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. The Louvre Museum in Paris, one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. ... A non-profit organization (often called non-profit org or simply non-profit or not-for-profit) can be seen as an organization that doesnt have a goal to make a profit. ... Film stock is the term for photographic film on which films are recorded. ...

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. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... An outtake can be a take or scene, as of a movie, or a television program, that is filmed but not used in the final cut, usually for pacing reasons. ... Colorization in Sin City Film Colorization is a film alteration process that involves adding color to a black and white film. ... Dolby Laboratories, Incorporated (Dolby Labs) is a company specializing in audio compression and reproduction. ... Film editing, also called montage, is the connecting of one or more shots to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an entire movie. ...

The process

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. 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. 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, discarded to save storage space, or destroyed in studio or vault fires. As a result, silent film preservation has been a high priority among movie historians. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1366x1024, 972 KB) A frame showing nitrate decomposition, taken from a silent film in my private collection. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1366x1024, 972 KB) A frame showing nitrate decomposition, taken from a silent film in my private collection. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... 1902 poster advertising Gaumonts sound films, depicting an optimistically vast auditorium 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 film which, for any of several reasons, is no longer in existence. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Nitrocellulose (Cellulose nitrate, guncotton) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose (e. ... Film base is a transparent substrate which acts as a support medium for the photosensitive emulsion that lies atop it. ...

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. A number of well-known films only exist as copies of original production or exhibition elements because the originals have decomposed beyond use. Monochrome films too, those made on cellulose triacetate stock, which was the initial replacement for nitrate, have been found to suffer from vinegar syndrome. Indeed the preservation of color films have now been found to involve a compromise, because low temperaures, which inhibit color fading, actually increase the effects of vinegar syndrome, while higher (normal room) temperatures cause color fading. Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary. ... Triacetate also known as cellulose triacetate, is manufactured from cellulose and acetate. ... Vinegar syndrome [= VS] is a problem with cellulose triacetate film, in which it degrades and releases a smell resembling that of vinegar. ...

"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 is the film in a motion picture camera that 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 is the film in a motion picture camera that 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. Fine grain master positive: motion picture lab slang (? most common in U.S. ?) for a black and white intermediate positive image generated from a negative for the sole purpose of generating additional duplicate negatives. ...

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. Fine grain master positive: motion picture lab slang (? most common in U.S. ?) for a black and white intermediate positive image generated from a negative for the sole purpose of generating additional duplicate negatives. ...

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.

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 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.[1] The following year, Henri Langlois founded the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, which would become the world's largest international film collection.[2] View across garden, in new MoMA building by Yoshio Taniguchi. ... The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. ... David Lewelyn Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 - July 23, 1948) was an American film director (commonly known as D. W. Griffith) probably best known for his film The Birth of a Nation. ... Henri Langlois Henri Langlois (November 13, 1914 - January 13, 1977) was a pioneer in film preservation and restoration. ... Cinémathèque Française hosts the largest archive of films, movie documents, and film-related objects in the world. ...

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.[3] For these, an optical printer was used to copy these images onto safety filmstock, a project begun in 1947 and continuing today.[4] An optical printer with two projector heads, used in producing movie special effects. ...

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. Mayer Conservation Center, one of only four film conservation centers in the United States.[5] The American Film Institute was founded in 1967 to train the next generation of filmmakers and preserve the American film heritage.[6] Its collection now includes over 27,500 titles.[7] The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography is located in Rochester, New York. ... The American Film Institute (AFI) is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act. ...

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. Time Warner, the current owner of Turner Entertainment, continues this work today. For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... Robert Edward Turner III (born November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. ... Warner Bros. ... The classic logo of RKO Radio Pictures. ... Time Warner Inc. ... Turner Entertainment Company was established August 4, 1986 to oversee Turner Broadcastings film library after its acquisition of MGM/UA. In addition to the studio, Turner got its library, which included all of MGMs films, Warner Bros. ...

