On the occasion of the release of Blade Runner on Blu-ray and HD DVD, Sound and Vision Magazine has an excellent
article on how Warner is restoring its films for highdef release and archival. The writer is given a tour of the facilities, which are very impressive.
Evidently, the studio is now working on The Enforcer, the third of the Dirty Harry films:
Quote:
The information the studio definitely doesn't want transferred to any high-def discs is the kind of fossilizing left behind by dirt and scratches — often a problem when transferring older titles. In fact, when a movie goes high-def, it must spend time at the station of the dirt-and-scratches guy. The technician — in this case, editor Steve Sanchez — attacks blemishes like a vat of Clearasil. On the day I dropped by, he was in the process of removing no fewer than 13,000 glitches from a mere half-reel (that's about 10 minutes) of the Dirty Harry movie The Enforcer (coming soon to high-def).
The next stop is at the mega-console of Jan Yarbrough, technical director of motion picture imaging, who does color correction and enhancement. Jan, also working on The Enforcer, has had to take the film's deteriorating color and make it look natural (not easy, when skin tones have taken on the look of a fatally bad fake tan).
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Warner Bros. motion picture imaging technical director Jan Yarbrough
does color correction and enhancement for the 4K transfer of The Enforcer.