Film Restoration the Culture and Science of Audiovisual Heritage

Film Restoration The Culture and Science of Audiovisual Heritage Leo Enticknap Irtstitute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK @ Leo Enticknap 2013 Contents All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without w itten permission. No portion of this pubtication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, List of Figres v1 Saffron House,6-10 Kirby Street, London EC'lN 8TS. Acknowledgements vii Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be [iable to criminat prosecution and civiI claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be ídentified as the author of this work Introduction - Why Restoration Matters 1 in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by 1 Why Do Films Need to Be Restored? I7 PALCRAVE MACMILLAN Where Are Films Restored, Where Do They Come From and Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan publishers Limited, 2 registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmitts, Basingstoke, Who Restores Them? 45 Hampshire RC21 6XS. 3 The Technique of Film Restoration 71 Palgrave Macmitlan in the US is a division of St Martin's Press LLC, '1 75 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY '100 10. 4 The Presentation of Film Restoration 128 Palgrave Macmillan is the globaI academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. 5 Conclusion: The Ethics and Study of Film Restoration 151 Palgrave@ and Macmillan@ are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. Ap p x : Te Glo s sa r62 tsBN 9 78*0-230-23043-9 endi chnical ry This book is printed on paper suitable for recycting and made from fulty Noťes 794 managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmentaI reguLations of the Bibliography 2r7 country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Index of Film Titles 231 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Subiect Index 233 Enticknap, Leo Fitm restoration: the culture and science of audiovisuaI heritage / Leo Enticknap. Pages cm Summary: "Film Restoration: The Culture and Science of Audiovisual Heritage is the first monograph-length work intended to enable the general public and readers with a humanities background to understand what film restoration does and does not involve. ln doing so, Enticknap engages with current debates on audio-visuaI artefacts and identifies the ways in which traditional methods and approaches within film studies, history and cultural studies fait to provide the tools needed to study and criticise restored films meaningfully and reliably. The book also includes a technical glossary of over 1 50 terms related to the processes of film restoration." Provided by publisher. lsBN 978-0-230-23043-9- (hardback) '1. Motion picture film-Preservation. l. Titte. TR886.3.E58 201 3 777-dc23 201 3029010 Figures Acknowledgements All photographs taken by the author. Figures 2.1 to 3.10 were taken at This book has been in preparation for four years, largely as a result of a the John Paul Getty II Conservation Centre of the BÍitish Film Insti- semester of research leave I \/as supposed to take in the spring of 2009 tute's National Archive, and Figure 4.1 was taken in the pro jection booth having to be cancelled at the eleventh hour, due to the serious illness of the campus theatre in the Institute of Comrnunications Studies, of two close colleagues and the consequent need for me to teach. The University of Leeds. research and writing of this book, therefore, has had to be juggled with my other teaching, research and adrninistration commitments, without 2.7 An atmospherically controlled vault facility at the the period of study leave that the preparation of a monograph on this British Film Institute's conservation centre near London 57 scale would normally require. The manuscript was submitted ahnost 3.1 A frlm examination bench used for technical selection 83 tv/o years late as a result of this, and I would therefore like to express 3.2 A section of 35 mm nitrate negative, in which a lateral a huge debt of gratitude to Felicity Plester, Catherine Mitchell and Chris tear across four frames has been repaired with adhesive Penfold at Palgrave Macmillan for keeping faith with this proiect while tape 86 I struggled to finish it. 3.3 An ultrasonic frlm cleaning machine 90 During the period of the research I have received valuable help and 3.4 Particle transfer rollers in the film path of a contact support, among both archivists and academics. In particular, Patrick printer 9Z Russell's comments on some early drafts \/ere very helpful in develop- 3.5 A BHP 77OO HD continuous motion contact printer, ing the book's central arguments and focus. Other colleagues, contacts designed primarily for high-speed release printing 98 and friends whose support I would like to acknowledge, in particular for 3.6 The Debrie Matipo contact step printer 99 providing information, making suggestions and alerting me to research 3.7 Detail of the Matipo's gate, showing the registration pins i01 resources, all of which have inforrned this work in substantive ways, 3.8 An Arriscan 4K film scanner in use LO7 include Audrey Amidon, Charles Barr, Dennis Doros, Robert Gitt, Brian 3.9 The graphical user interface of the Arriscan capture Guckian, Charles Hopkins, Lynne Kirste, Criss Kovac, Louise Lawrence, software 108 Claudy Op den Kamp, Paul Rayton, Vanessa Toulmin, Katie Trainor and 3.10 An automated film processing machine IZ6 Steve Wilson. 4.I A proiection booth equipped for dual projector At the British Film Institute's National Archive, Charles Fairall, Scott operation 133 Starck and Keiron Webb provided extensive and invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of chapters 3 and 4 and the glossary, and very kindly allowed me to take the photographs with which this book is illustrated in their conservation and restoration lab. Grateful thanks are also due to the other technicians there who helped rne with the photo session. In the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds, UK, Justin Charlesworth, John Edrnonds, Stephen Hay, lan Macdonald, Simon Popple, Nicholas Pronay, Paul Taylor and Andy Thorpe have all provided invaluable support and encouragement while the work was in progťess. Irr particular, ] would like to acknowledge the contribution of my PhD student, Richard Brown, whose discoveries in the British trade viii Acknowledseme,tts press from the 1910s and 1920s relating to early film preservation treat- ments shed valuable light on the origins and early development of the Introduction - Why Restoration technical processes of archival Íilrn preservation and restoration. Matters It should be noted that the viewpoints and arguments expressed in this book - some of which, it has to be admitted, are a tad controversiall - are solely my own, and in no way the responsibility of anyone listed above. My greatest debt of gratitude of all, however, is to my fiancée, olivia, who endured a long, hot summer with me hunched over a computer and failing to give her the attention she deserved. I hope this |ustiÍies it! On 2 December 2OO9, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)'s Ílagship drive_time radio news proglamme broadcast a report on the centenary celebrations of what is clairned on its website to be 'the UK's oldest working cinema'.r The Electric Theatre in Birmingham was for- merly a newsreel theatre, and a collection of prints of local topicals and other short films had survived in a rooftop film storage vault until their discovery by an archive film agency in the 1970s. Cornmenting on a screening of this material at the centenary event, the cinema's owner, Tom Lawes, told the BBC's interviewer: 'We've got some amazing archive film. They've managed to put it back onto DVD, digitise it, and it's pretty good, it's amazing to see the cinema in 1937.' 2 That comment illustrates, in three short phrases, why this book is nec- essary. To staÍt with, Lawes articulates a fundarnental misconception as to the relationship between the technological specificity of the media to which he refers, and its empirical pÍovenance. He talks of 'putting back' onto DVD content that was origirrated on 35 mm Írlm, as if the act of making a relatively low-quality digital copy is a straightforward act of restoration. Secondly, he celebrates the idea of modernising archive film, opining that digitising is'pretty good' and thereby irnplying that a view- ing on a medium in which the fihn was originated is somehow second best. And finally, he expresses a conception of archive film as a surface- level entertainment spectacle, repeatedly using the adjective 'amazing' to emphasise the fihn's role as a commodified spectacle for uneducated consumers rather than an evidentiary artefact to be interrogated and understood by an informed audience. As this story on a rnainstream radio news programme/ airned at a non-specialist audience, indicates, critical and academic interest in, and attention paid to, our audiovisual heritage has ballooned in the 2 FiIm Restoration Ittroductiotr 3 Iast 15 years or so. There are a number of reasons for this, of which and sustained the UK's lively moving inrage culture'.a

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