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. 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. 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. Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. ... Martin Luciano Scorsese (born November 17, 1942) is an iconic American film director. ... Jaws is a 1975 horror–thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on Peter Benchleys best-selling novel of the same name. ... Raging Bull is a 1980 film directed by Martin Scorsese, and written by Paul Schrader, and Mardik Martin. ...

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) from the original print has been re-inserted into the films. Censorship is the editing, removing, or otherwise changing speech and other forms of human expression. ...

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 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. The restored films now offer an unparalleled social record of early 20th Century British life. The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... The British National Film and Television Archive collects, preserves, restores and then shares the films and television programmes which have helped to shape and record British life and times since cinema was invented in the late nineteenth century. ... The Mitchell and Kenyon film company was a pioneer of early commercial movies based in Blackburn in Lancashire, England at the start of the 20th century. ... Statistics Population: 105,085 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SD685277 Administration District: Blackburn with Darwen Region: North West England Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: Lancashire Historic county: Lancashire Services Police force: Lancashire Fire and rescue: {{{Fire}}} Ambulance: North West Post office and telephone Post town...

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 a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals, in contrast to analogue signals in analogue (traditional) T.V. It uses digital modulation data, which is digitally compressed and requires decoding by a specially designed television set or a... High-definition television (HDTV) means broadcast of television signals with a higher resolution than traditional formats (NTSC, SECAM, PAL) allow. ... DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

Among the individual preserationists 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). 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. Robert A. Harris is a film historian and preservationist who has restored and reconstructed a number of classic films. ... James C. Katz is a film historian and preservationist who has restored and reconstructed a number of classic films. ... Lawrence of Arabia is an Academy Award-winning film based, with some licence, on the life of T. E. Lawrence. ... My Fair Lady is a 1964 film directed by George Cukor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (August 13, 1899 – April 29, 1980) was a highly influential director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ... Michael Thau is a film editor who is most notable for recent restoration work on the Christopher Reeve Superman films, Superman: The Movie and Superman II. Thau oversaw the development of the Superman DVD release in 2001, editing the directors cut of the film. ... Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, Superman Superman, also known as Superman: The Movie, is a 1978 Warner Bros. ... Kevin Brownlow (2 June 1938–) is a film historian, television documentary-maker, and author born in Crowborough, Sussex. ... Intolerance is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith in 1916. ... Napoléon is an epic (1927) silent French film directed by Abel Gance that tells the story of the rise of Napoleon I of France. ... The UCLA Film and Television Archive is an internationally-renowned visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. ... The 1935 film Becky Sharp, based on the novel Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, tells the story of a lower-class girl who insinuates herself into an upper class family, only to see her life and the lives of those around her destroyed. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... Famous Studios was the animation studio owned by Paramount Pictures after the company foreclosed on Fleischer Studios and ousted Max and Dave Fleischer in 1942. ... Warner Bros. ...

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 film which, for any of several reasons, is no longer in existence. ... Greed is a 1924 dramatic silent movie about an honest dentist whose wife wins a lottery ticket, only to become obsessed with money. ... London After Midnight can refer to: London After Midnight (film) - A lost silent horror film. ...

Video Aids to Film Preservation

In 2005 "Video Aids to Film Preservation [8] 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 [9]. 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 [10] and this web site was designed by Steve Knoblock [11] who developed the code that runs Folkstreams.net which is video streaming documentaries on American Folklife. Video streaming is provided by www.ibiblio.org [12] 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

• Dirt, dust
• Scratches, tears
• Color fade, color change
• Film grain noise - a copy of an existing film has all of the film grain noise from the original as well as the film grain noise in the copy
• Missing scenes and sound; censored or edited out for re-release.
• Shrinkage: linear and "across the web" (width), as well as localized puckering around large 1 to 2 peforation film cement splices, most common in silent and very early sound films. Highly shrunken film, 1.5% or higher, must be copied on modified equipment or the film will likely be damaged.

