Imagine a room filled with 600 state-of-the-art computers working around the clock – that’s the kind of computing power it takes to digitally restore your favourite films.
Toronto-born John Lowry, one of the world’s foremost experts in film restoration, has developed a special process (run by all those computers) to improve over 100 of Hollywood’s most beloved classics, including Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Star Wars to name just a few.
Goldfinger (James Bond...
Best Price: $1.68
Buy New $14.70
(as of 10:50 UTC - Details)
When MGM approached him to restore all 20 James Bond films (minus the latest, Casino Royale) for a special DVD collection – all at once – Lowry knew that he was in for a massive undertaking.
“This was easily the largest project for digital restoration ever,” Lowry says during a phone interview with Popjournalism.
Casino Royale (James B...
Best Price: $1.42
Buy New $17.99
(as of 10:05 UTC - Details)
Over two-and-a-half painstaking years, Lowry’s company and MGM worked on restoring picture and sound quality on Bond films from 1962’s Dr. No to 2002’s Die Another Day.
While the computers handled most of the automatic processes like dust removal, more complex problems like torn film had to be fixed manually, taking up to 20 minutes per frame – and keep in mind that a two-hour film has approximately 172,000 frames.
It sounds like the definition of tedious work.
“Tedious is the last word I’d use to describe my job,” Lowry says with a laugh. “I think of the process as puzzle-solving. What caused this problem? How can we fix it? It’s often a mind-bending process.”
One of the most challenging films to restore in the Bond series was the first film, Dr. No, whose negatives had degraded over the years due to numerous reprints and lack of care before the franchise had taken full bloom.
December 25, 2009
