The course, given by professionals working in the film and sound archives and specializing in restoration, will cover the three main professional areas of digital film restoration: archival film color grading, digital image restoration and digital sound restoration. Different types of film material will be discussed and worked on: reversal positive, negative, positive, 16mm and 35mm – and in terms of sound, optical and magnetic.
This course is aimed at industry professionals and students in film. Candidates must already have professional knowledge, or be in the process of acquiring such knowledge, of at least one of the classic post-production software packages (editing, color grading, VFX, etc.).
Training schedule :
The first day will be devoted to a general presentation of existing techniques, and will provide an overview of the practical and ethical issues involved in restoring heritage films. The following days will be devoted to practical exercises on software according to the specialty chosen by each participant: color calibration OR image restoration OR sound restoration.
These exercises will be evaluated at the end of the course, enabling participants to be certified in the specialty of their choice, issued by the Jocelyne Saab Association within the Archive Circulation Initiative.
1) Ethics and Practice of Film Restoration
* general course on film preservation and restoration ethics
* presentation of different types of format
* 16 and 35mm film handling exercises
2) Digital Film Restoration Practicing
* general presentation of the 3 different softwares : DaVinci Resolve (color calibration), Diamant HS-ART, (image restoration), iZotope RX, 11 and ProTools (sound restoration).
* practical exercises (specialized in working groups according to the software chosen by each participant)
DESCRIPTION OF THE TRAININGS
The aim of this training course is to follow the codifications of the FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives) Ethical Charter, as far as possible given the resources available and the desire to democratize restoration practices. These restorations plans are conceived to preserve films, not remaster them.
Color calibrating film archives with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Film Digitization
> To understand the constraints of film digitization
> To understand the technical chain involved in digitizing film
DaVinci Resolve Studio :
> To understand the specific objective of film color calibration as part of an overall project to enhance the value of an archive
> To master DaVinci Resolve Studio’s various tools and colorimetric settings
> To be able to manage an entire film color calibration with DaVinci Resolv Studio
Evaluation :
Real-life training on a fictious color-calibration project in a post-production context requiring practice with the various DaVinci Resolve Studio’s tools explained during the course
Digital Film Restoration on Diamant HS-ART
Outils enseignés :
* Stabilization (STAB / DWARP)
* Splices (DFLICK+ PALETTE)
* Light and color pumping (DFLICKER + DFLICKER FLUX (LUMA + CHROMA))
* Dust filtering (DUST)+ History (HISTORY FILTER)
* Palette
Objectives :
> To learn how to use the software’s tools to correct mechanical defects due to the film’s exploitation
> To discuss the restoration market and restoration production management
> To identify film defects, understand their cause/source and find the appropriate tool to correct them
Digital Sound Restoration on iZotope RX 10 and ProTools
Some notions of digital sound
> Sampling frequency and resolution
> Compression formats (PCM, FLAC, MP3, etc.)
> FFT
Main principles of sound restoration
> Digitization principles and standards
> Archival restoration ethics
Introduction to spectral sound manipulation
> What is a spectrogam and how to read it ?
> Diferent spectral manipuation software
> Spectral manipulation modules
Studying the extract
> Viewing the extract
> To listen to the extract without video
> Study the spectrogram to identify the elements to be restored
Once the restoration work has been completed, the films will be exported in various formats (conservation formats; broadcast formats), subtitled in French/English/Arabic and preserved on LTO cassettes (magnetic conservation cassettes: currently the most secure medium after film for data preservation). Several cassettes can be created and deposited in different partner archives in Arab countries. It is in fact necessary to multiply the number of storage locations, to ensure the security of the material.
