Archival Restoration

We learned many processes of upgrade and restoration pull from our existing depth in film post production digital and our love of the history of great Cinema. Eventually, these areas of interest would lead us into restoration of film and TV in addition to our ongoing new productions. From our inception we were always evolving our knowledge of and experimentation in, post production. Many of our productions being sci-fi demanded inventive thinking and new methods in post.

Our first restoration work proper was in our own works, about 30 films and scripted TV drama going as far back as to the late  1970s in super-16, 35MM and diverse formats.

A chance meeting with John Frizzel a co-writer and co-director of the 1983 classic, challenging Winter Tan (staring the inestimable Jackie Burroughs). That casual conversation soon lead to a decision to re-introducing the film turned into a discussion of – where can we find a good print? Eventually we got our hands on two old faded, scratched super-16mm theatrical prints, and no trace of the original negatives. Hence our first shot a restoring a third party classic.  Working closely with our friends at Eggplant Pictures and Sound we ultimately restored two new digital masters, one for theatrical projection, the other for streaming services. The carefully restored soundtrack, from scratched, mono optical release prints is truly brought back to great quality (hat’s off to Bruce Fleming at Eggplant Sound).

The restored Premier was held by TIFF in a special event at the Bell Lightbox in Toronto. In Europe the restored film was projected at the Edinburg Fringe and gone into North American Streaming. It was an encouraging start.

Restoration and Archival work also meant one had to track the rights and often re-build long-lost chain of title documentation of works we were restoring. After all, a show needs a legal and exploitable existence, or the restoration work is of no use. As producers of films and TV with sometimes complex financing helped us in Chain of title and rights reconstruction. At times we were engaged by one or another completion guarantor to take over productions, some of those first called for us to rebuild chain of title and rights – turned out to be a necessary depth in archival and restoration work.

This effort was followed by a successful restoration and of Clay Boris’s 1982 Cannes Director’s Fortnight festival hit Alligator Shoes. This is a beginning, Great cinema deserves to be there for future generations. We’re proud to be a growing part of that.

For more on our film and series restoration capacities and services, call 647-783-2799 or email info@starfieldcreatorco.com