sundance 2006 - Zoael

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Archivists Take Over the World AMIA CONFERENCE ARCHIVISTS FROM THE WORLD over landed in Austin, TX for the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) conference held November 30-December 3, 2005. The annual conference provides an opportunity for colleagues and those interested in the field to meet, share information and work together. For newcomers to the widely expanding film preservation community, networking with other AMIA members and trade professionals proves invaluable for professional development. AMIA conference registration includes participation in all regular sessions and screenings and various special events. THE REEL THING The fifteenth edition of the ongoing technical seminar, “The Reel Thing,” took place on November 30, 2005 at the historic Paramount Theater. According to Grover Crisp, Asset Management Guru at Sony Pictures Entertainment, the objective for the Reel Thing seminar is to “expose the restoration and archival audience to the current thinking and most advanced practical examples of progress in the field of preservation and restoration, it is looking to create common ground for discussion and evaluation of preservation methods, so that informed decisions can be made about when and how to deploy both traditional and emerging technologies.” The seminar scheduled a program demonstrating both traditional and digital techniques for restoration and preservation, restoration of unusual or unique film formats, image scanning and recording tests, problems and solutions surrounding the creation and preservation of digital intermediates as well as myriad sound exigencies. One such seminar revealed an encouraging salvation for almost beyond hope acetate and nitrate film rolls. Russ Suniewick, owner of Colorlab, Rockville, MD, brought to mind typical scenarios that would evoke heavy sighs of dismay when coming across rare film rolls that, in the past, could not be saved. With a Fine Arts CONTINUED FROM PAGE 66 personnel in the audience which can include potential distributors, finishing fund investors and the ubiquitous critics. All the more reason the screening conditions must be optimum, where even the smallest glitch can spell disaster or an unraveling of nerves at best. new treatment created by Colorlab and aptly named DeStick (see box The Reel Thing Can be a Sticky Business), the method was illustrated with before, during and after visuals, summing up the technical, theoretical and practical facets of unsticking the decomposition menace from problematic acetate and nitrate film rolls— accompanied by a workflow budget showing what services were necessary to salvage these examples. BIG INTEREST IN SMALL GAUGE The Small Gauge Interest Group, established in 2001, has become an integral part of the AMIA conference with a well-organized program to promote information exchange among individuals involved with small gauge and amateur film at all levels; continue developing and publicizing standards for the care and preservation of small gauge and amateur film materials; encourage small gauge and amateur film works appreciation, especially in film and social history and moving image culture; and to support research, writing, and public activities related to small gauge and amateur film and the issues associated with it. Several events chaired by the this Group included meetings moderated by committee chairs Dwight Swanson and Andrew Lampert and scheduled panel discussions. Topics ranged from the basics (such as supply availability for splicers, splicing tape, leader, film, labs, and the discontinuation of K-40) to complex preservation procedures followed by project reviews from 2005, a preserved-film screening series, the Alan Kattelle Oral History project, lab survey and improvements for the website. Other new projects proposed included a discussion about ideas for the AMIA Book Publishing Task Force. The conference also commemorated the 40th anniversary of Super 8 with a panel of professionals addressing the Past, Present and Future? of Super 8 film as a professional medium. Steve Polta of San Francisco Cinematheque, chaired the panel; Alan Kattelle, historian and author of the Michael, who learned his craft from the best in the business, “the sound engineers at Dolby Labs,” has single handedly installed all of the digital projection, digital sound equipment, and upgraded the previously existing film projection equipment in the Wilshire Screening Room. Similar installations are almost complete at the Fine Arts. For Audiophiles the Fine Arts boasts a new Dolby Digital sound system with Surround-EX. Still not satisfied, Hall added his own personal touch to an 70 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire April 18, 1906 (1906) Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest (1910) Making of an American (1920) Hands Up (1926) Power of the Press (1928) The Cameraman (1928) H2O (1929) Baby Face (1933) Imitation of Life (1934) Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort, South Carolina (1940) Mom and Dad (1944) Miracle on 34th Street (1947) book Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897-1979, spoke about the early roots of the format and early equipment; Colette Scott, Development Manager for Kodak, talked about Kodak’s decision to discontinue K-40 and how the new Ektachrome would facilitate “workflows” with local labs offering better and more expedient processing; Andrew Lampert, Archivist for NYC’s Anthology Film Archive, discussed the history of Super 8 from an archivist’s perspective and the importance of amateur films in collections; and Phil Vigeant, president of Pro8mm, talked about the growth of Super 8 film, its technical advances and about the professional filmmakers who made significant contributions to this evolution a well as amateurs who generated thousands of home movies. A highlight—the AMIA Silver Light Award recognizing outstanding career achievement in moving image archiving which went to Alan Kattelle for his substantial contributions and