselves. These movies were either extraordinarily successful or controversial, but all prints of the original films have been lost because they decayed or were destroyed, and thus they were unable to be preserved. Examples of such "lost" films include the original eight-hour version of Greed, and London After Midnight. A lost film is a Feature film or Short film that no longer exists in either studio archives or private collections Greed is a 1924 dramatic Silent film. One of the most famous Lost films in cinema history it is also considered one of the greatest London After Midnight is a 1927 silent Mystery film with horror overtones

Video aids to film preservation

In 2005 "Video Aids to Film Preservation [6] became active on the Internet. The VAFP site was funded as part of a 2005 Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to the Folkstreams. net project [7]. The purpose of the site is to supplement already existing Film Preservation Guides (http://www.filmpreservation.org/) with video demonstrations. These preservation guides, while excellent and thorough, are mostly text. Handling film is like working with a sewing machine. Basic activities like splicing, rewinding, cleaning, and repairing are best demonstrated by moving images.

The site is set up as a dynamic database of video clips that can build over time. The clips can be streamed in Real and Mpeg 4 or be downloaded in Mpeg 4 files. The films and clips are under the rules of Creative Commons which allows anyone to use these clips with attribution --in this case, attribution to the VAFP site and to the author of the clip and his company.

The project is directed by the filmmaker Tom Davenport [8] and this web site was designed by Steve Knoblock [9] who developed the code that runs Folkstreams. net which is video streaming documentaries on American Folklife. Video streaming is provided by www. ibiblio. org [10] at the University of North Carolina. The clips are provided by skilled craftpersons working in film preservation.

Film restoration issues

Main problems in restoring film

Modern, digital film restoration follows the following steps:

  1. Expertly clean the film of dirt and dust.
  2. Repair all film tears with clear polyester tape or splicing cement.
  3. Scan each frame into a digital file.
  4. Restore the film frame by frame by comparing each frame to adjacent frames. This can be done somewhat by computer algorithms with human checking of the result.
    1. Fix frame alignment - Fix jitter and weave - the misalignment of adjacent film frames due to movement of film within the sprockets. This corrects the issue where the holes on each side of a frame are distored over time. This causes frames to slightly be off center.
    2. Fix color and lighting changes - This corrects flickering and slight color changes from one frame to another due to aging of the film.
    3. Restore areas blocked by dirt and dust by using parts of images in other frames.
    4. Restore scratches by using parts of images in other frames.
    5. Enhance frames by reducing film grain noise. Film foreground/background detail about the same size as the film grain or smaller is blurred or lost in making the film. Comparing a frame with adjacent frames allows detail information to be reconstructed since a given small detail may be split between more film grains from one frame to another.

Modern, photochemical restoration follows roughly the same path:

  1. Extensive research is done to determine what version of the film can be restored from the existing material. Often, great pains are taken to search out alternate material in film archives around the World.
  2. A comprehensive restoration plan is mapped that allows preservationists to designate elements as "key" elements upon which to base the polarity map for the ensuing photochemical work. Since many alternative elements are actually salvaged from release prints and duplication masters (foreign and domestic), care must be taken to plot the course at which negative, master positive and release print elements arrive back at a common polarity (i. e. , negative or positive) for assembly and subsequent printing.
  3. Test prints are struck from existing elements to evaluate contrast, resolution, color (if color) and sound quality (if audio element exists).
  4. Elements are duplicated using the shortest possible duplication path to minimize analog duplication artifacts, such as the build-up of contrast, grain and loss of resolution.
  5. All sources are assembled into a single master restoration element; most often a duplicate negative.
  6. From this master restoration element, duplication masters, such as composite fine grain masters, are generated to be used to generate additional printing negatives from which actual release prints can be struck for festival screenings and DVD mastering.

Moving Image Collections (MIC)

MOVING IMAGE COLLECTIONS, or MIC (pronounced ‘Mike’), is a preservation, access, and education initiative co-sponsored by the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Library of Congress (U. S. ). The MIC website (http://mic.loc.gov) delivers a union catalog, archive directory, and informational resources on archival moving images, their preservation, and the images themselves to diverse constituencies, including archivists, researchers, educators, and the general public.

MIC’s Union Catalog and Archive Directory not only help people locate films and collections, they enable collaborative preservation decision-making and management on an international scale. Detailed Archive Directory descriptions allow archivists to evaluate archival activities in similar repositories, identify organizations with common missions to sponsor research and education portals, and offer training and development in areas of mutual interest. The Directory also enables the Library of Congress and AMIA to identify community needs, potential collaborations, and emerging trends, in order to focus community training and support.

