Digitisation Workplace Is the Future of Film

In 2014, a modern digitisation workplace of the Slovak Film Institute (SFI) was built in the basement of Cinema Lumière. It was one of the activities of the Digital Audiovision National Project implemented in the SFI since 2011. It is the largest audiovisual heritage digitisation project in Slovakia and the SFI made use of European Union funds in its implementation. The Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS) is the SFI’s partner in the Digital Audiovision Project.

Construction of the digitisation workplace started in the second half of 2013 and it was put into pilot operation in the first quarter of 2014. The staff members were gradually trained for its full operation; they currently take part in the entire digitisation process and digital restoration of films. This is possible thanks to the state-of-the-art equipment at the workplace which complies with the current requirements of film archives and distribution channels for audiovisual works. The significance of the digitisation workplace activities and outputs will be tested over time, but it is already obvious that its existence is a must in the era of digital cinema and television broadcasting. Accordingly, the workplace is of crucial importance to maintain continuity in making the audiovisual heritage of Slovakia accessible, to conform to appropriately current modern technologies and, as it becomes a permanent part of the SFI workplaces, it also creates the basis for improving and innovating other specialized activities of the SFI.

The complete processing procedure is designed for a 4K/2K resolution. It consists of an efficient archival film image-scanner, archival sound-transcription, work-stations for digital image and sound retouching, film and digital projection, grading workplaces and the digitised objects management system. State-of-the-art archival and post-production hardware and software solutions are used throughout the process. The workplace is used for film conversion, for restoring the image and sound parts of selected works, production of the digital master and its derivatives, as well as for preservation (simple laboratory) activities with the film media after conversion, at a high technological level. According to Peter Csordás, a digitisation expert and also quality and control manager of the Digital Audiovision Project, “the technical and technological background of SFI’s digitization workplace makes possible, in addition to many other activities, the digitisation of 35/16-mm archival image cinematographic materials in a 4K and lesser resolution, using a unique construction of diffuse light of the recording head as the equivalent of the wet laboratory procedure with high fidelity presentation of the granularity film structure.”

The restored digital master in high 4K/2K resolution and the original image scan and sound transcription are the main outputs of the digital workplace. The digital master is used to produce media for digital cinemas (DCP), for TV broadcasting and to be made accessible on the Internet, as well as to produce DVDs and Blu-rays. These outputs are stored on LTO tapes taking into account simple data migration for future generations on various new media. The outputs of the digitisation workplace are also extremely important for the construction of an audiovisual memory. When restoring archival films, attention at the digitisation workplace is primarily paid to maintaining consistency with the original film. SFI staff members collaborate directly with film cinematographers under the Association of Slovak Cinematographers (ASC). The ASC has collaborated with the SFI in the restoration of Slovak films right from the outset.

“The main role of the cinematographer in the restoration of films is to oversee maximum consistency between the analogue and digital copies,” says cinematographer Ján Ďuriš who has supervised several films. In his view, from the technical perspective, it may seem that the presence of a cinematographer as the author of the image part of the film is superfluous. Some foreign companies even exclude such collaboration. Ďuriš’s experience, however, inclines to the opposite: “The most challenging thing is to maintain the light – the tone concept of the original specimen copy. The most frequent ‘mistake’ I observed when collaborating in the restoration of films was that the colourist is unable to accurately estimate the correct tonality, especially of early-evening and night shots.” However, for the SFI, the collaboration with cinematographers, sound masters, and other filmmakers or their representatives from professional guilds and organisations in the digital restoration of films is a well-tested procedure.

The digitisation workplace in a current audiovisual and digital company opens up a new era in Slovak cinematography. An important Slovak director, Martin Šulík, said at his first visit to the SFI’s digitisation workplace that was where he saw the future of Slovak film. The SFI collections are gradually being digitised in it, i.e. Slovak feature, documentary, animated and news films that are a period testimony to society. The digitised and restored audiovisual works from this workplace are comparable, in qualitative terms, with the digitally restored works from other significant international film archives, such as the British Film Institute, Deutsches Filminstitut or the film archives in Bologna or Paris. The words of Ján Ďuriš also confirm this: “The equipment of the digitisation workplace is world-class. The resulting quality of restored Slovak films is also excellent thanks to the collaboration with the ASC which provides artistic supervision even over films of late cinematographers.”

Peter Dubecký, the SFI’s General Director and also the main guarantor of the Digital Audiovision Project, considers this project to be fundamental with regard to the future of Slovak cinema. When the digitisation workplace was opened in June 2014 he said that “thanks to the project, a digitisation workplace is being established which is capable of converting films into a digital form and, at the same time, a complete image and sound chain for digitisation is created. Thanks to this project the Slovak Film Institute has become a modern archive of the 21st century.”


THE DIGITISATION WORKPLACE EQUIPMENT MAKES IT POSSIBLE:

1. to digitise archival image cinematographic 35/16/9.5/8-mm materials;
2. to digitise archival optical and magnetic 35/17.5/16-mm sound recordings;
3. to digitally restore image and sound recordings;
4. to create masters for digital cinema and television broadcasting up to a 4K resolution;
5. to create conditions for long-term archiving of digitised films;
6. to interconnect the SK CINEMA database with digital content.

Simona Nôtová