Film restoration

[koover]

I searched quite a while but didnt see a thread or topics strictly for discussing film restoration. I thought it would be fun, extremely educational and interesting to understand the painstaking processes the studios go through to take a damaged or old film and give us what we see today.

One of my other hobbies is astrophotography and I can tell you that it's a slow painstaking experience to process out one image. Some people take days ,weeks and months just to complete one image. Photoshop or other astro processing aps are available but they all pretty much do the same thing. The reason I even bring this up is I'm thinking that restoration of film has got to be something like processing astro photos but on a much grander scheme. The process to remove noise, scratches, etc. basically any imperfections has to be similar to my other hobby.....astrophotography.

I was just hoping to open up dialog on this process and for some of the gurus on this site to share their insight and discuss what goes into it, what studios really take the time with TLC, etc.

[Adam4Rizzel]

I've seen many companies fund great restorations. Criterion, BFI, Disney, Universal (not many, haha), WB, etc. It's all a matter of how much work can be done, how much wants to be done, and how much $ they'll spend to allow it to be done.

Ex:

Looney Tunes are given fantastic restorations, leaving every little originally captured defect in-tact.

Disney (Bambi, Dumbo, etc.) just wipes every thing away, including the needed natural film grain, and tries to make their older animated features look like they're new.

Masters can be a problem, available elements can be a problem, etc.