How Criterion Hones Its Restoration Magic for HD

Lee Kline , the Technical Director at The Criterion Collection , was in Italy . He had tracked down an original photographic print of Il Posto , the classic 1961 Ermanno Olmi film , and he needed a digital master of it . The problem ? It was far too worthful and soft to ship to the States , so he had ascertain a local studio to handle the transfer for him . Sitting down in the science laboratory , the local technician started the summons of debase the cinema up , run it through the implausibly expensive machine to produce a 2 K super - high - def digital copy for Lee to take back to the States with him . The technician was deftly deal the irreplaceable pic and the machine with both hands . All the while , a cigarette dangle from his lips . Lee , neither the owner of the print nor an employee of the research laboratory , could only seat back and burn his lingua , hop no wayward chunk of smoulder ash would regain its direction onto the decades - former piece of celluloid . You could call it one tense moment in a motion-picture show nerd ’s life .

When you go to the headquarters of the Criterion Collection , you sort of expect it to be a gigantic program library . You know , one with tidy sum of dark Ellen Price Wood , a open fireplace and a globe , complete with a dapper mankind in a smoking jacket sit down in an overstuffed death chair . rather of books , though , the walls would be lined with some of the great films ever made , DVDs that set the bar in terms of effigy lineament and spear carrier and publicity and lining note . Criterion is the undisputed champ in all these things , yet the Criterion part are simple , its wall adorned only with a collection of pic posters and framed letters from directors . There is a lovely screening way with a gigantic silver screen and projector apparatus , and there are edit suites , but it does n’t feel like you are entering into a world belong to take historians . Until you talk to the historians . Essentially , the people at Criterion are a combination of film flake and A / V nerds , equally excited at the prospect of getting a great print of a classic Fellini film as they are about creating a slayer 5.1 surround audio audio course .

These multitude work as a curator and a publishing company , script - take a panoptic variety of film , mostly foreign , classics and indie . They painstakingly create the definitive digital version of that film , completely reconstruct both the audio and video , gather up the most complete supplementary feature of speech available and secrete it all in beautiful promotion . It ’s a moving-picture show buff ’s dream . The Criterion staff gathers their own supplementary features themselves , traveling to find talent and phonograph record original interview and audio comment track , finding scholars to write essay and amass up any additional footage or video that they can find . It ’s an incredible company , responsible for not only for premise hundreds of cinema to audiences who would otherwise have no other style to get at them , but also pioneers who helped introduce many videodisk feature of speech we take for granted now , such as commentary tracks , elaborate special edition and even varsity letter boxing . And now they ’re machinate to deliver conception to a fresh format : Blu - re . And gentleman’s gentleman , are they frantic about it . David Phillips , who works on DVD Development for Criterion , told me that “ We ’re offering the great unwashed the power to see what is basically 95 % of the visual timber of our high-pitched - definition tape masters , something that we ’ve dreamed of for a long time . ” After all , these guys have been work with digital passe-partout that clock in at about 2 K resolution for some time , which is far higher than HD . “ As good as standard - def DVD looking , we ’ve been looking at these HD effigy for so long and feeling like it ’s a shame that we ca n’t share this . ” HD is the way of life most of these cinema are entail to be seen , and the the great unwashed at Criterion get visibly excited when talking about the possibilities . But with that huge uptick in resolution for the consumer , Criterion is face with a heap of problems that they did n’t have when their master were convince to standard definition for DVD . After all , they ’re often dealing with old moving picture , created before there was fancy low - grain filmstock and digital processing . And with the engineering they have today , how much restoration and processing is too much ? Really , the delegacy of Criterion is “ hear to replicate the original experience of catch that motion picture when it was first resign , ” according to Phillips . While they certainly have the ability to process one-time flick until they reckon like they were shot on a DV cam , that ’s not the end .

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“ Grain reduction has become such an industry standard that people , when they see grain , they suppose it ’s a problem rather than what pic looks like . Film is a physical medium that has this texture bodily structure to it , ” says Phillips . That being said , they realize that consumers buy restored HD plastic film on Blu - ray are expect near - pristine character prints . It ’s a sturdy rest to strike . Essentially , “ it ’s trying to remain on the side of not overprocessing but not leave so much flick artifact that it ’s perturb from getting prosecute in the film . ” So how do they go about contract a moving picture prepped for Blu - ray of light ? Well , they depart with the best edition available , be that a camera negative , a positive or a photographic print , depending on the quality uncommitted . Most of the time , they want to travel to the minus rather than receive it ship to them , specially if it ’s an original photographic print . So if it ’s a Kurosawa picture show , they go to Japan ; if it ’s a Truffaut moving picture they go to France ; and if it ’s an Olmi moving-picture show , well , they go to Italy . Once they get their handwriting on the film , they use Thomson ’s Spirit DataCine to digitize the print at a local facility . If available , they ’ll endeavor to get the director to consult on the color of the print , making certain it ’s precise to the original as they digitalise it to record in 2K — sometimes even 4K — resolving . Once done , they have their tape sea captain , which they then can bring back to their headquarters to begin the restoration . Once they have their original back at their offices , it go through what they call the restitution workflow , which involve painstakingly restoring both the audio and video frame by shape . For telecasting , this involves using a system foretell MTI Film , which allows a technician to go through the film and not only remove dirt and edit marks , but also fix warped frame and things of that nature . This is n’t some automated function , either . It necessitate a technician sitting at an edit station with a stylus extend frame by systema skeletale , ensuring that each one look as good as possible . With two shifts a day working on a motion picture , it still take weeks to get through this part of the process .

For audio , they work in ProTools HD to both create surround - speech sound audio tracks as well as to clean up the original sound recording . They often get prints with passing hissy or malformed mono tracks , so much like with the scene , they need to go through with a fine tooth comb and pick it all up . Their goal , according to Kline , is to “ make a track with the original acoustic , bringing it back to clean and straight mono that sounds crisp and readable . ” I stood in while an audio technician was working on the opening of Lars Von Trier ’s Europa ( due on DVD in December ) , and the difference between the original print ’s sound and the restored sound recording made the recital and the healthy effects resonate much more without feeling like the original had been sterilized . What about moving picture they ’ve already restored for DVD ? Can they just be released on Blu - ray without much extra exploit ? alas , not usually . The good news is that once they ’ve done their tape superior , they have a gamey - def copy of it on mitt and do n’t take to re - transfer the original mark . The bad news is that once they ’ve got those masters , half of the process needs to be done again because the original restorations were just done in standard definition . Making a warm rerelease of all of Criterion ’s film to Blu - ray something that just is n’t going to happen . Once they ’ve finished their process , though , it ’s like viewing a film for the first metre . I got a luck to sit in on a quality - control covering of their renovation of Wong Kar - Wai ’s Chungking Express . A scene in a crowded marketplace seemed to leap out off the screen , and the surround sound perfectly placed the bustling sounds of the market behind me while keeping the dialogue front - and - center . I felt like I was in a dramaturgy in Hong Kong , watching the first , perfect print of the flick when it was first released . It was breathtaking . These are the releases that film buffs have been upgrade their plate theater setups for . After all , the good mode to take advantage of thousands of dollars of Ab paraphernalia is to give it cloth pulled carefully from the source . — - Criterion is resign its first Blu - beam motion picture in November , starting with The Third Man , The Man Who Fell to Earth , The Last Emperor , Bottle Rocket and Chungking Express . They project to relinquish two motion picture a month in Blu - light beam next year , with HD releases rage up as gross sales shift from DVD to Blu - ray . [ Criterion Collection ]

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