Modern, digital film restoration follows the following steps: Film grain or granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film due to the presence of small grains of a metallic silver developed from silver halide that have received enough photons. ...

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.

Films That Have Been Restored

• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
• The Big Trail (1930)
• Becky Sharp (1935)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Vertigo (1958)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Yellow Submarine (1968)
• Superman (1978)
• Most of the Walt Disney Studio's animated feature films, e.g. Fantasia and Bambi
• Most of the major pre-1948 Warner Bros./pre-1986 MGM/RKO Radio Pictures library, including: Gone with the Wind & The Wizard of Oz (1939), Citizen Kane (1941), Singin' in the Rain (1951), and Doctor Zhivago (1965), among others

For the film, see All Quiet on the Western Front (film). ... The Big Trail was a 1930 film starring John Wayne in his first leading role and was also the first widescreen movie, appearing decades before The Robe. ... The 1935 film Becky Sharp, based on the novel Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, tells the story of a lower-class girl who insinuates herself into an upper class family, only to see her life and the lives of those around her destroyed. ... Lawrence of Arabia is an Academy Award-winning film based, with some licence, on the life of T. E. Lawrence. ... Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. ... My Fair Lady is a 1964 film directed by George Cukor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. ... Rear Window (1954) is a motion picture directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on Cornell Woolrichs short story It Had to Be Murder (1942). ... For the song, see Yellow Submarine (song). ... Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, Superman Superman, also known as Superman: The Movie, is a 1978 Warner Bros. ... The Walt Disney Company (also known as Disney) (NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... Fantasia is a 1940 motion picture, the third in the Disney animated features canon, which was a Walt Disney experiment in animation and music. ... Bambi is the fifth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942 and produced by Walt Disney. ... Warner Bros. ... For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... The classic logo of RKO Radio Pictures. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... For the novel, see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; For comparison of book and film, see The Wizard of Oz book to film comparison; For other senses of this title, see The Wizard of Oz. ... Citizen Kane is a 1941 mystery/drama film released by RKO Pictures, the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. ... Singin in the Rain is a 1952 musical film starring Gene Kelly and directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also handling the choreography. ... Doctor Zhivago (Russian: Доктор Живаго) is a 1965 film directed by David Lean and based on the famous novel by Boris Pasternak. ...

Restored Films with Enhanced/Altered/Ugraded Effects

• "Star Wars Trilogy"
• "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"
• "Star Trek:The Motion Picture"
• "THX 1138"

The DVD cover of the Star Wars trilogy. ... E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (E.T. for short) is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg. ... THX 1138 was George Lucas first full length movie. ...

See also

• List of film formats
• Preservation Issues
• Wiping (magnetic tape)

This is a list of film formats known to have been developed for shooting or viewing motion pictures since the development of such photographic technology towards the end of the 19th century. ... Preservation issues Preservation of Documents and Pictures. ... Wiping or junking is an economic move by radio and television companies in which old audiotapes, videotapes and telerecordings are wiped (deleted) and reused or destroyed. ...

References

• Paul Read and Mark-Paul Meyer (Editors:): Restoration of motion picture film. Oxford 2000. ISBN 0-7506-2793-X

• Paul Read. A Short History of Cinema Film Post-Production (1896 - 2006), in English, in: Joachim Polzer (editor). Zur Geschichte des Filmkopierwerks. (On Film Lab History). Weltwunder der Kinematographie. - Beiträge zu einer Kulturgeschichte der Filmtechnik. Volume 8.2006. April 2006. 336 pages. (available through amazon.de). ISBN 3-934535-26-7

External links

• National Film Preservation Board
• The Film Foundation (Martin Scorsese, President)
• National Film Preservation Foundation
• Video Aids to Film Preservation (VAFP)
• MIC (Moving Image Collections)
• Public Moving Image Archives and Research Centers
• Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)
• Motion Picture Film Scanning and Recording Systems
• Conservation Online: Motion Picture Film Preservation
• Digital-Nitrate Prize for Film Preservation