leadership in the area of amateur film and with the completion of the AMIA-spon- already exquisite sounding room. “Aside from the quality of the room itself, I have an excellent, experienced staff. We are in a very classy building that is very centrally located in Beverly Hills, with free underground parking. We are only five blocks east of the Academy and ten minutes away from several freeways,” Hall says modestly. The Fine Arts and the Wilshire are in a class of their own with no competitors. “They are easily the most gorgeous screening rooms of this size IN THE DETAILS ASSOCIATION OF MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVISTS (AMIA) 25 Films Inducted to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress Giant (1956) House of Usher (1960) A Raisin in the Sun (1961) The Music Man (1962) A Time for Burning (1966) Cool Hand Luke (1967) The French Connection (1971) The Sting (1973) The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man (1975) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) Hoop Dreams (1994) Toy Story (1995) sored Alan Kattelle Oral History Project. As the first of its kind in the organization’s history, Kattelle’s unparalleled knowledge of amateur film history spear-headed this in-depth record to fruition. It will be available through AMIA, the George Eastman House and the Northeast Historic Film Society. The conference ended with a showing of a new design for archival film cans by Andre Pion of Stil Design, Canada, and a historical Small Gauge Task Force timeline presentation by Karen Sheldon. Newly elected co-chairs of the Small Gauge Interest Group are Chad Hunter, archivist at Appalshop, Whitesburg, KY and Rhonda Vigeant, vice president of marketing, Pro8mm, Burbank, CA. This event was recorded on DVD for educational purposes. Interested parties should contact Laura Rooney for a copy at AMIA. The Annual AMIA Conference is open to all, regardless of membership For more information on joining AMIA or on past events, go to www.amianet. or contact the AMIA Office at (323) 463- 1500 or amia@amianet.org. around,” states Elliott Kotek at Moving Pictures Magazine. “If you were to imagine the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in miniature with a more intimate setting, you would visualize the Wilshire Screening Room. This is the type of screening room you want to bring your biggest clients to in order to show an important film and talk business. www.studioscreening.com For more information contact Cristiane Roget, 310.858.7062, mobile 310.220.9118.
Sounds of Silence Wakes Up Audio Industry Alternative Sound Tracks for Silent Films ROAR. THUNDER. CRASH. Explode. Theater owners install the best theatrical sound exhibition systems available to enhance movie watching because fundamentally, sound is a most vital part of the film experience. It’s hard to fathom why then, in cinema’s earliest days, the inventor of the first 35mm film gauge (late 1890s), gave no thought to accommodate musical accompaniment on a printed sound track. Was the guy deaf? So, silent films were composed using the full frame - an aspect ratio of about 1.17:1 and standardized in 1926 as the Academy Silent Aperture of 1.33:1. With the introduction of optical soundtracks printed on release prints, one-tenth of an inch (100 mils- 100/1000 inch = 1/10) of the film was BY ROBERT HEIBER, PRESIDENT, CHACE AUDIO AND JAMIE HOWARTH, PRESIDENT-PLANGENT PROCESSES MACHINE SPEED INSTABILITY in the motion picture and audio recording process is a well-known phenomenon. Two artifacts commonly known as “wow” and “flutter” can conspire to ruin a sound track. Heretofore, rejectable wow and flutter anomalies were unsolvable audio problems—absent finding an alternate “unflawed” source. These audio roadblocks have now been removed thanks to a unique technology called Clarity Audio Restoration (Clarity) by Plangent Processes. Clarity is a combination of proprietary DSP (Digital Signal Processing) and hardware for the playback of 35mm magnetic sound film and audiotape to correct wow and flutter due to machine speed instability. It is well known that even “Rolls Royce” audio recorders and playback machines like Albrechts and Studers have a published wow and flutter specification. “Wow” refers to irregular cyclical motion, which creates variations in the pitch of a sound track (usually at a slow rate), while flutter is attributable to similar deviations in the transport at a higher rate of occurrence. Regardless of the quality of the equipment, all analog recordings suffer from these flaws. When gross errors occur, even the untrained ear can hear the problems associated with wow and flutter. More lost for the image. A new picture ratio standard of 1.37:1 emerged and called the Academy Reduced Aperture. Since silent films did not accommodate a soundtrack, the original silent film negatives were not suitable to PRESENTED AT AMIA CONFERENCE make sound prints. That became a problem in the case when new prints of Harold Lloyd’s silent comedies were needed for exhibition with an optical sound track. A common solution is to optically reduce the image and make new prints that would accommodate the soundtrack area. However, it’s a time-consuming process and the result can still affect the image through a build-up in subtle errors manifest as masking phenomenon, and listener fatigue. Clarity is the first technology addressing these problems utilizing a novel method of “re-timing” the audio signal. To re-time the audio signal, the special Clarity transfer equipment recovers signals in the ultrasonic region that can be found on the tape or film along with the audio of the original recording. Ascribing to these ultrasonic components, the properties of a moving clock (think varying sample rate), and mathematically retiming these signals such that the clock is crystal-steady, the dsp now “knows” the speed fluctuations of the original machine occurring at the moment it made the recording. By inverting the error signal, and conforming the corresponding audio to it, Clarity’s DSP retimes the audio to a fixed and stable