Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Challenging Scene Restoration

 

This is a restoration example of a very short scene (16-frames, approximately 1-second of film) from the continuing restoration of The Trail to Yesterday being conducted by Bart Santello and Psychotropic Films LLC. 

As you can see from 'as-scanned' not restored footage (left frame), this sequence of frames was damaged and degraded resulting in 'jittering' of the frame as it indexed through the scanner.  And as you watch the sequence it looks like there are some missing frames (jump-ahead).

In this case the each frame of the DPX sequence was first manually realigned in DaVinci Resolve prior to use of automatic processing software - VIVA by Algosoft-Tech, that processes each DPX frame using artificial intelligence and neural network technology to clean and restore.  Several passes with adjusted setting were employed using VIVA to ensure a deep clean (dust busting and Luminance correction).

Any remaining artifacts were manually removed in DaVinci Resolve along with final stabilization.  Again, the result was excellent compared to the original nitrate footage scan. 

Monday, September 7, 2020

Restoration of Split-Frame Scene


This is a restoration example of a very short scene from the continuing restoration of The Trail to Yesterday being conducted by Bart Santello and Psychotropic Films LLC. 

Due to deterioration of sprocket holes in this 100-year old Nitrate print, mis-alignment during the digital scan resulted in a split frame sequence.

Before the restoration could begin, each frame of the scene was digitally realigned in Davinci Resolve (video editor). 

The first pass of the restoration used software by Algosoft-Tech (VIVA), that processes each DPX frame using artificial intelligence and neural network technology. Then the result was put back into Davinci Resolve Studio for manual restoration to clean up any remaining artifacts. 

I started with this very short scene in order to develop a process for other scenes in the film with a similar split-frame issue.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

The following slides are part of the historical research I'm doing for background into the production of "A Trail to Yesterday".  I clipped news articles on the film from trade and entertainment magazines at the time.  There were even 'inside the industry' and 'rumor' columns where just a sentence or two could reveal great insight on where, why and hows of the production.   And leads to new information which then becomes stories in their own right.