New breed of restoration specialists now breathing life into classics

Film restoration is growing, driven by TV channels and other outlets' hunger for good quality films

When the 1960 magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam was restored and released in full colour in 2004, it opened up a new field of work for the film fraternity — restoring old films that lay in the libraries of film studios gathering dust. A new breed of restoration specialists emerged who are now breathing new life into many films. 
 
These specialists are in demand. “Television channels and video-streaming majors increasingly demand good broadcast-quality digital prints of classics. It’s a growing business,” says Rajeev Dwivedi, chief executive officer, Live Pixel Technologies, a Mumbai-based company that specialises in this area. 
 
Dwivedi is best known as the man who added colour to the legendary Mughal-e-Azam. While adding colour is still a highly skilled, intensive, and laborious task, modern restoration is comparatively easier to do, thanks to new technology. 

 

The techniques depend on advanced algorithms fed into a computer which is attached to a scanner. This helps in reducing human intervention and identifying difficulties with the film. Restoration includes removing dirt, scratches, burns, and tears as well as improving the sound, colour and overall image quality. In most cases, specialists also have to ensure that the frame they are working on is aligned with the rest to ensure that the look of the film is seamless. 
 
Dwivedi says that restoration experts tend to depend on their own proprietary tools because “the software that is available in the market has either become obsolete or does not give the desired result.”  

 
That said, some software works a treat in improving and sharpening the resolution. Prime Focus Technologies, a subsidiary of Prime Focus, a listed media and entertainment company, depends on the proprietary ‘Lowry Process’, named after Lowry Digital, a California-based company acquired in 2014 by Prime Focus from the Reliance ADAG Group. The Lowry Process improves the resolution and dynamic range of motion picture imagery while removing the damage that comes with aging, poor storage, and wear and tear.   
      
As a restoration and re-mastering tool, the Lowry Process has been used on some of Hollywood’s biggest films including All About Eve, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Titanic, and is a favourite among restoration specialists across the globe.

 
“The Lowry Process brings legacy content to life across platforms including video-on-demand (OTT) as well as traditional TV,” says Prime Focus’ Chairman Emeritus Naresh Malhotra. 
 
Other restorers have opted to tie up with European majors. Prasad Digital Film Labs in Hyderabad is collaborating with L’Immagine Ritrovata Film Restoration Lab in Italy for its restoration work. Prasad also uses a proprietary Austrian film restoration tool called Diamant that allows for automatic, semi-automatic, and interactive film restoration, handling all kinds of defects and wear-and-tear on film easily. 
 
The fundamental demand driving all of this software, whether in-house or international, say experts, is the need for a clean copy that can be broadcast on any platform without irritating the viewer.

 
Digital prints in particular are in high demand by TV channels and OTT platforms owing to the use of digital technology by both. This means that restoration specialists today not only have to make sure that defects in the original film are excised but also that digital prints of the original are prepared in 2K or 4K (generic terms for  display devices or content that has horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 or 4,000 pixels) 
 
Given that even the cinema exhibition business counts on digital technology today, distributors say that restoring in 2K or 4K resolution is a viable option when looking to save an old film.

 
“It all boils down to the source material for restoration. That is, either you have the original negative of the film or the next best thing which is the print of the film. Even if that is not available, restoration work can be carried out with the help of a video of the film,” says Shyam Shroff, a Mumbai-based distributor who runs Shringar Films.
 
Shroff has restored films such as Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958) and blockbuster Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke (1969), among other films. He says that, typically, restoration experts scan the negative or positive print of the film on their scanners when reviving it. 

“You can either scan the source material frame-by-frame which is time-consuming or do it with the help of a machine, which is automatic. The latter takes less time and is cheaper to do versus the frame-by-frame approach,” he says.  
 
He says that many restoration experts also provide an initial report on the source material before the work is undertaken to determine whether the job can be executed or not. 
 
“The entire restoration job from start to finish can take a couple of months depending on the quality of the source material received by the expert and the number of man hours he is willing to devote to the project,” says Shroff. 

 
While the Indian film market is estimated to be Rs 156 billion in size, according to the 2018 FICCI-EY Report on the Media and Entertainment, the restoration market is only a fraction of that —  Rs 20-30 billion, say sector analysts. This is a function of the shortage of good prints or negatives of old films and the costs involved in restoring them.
 
A good restoration of one film that lasts for a month or more can cost Rs 500,000. If grading and colouring are added, the cost could rise to Rs 1-1.2 million. 
 
Before restoration got underway, the original prints of several rare classics had been lost while others were disintegrating. The restoration work that is now underway will play a vital role in protecting the nation’s cinematic legacy.