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The digital screening of heritage films

By Jean-Baptiste Hennion

In these times of technological evolution (revolution?) of the screening of cinematic films, it is interesting to raise the question of the digital screening of films known as "heritage" films.

While a great number of old films were screened for years with the help of video projectors and HD-Cam cassettes (the best case scenario), the industry, technique and distribution have evolved considerably and now allow them to be shown more broadly in cinemas, which today is a big event.  We must however appreciate the pioneering aspect of these screenings and this means of broadcasting restored films.  Indeed the digital tool that allows a number of elements that may make up these programmes to be restored and screened makes it easier to show these films (films that often nobody has seen on a big screen for years, indeed decades).  We can appreciate some of these 'tapes' during Pochettes Surprises at the Le Balzac cinema in Paris.
 
The number of digital screening systems is increasing daily in cinema booths around the world.  Let's rely on ISO (1) standards (voted for or in the process of being voted for) so digital cinema (both in manufacturing copies as well as for specifications for the machines used for screening) is comparable on an international level to what the international conference wanted in 1909 with the adoption of the 35 mm film.  Although the digital medium isn't a durable, ideal preservation medium and these technologies are evolving continuously, current standards have defined minimum quality criteria so the digital image, projected onto the screen is at least equal to 35 mm.
 
Bucking Braodway, 1917
Digital restoration
Photography has already gone over to the digital age; screening is in the process of carrying out this change of direction.  In the past few years a number of films have been restored with the help of digital tools.  It goes without saying that these tools are very precious and high-performance and allow works of art whether forgotten or not (2) to be rediscovered and brought back to life. The viewing and study of Bucking Broadway (3) perfectly illustrate this type of work.
At a time when many of us, surely by fetishism, shed tears over the disappearance of the photochemical (4) medium of projection booths, we must however open our eyes and rejoice in what digital screening allows us in the cinema.  What a pleasure to be able to rediscover Lola Montès in 2.55 while for 50 years nobody could appreciate it in its original context.  What a pleasure to see Intolerance again screened at the right pace.  What a pleasure to see Hondo in three dimensions when it had become impossible to see this film in the conditions it was shot in.  What a pleasure to be able to hear the soundtrack of Vacances de Monsieur Hulot! There are many more examples that in our opinion offer dazzled spectators screenings that can only be described as spectacular.  These treasures piled up on shelves in our film archives can finally rediscover the screens and the spectators that were theirs!  A new distribution of these works of art has become possible.
 
Lola Montès, 1955. Digital restoration (5)
 
Digital screening is a real chance for cinemaphilia, for educating the image and for cinema itself.  All these films that were dormant in bin shelving, all these missing films that once rediscovered are restored, all these films that were impossible to see because their preservation medium made them impossible to screen and for which printing distribution copies was financially unthinkable, can now be seen again.  The shelves of major Hollywood film companies are bursting with preservation scans on D5 (6) of films that they no longer have copies of to distribute.  Of course the physical copy has disappeared from this new form of preservation or distribution, all these frames have been sampled and quantified to transform the printed medium into binary content (7).  But again, wherever you are in the world, you can screen this data in the same way and have the same result the restorer saw and heard in his workshop on screen!  This is real for the first time in the history of cinematic technique, screening a film that will be exactly the same everywhere.  And without it deteriorating with each different screening!
 
What other advantages allow digital screening for heritage films?  First of all, respecting the format of the image has become possible again.  In a distribution where the 1.37 or 1.66 format (without mentioning the 1.33) has practically disappeared from projection booths, a simple electronic adjustment of the projector allows films to be screened in their original ratio.  If the problem of running rate is resolved today, it will again be possible to screen silent films at a similar speed to that of the time (let's say, between 16 and 21 images a second). And this without any flickering effect or having to carry out repairs on the projector.  These films that ethically couldn't be screened because it was sometimes impossible to vary the speed of the 35 mm projector or because a three-blade shutter hadn't been installed can be screened again and anywhere!  This is really important:  there is no longer any need to look after technical aspects and circulating films becomes easy again.
 
So we must hope for a broad encoding plan that respects the specifications of what is today digital cinema of digitally restored or scanned films.  Heritage films must once again become works of art accessible in our cinemas.  Let's benefit from all these restorations for DVD and Blu-Ray so in the end the restorations are also intended for the cinema and not just for television.
 
(1) International Standard Organisation.  The AFNOR standard is NF S 27100; we must also take into account DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) recommendations.
(2) Let's leave aside the ethical aspects of restoring works to be interested solely in the screened object.
(3) John Ford, 1917.  It is one of the rare silent films by John Ford that has been found and restored to date.  Furthermore its restoration is totally digital.  Press kit by CNC-AFFconcerning the restoration.
(4) I'm not talking about the disappearance of the photochemical medium in projection booths only; in any case there remains a better medium for preserving films.  Any film restored in digital should, I think, be returned to film at least to preserve it.
(5) The Lola Montès film has been restored by the French Film Archives in collaboration with the Films du Jeudi, the Films de la Pléiade and Marcel Ophuls, the Thomson Foundation for cinema and television heritage, with the support of the Franco-American Cultural Fund, thanks to the patronage of L'Oréal and Agnès B, with the assistance of Filmmuseum  Münchnen, the Royal Film Archives of Belgium, the Film Archivesof the town of Luxembourg and the technical advice of François Ede.
(6) Magnetic strip ˝ inch wide.
(7) Cinema in JPEG2000 remains in any case a continuation of fixed images and not a video signal.
 
 
Jean-Baptiste HENNION
Doctoral student, lecturer at the University Paris 8 and trainer at the AFOMAV (Training centre for image professions).  Works on the first 20 years of cinema and more specifically on the exploitation of the cinematograph in French funfairs.  At the same time he looks after 2AVI's digital cinema department and thus combines digital practices with his research on the pioneers of cinema.
(July 2009)
 

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