MIC seeks to raise awareness about preservation issues and risks to our film, television and video heritage by enlightening readers as to the care of home collections, the role of archives, and the preservation process. MIC’s expert contributors have created and gathered hundreds of informational resources to illuminate these issues and fulfill the daily informational requirements of working archivists.

MIC’s mission is to immerse moving images into the education mainstream, recognizing that what society uses, it values, and what it values, it preserves. Originally designed to address the crisis in film preservation, MIC demonstrates that recommendations rooted in the practical requirements of preserving analog artifacts can evolve into a visionary R&D platform which serves a clientele beyond archivists and explores the leading edge of non-textual indexing, digital rights management, and educational use, all the while continuing to meet the daily needs of archivists by supporting collaborative preservation, access, digitization, education, and metadata initiatives.

List of restored films

List of restored films with enhanced/altered/upgraded effects

Film decay as an artform

In 2002, filmmaker Bill Morrison produced Decasia, a film solely based on fragments of old unrestored nitrate-based films in various states of decay and disrepair, providing a somewhat eerie aesthetic to the film. Star Wars is an epic Space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded This article is about the 1982 film For the term "ET" which redirects here see ET. Star Trek The Motion Picture is a 1979 Science fiction film from Paramount Pictures. THX 1138 is a 1971 Science fiction film directed by George Lucas, from a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch. Bill Morrison is the name of several persons Bill Morrison (director (born 1965 American filmmaker Bill Morrison (comics, co-founder Decasia is a 2002 Found footage film by Bill Morrison, featuring an original score by Michael Gordon. The film was paired together with a soundtrack composed by Michael Gordon, and performed by his orchestra. Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble The footage used was from old newsreel & archive film, and was obtained by Morrison from several sources, such as the Fox Movietone Newsfilm Archives at the University of South Carolina, and the archives of the Museum of Modern Art. This article is about the University of South Carolina in Columbia The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street between Fifth

See also

References

  1. ^ McGreevey, Tom. In the film industry 3D LUT s ( Lookup tables are used to calculate preview colors for a monitor or digital projector of how an image will be reproduced on the final film Digital intermediate (often abbreviated as DI) describes the process of digitizing a Motion picture and manipulating color and other image characteristics to change Direct to disk recording refers to methods by which digital audio and video are recorded to portable storage media such as Hard drives and DVDs Direct to disk can A Film Recorder is a Graphical output device for transferring Digital images to Photographic film. Film-out is the process in the Computer graphics, Video and Filmmaking disciplines of transferring images or Animation from Videotape Inpainting is the process of reconstructing lost or deteriorated parts of images and videos This list of Film formats catalogues formats developed for shooting or viewing Motion pictures, ranging from the Chronophotographe format from 1888 to mid-20th century A motion picture film scanner is a device used in Digital Filmmaking to scan original film for storage as high-resolution Digital intermediate Paper prints were an early mechanism to establish the copyright of motion pictures by depositing them with the Library of Congress. See also Filmmaking Post-production occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, Videos audio recordings A virtual telecine is a piece of Video equipment that can play back data files in real time Telecine (ˈtɛləˌsɪni/ /ˌtɛləˈsɪni/ ˌtɛləˈsɪnə also /ˌtɛləˈsiːn/ — "tel-e-Sin-ee" "tel-e-Sin-a" as 'cine' is the same root as in 'cinema' Wiping or junking is an economic move by Radio and Television companies in which old Audiotapes Videotapes and Telerecordings Our Movie Heritage. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
  2. ^ The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries and Museums. National Film Preservation Foundation. San Francisco, CA, 2004.
  3. ^ Robert A. Harris, public hearing statement to the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. , February 1993.
  4. ^ McGreevey, Tom. Our Movie Heritage. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
  5. ^ "Films put in Ice for Fans Yet Unborn. Movies Deemed Peculiarly Worthy of Preservation Will Be Treated to Last Forever. Screen Cornerstones. Films for Fans Yet Unborn", New York Times, October 24, 1926, Sunday. Events 69 - Second Battle of Bedriacum, forces under Antonius Primus the commander of the Danube armies loyal to Vespasian, defeat Year 1926 ( MCMXXVI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 303 - On a voyage preaching the Gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France  "Will Hays has sent a call to the motion-picture companies to search their vaults for ancient films of all kinds and for news reels of possible historic interest. William Hays (and the nicknames Bill Hays and Will Hays) may refer to William Hays (general, American Civil War Union general The most important of these are to be treated by a process developed in the Eastman laboratories for making films immortal. " 
  6. ^ Library of Congress
  7. ^ Oscars.org

Further reading

External links

JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH is one of the largest non-academic research institutes in Austria.
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