time base. The result: perfectly pitched audio with no wow or flutter. Conventional wisdom suggests that analog degradation is the result of two factors: the quality of the recording electronics and the recording characteristics of the magnetic media and heads. No one would argue that in the early days of magnetic recording, both the electronics (tubes) and early tape formulations contributed to sound quality degradation. However, once manufacturing 71 contrast. An alternative solution is to use a digital soundtrack, which does not infringe upon the picture area. Two of the three digital sound formats, Dolby Digital (SR-D) and Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) meet this criteria. DTS doesn’t because it records a time code control track in a tiny area unused in standard analog optical recording. Another issue is projection speeds for the films since 1920s films often ran at 20fps while all modern projectors run at 24fps for sound prints. This speeds up slower films with 24fps projection; often giving action sequences too much of a “Blair Witch” jerky look. While some theaters are able to adjust projection speeds and run the film slower, a soundtrack pitch changes to a lower processes for both audiotape and magnetic sound film were standardized, they were very quickly considered high fidelity media. When solid-state electronics made their appearance in amplifier design, the electrical component also became more reliable. Since it is standard practice to align the replay electronics of the film or tape machine to the alignment tones recorded onto the film or tape, it is possible to very accurately replay a tape with very little -if any- degeneration from the electronics or media. As noted earlier, no analog recording mechanism is immune from these artifacts.. Thirty-five millimeter magnetic sound film is particularly vulnerable to another type of periodic fast flutter known as “sprocket-cogging. Sprocket-cogging, as the name implies, is a function of the sprocket drive of 35mm film. With 4 perforations per frame and 24 frames per second a 96Hz (4 x 24), audio artifact can be found in magnetic sound film, not unlike “perf buzz” in optical sound. Though the sprocket-cogging is at a fairly low signal level, it creates an intermodulation distortion component that also affects the purity of the sound, and creates listener fatigue, or “ear glare”. In addition to these factors, the capstan, bearings, rollers and reel motors all create an ever-shifting pattern of beat frequencies that intermodulate with the audio. These mechanical instabilities cause everything from bass cancella- register whether digital or analog. So pitch correction would be required to compensate for this slower nonstandard projection speed. Empirical speed tests showed that a SR-D track could be slowed down to 20.3fps before the failure rates became excessive. In modern exhibition the analog track is the backup for the digital, these silent prints indeed would be silent if the digital track fails since no analog track could be printed on the film. After comparing tests at 22fps and 24fps, it was determined to release the film at 24fps for consistency in exhibition. There is another option. Rather than making new digital soundtracks for all of the films, several shorts ran with “synchronous” CDs. These tracks are cued to start with the “start mark” in the projector gate, similar to a Vitaphone presentation. These tracks worked with surprisingly accurate results. Unconventional, inventive ways that use digital sound technologies are excellent examples of emerging technologies for saving film history. Audiences of today and the future can now see these original images and experience theatrical sound as they’ve come to expect. Wow…Flutter…Analog Artifacts…Gone PRESENTED AT AMIA CONFERENCE tion, to lower midrange mud, up through grainy sidetones in the midrange, and on up into the clouding of the high frequency with interstitial haze and transient blurring. The effect of these artifacts was not well understood during the heyday of analog recording, because the problems were difficult to quantify, and were measured with an antiquated international standard that didn’t provide a useful metric regarding the audibility of these faster wow and flutter components. Regardless of the lack of documentation regarding these flaws it is indisputable that they were always there. Furthermore it is evident that removing wow and flutter artifacts with Clarity not only reduces obvious pitch fluctuation, it also reduces or eliminates the characteristic roughness and/or muddiness caused by high-frequency flutter. This helps to explain why a tape or film copy, whose frequency response “by the tones” measures identically to the original is found to be perceptibly “duller” in character and offers a more sensible explanation for the true cause of generation loss. analog signal degradation attributable to machine speed instability is not theoretical. Clarity Audio Restoration by Plangent Processes can analyze and compensate for these inaccuracies for the first time ever. The result-legacy recordings that can now be presented with wow and flutter specs comparable with today’s digital recordings.
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SUNDANCE INSTITUTE 25th • SLAMDAN
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www.filmfestivalreporter.com 212-26
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It’s the SilverAgeof theInstitute
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Sundance: Swag, Stars, Snow, Skis a
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Sundance Institute At 25 CONTINUED
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INTERVIEW BY EDDY GILBERT HERCH MAR
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La Tragedia de Macario Pablo Veliz
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Sundance Speaks All Languages BY SA
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Page 33 and 34: are tightening their grip. Tamperin
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