[KineJapan] Pink Film Restoration Project

Wed Mar 14 08:19:54 EDT 2018

Can put my archivist hat on for a moment? If that’s OK,  I’d hope that the scanning might be done on something better than the Blackmagic. 

Don’t get me wrong. Love the things. Its brilliant that they based on the old Cinetel telecine mechanics and I, of course want to be patriotic for an Australian product. And they give a lot of bag per buck for around $US60k fully set up - for something like doing release prints or fine grains in good condition for re-release on HD TV. 

But their best output is actually only UHD (that’s really only 3k, not the full 4k) for 35mm. 2k only for 16mm, if that’s part of the project. And to a max of 10 colour bit. This is a bit short of what the consensus in the field agrees will record true 35mm colour, which is at least 4k and maybe 12 or 16 colour bit. They are also bit unforgiving for shrunken or damaged film, or for doing scans off and not up to A and B rolls. Which in some cases is the source material you really need to go back to, to do a ‘preservation scan’ which will both give you plenty of restoration options once the scan’s been done and create a decent .dpx file you can return in future if you have money and time to do a better job. For a bit more (say a bit upwards of $100-150k), there is a whole class of scanners that go the next level up (its’ a little off-topic, but see the Swiss Diastor Projects recent white paper on current film scanner technologies here for a bit of background briefing on this: https://diastor.ch)

But then who has even $100k US in the Japanese indie sector? The work Imagica does in restoring Japanese studio classic cinema is world class. It’s probably got better since the there Bologna film archive people, whose film restoration unit is the market leader in this field, set up office in Hong Kong and gave them a competitor  for Asian film restoration business. It’s a pity that the Japanese indie sector can’t access this resource in at least a good corporate citizenship kind of way. Maybe through a Japanese equivalent to the US National Film Preservation Foundation 25 films of significance listings and to the attached kudos, publicity and preservation funding that goes with this. 

Those who know the NFPF lists and something of the politics behind the lobbying and decision will detect the very strategic balance each year’s list strikes between classic Hollywood and vital works from the canon of US indie / documentary / avant grade / minority community representation / home movie filmmaking. About 50-50%. 

I’m being quixotic, but perhaps one of the first initiatives of the new, stand alone NFC can be to work on industry partnerships towards a similar Japanese conversation starter and consensus-based funding program… 

Quentin Turnour.
National Archives of Australia.
> On 12 Mar 2018, at 1:21 PM, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> I had a nice talk with Aihara Hiromi, who helps out with foreign film festivals here and there. She's involved in an interesting project. Rapid Eye Lab (Peter Schulz, Stephan Holl, et al) acquired a Black Magic scanner that enables 4K scans on the (relative) cheap. They are apparently focussing on independent films of note, and not just Japan. 
> 
> The pink film project was just announced at Berlin with a tribute to producer Sato Keiko. First films are Yamatoya's Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands, Adachi's Gushing Prayer and Suo's Abnormal Family. Films by Mukai and Watanabe in the pipeline. 
> 
> I've heard the film center has collected some pink film, but I've never heard of restorations. So this is a great thing, and the choices are interesting. These films are easily rentable now for those involved in programming. Details are in the attached press kit.
> 
> Markus
> 
> 
> --- 
> 
> Markus Nornes
> Professor of Asian Cinema
> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
> 
> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> 6348 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
> 
> <180206_Pink_Presskit_III.pdf>_______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at lists.osu.edu
> https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan

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