[00:32.70 → 01:58.57] A: Festival of kan classics. I think it's absolutely incredible to see that this film works, you could say still works so many decades afterwards. And the most incredible thing about it is that we're sitting here in the audience, not worrying, not wondering if we can see something, you know, why the sound is not that perfect. And I remember from, you know, 30 years ago when I was a kid watching films in some discussion film clubs, that quite often it was a problem that we didn't really know what was on screen because the copy was so bad. So let's start with the very beginning. I think do actually feel films need restoration? Why do we restore films? Why can't they be in a good form right away?
[01:59.05 → 02:50.69] B: Absolutely. We need to restore films. We'll get to that in just a second. If I could just ask the audience, how many of you have seen this film for the first time tonight? Okay. And how many of you have already seen the film? Okay. So more people have seen it for the first time tonight. And you saw the reaction. The film still does work today. And one last thing. This film, I believe the date is 1936. So this is seven years after sound has already been introduced into cinema. And Chaplin decided to maintain the film as a silent film for more. You know, it's a silent film more than anything. And I think the reason why it still works today is because Chaplin understood timing more than anything else. And he knew that if he. If his characters had to speak, he would lose that and he would lose all the comedy that goes with the timing.
[02:50.93 → 02:59.81] A: Well, we can verify this right away. How many of you did not like the film? That's enough of an answer. If it still works, you know.
[03:00.77 → 03:36.47] B: So why do we need to restore films? We need to restore films so that when you watch the movie like you used to do a long time ago, the experience is exactly what it is. What we saw tonight is that we can hear it properly. We can see it properly and have the film affect us as it should. Either as a comedy, a romantic film, a thriller, whether it's trying to scare us, whether it's trying to make us funny. In order to do that, the film has to be in a pristine condition. If we can't hear it properly, if we can't see the images properly, the film is not attaining 100% of what it should be doing.
[03:36.71 → 03:55.41] A: But in this case, the real question is, do films get worse because of watching them? I mean, what happened between when Chaplin made that film, between, say, 1960s, 70s, 80s, when there were many copies circulating the world and now, why does it need restoration in the first place?
[03:56.37 → 04:37.09] B: Look, 80% of the films produced before 1928 don't exist anymore, number one. So we need to preserve anything we find from the early stages of cinema, just as a matter of archiving it. If we want to have a history of cinema and we want to understand the history of cinema, we need to archive these films. And as very few of them exist of that period, anything we can do to keep them in the best condition possible is ultimately necessary. It's not an easy question to, you know, to answer. But again, I come back to what I said. In order to appreciate them in the best way possible, they need to be restored and archived.
[04:37.33 → 05:05.35] A: But we as audience are simply used to being in a situation like we were today. We're sitting in the audience. We're not worrying about, you know, how the film is projected on screen. And of course, it is a normal thing that the film, when you project it on screen, when it goes physically through the projector in the film form, it wears off. It simply becomes worse. After, say, 100 screenings, the copy of that film is in a form where it is not perfect, isn't it?
[05:05.35 → 06:14.47] B: Right, of course. And it's not just multiple projections. It's also, how do we store the films if they're not stored properly? The elements can degrade the quality of the film. The first type of film stock we used was nitrate. Nitrate was extremely flammable. If a projectionist was smoking in the theater while he was projecting a film and some of his ash went into a nitrate can, the whole cinema went up in flames. We changed to acetate films, which was not the best stock we could use because over time it disintegrated. It turned into vinegar. There was always this vinegar smell that came with old acetate prints. Then we moved to a plastic, more of a plastic polymer type print acetate, I believe it was. So the multiple projections, bad storage, terrible conditions. And also films, once they were screened and they were no longer needed, they were literally thrown away or they were recycled for chemicals that were on the print itself. So no one really cared about the films. And once they were no longer screenable, we just got rid of them.
[06:15.19 → 06:49.53] A: I think only, you know, it took time for the film industry, basically, not just with the film industry, for people of culture, you know, people who have some authority over that, to understand that this is our heritage and that we have to make sure that this is preserved for future generations. But if we move to that area of those who understand that it should be done, who Actually, perhaps the first question should be, is it a costly process? Is it a difficult process to restore a film? What does it require someone to do? And who is that someone?
[06:50.49 → 07:47.53] B: Okay, let's see if we can. If we start at the very beginning, the reason why today we can restore films and project them digitally, because that's just as important as restoring them, is the digital production. There's two things we have to look at. One is Moore's Law that says every 18 months, storage capacity doubles and the cost is cut by 50%. So we can keep very large files in small, let's say, data containers. The second thing is to understand digital lights projection. A company called Texas Instruments in America developed this for military purposes and satellite purposes, and it was used by the industry for projection. That's the digital projection side. What we do is we essentially take the materials that we have. 35 millimeter materials, depending on their condition,
[07:48.41 → 07:58.33] A: and just to explain 35 millimeter materials, meaning simply a film, actual film, on which the movie is right. 35 millimeter celluloid films.
[07:58.33 → 08:38.08] B: Exactly. You've seen the big round where we keep the film on them. That material is used. It is scanned in the same way that you might scan a picture today at home. Every single frame is scanned. That's turned into a digital file. And then we work off of that digital file. In terms of cost, it can be extremely expensive to restore a film, or it can be fairly affordable. It depends on the quality of what's called the source material. So the material that I receive in my laboratory, if it's in fairly good condition and I don't have much work to do it, it can cost $50,000.
[08:38.88 → 08:40.16] A: And this is very little.
[08:40.40 → 09:22.32] B: And this is very little. $50,000 is really the lower, lower end of what it costs to digitize and to restore a film. If the condition of the source material is in very bad condition, it can cost up to half a million dollars. And that means having to do photochemical restoration, which means using chemicals to be able to come back to the initial state of the film scanning processes that we then digitally work to cleaning the image, and then back to film in order to have an archival material to store with this. This can easily go up to half a million dollars depending on the film.
[09:22.40 → 09:30.88] A: This is completely shocking, I think, because it's. It means that the restoration of an existing film might actually cost more than making a new film.
[09:32.24 → 09:36.40] B: It might cost more than making a new film, although most new films cost more than half a million dollars.
[09:36.40 → 09:41.16] A: Well, we're in Poland, and of course, in our case, half a million dollars could be a budget of a regular film.
[09:41.16 → 10:15.19] B: Yeah, of course it could. You have to look at the. What's called the ancillary, basically the revenue streams that you can make from a restored film. We restore films because we think we can make money from what we're going to restore. And it mainly comes from dvd, Blu Ray, television, vod, everything other than the cinema. The cinema is really the last person to profit from restorations, but it's really the place where we should all be seeing these films. First you see them in the cinemas, then you can buy the DVDs or watch them at home on television.
[10:15.67 → 10:32.95] A: Well, that means that it's not a noble process. It's not someone. That someone decides, well, that's a fantastic film, we have to restore it. It's simply because we can still make some money off it. Right, so let's do that. And the noble concept is somewhere behind it, or it should be supported by the commercial one.
[10:33.03 → 11:32.78] B: Most of the time. That's correct. It's about making money. Cinema has always been about making money. It's never been about feeding the soul of humans and their need to, you know, to feel alive by watching cinema. It's about making money. So when a film is chosen to be restored, most of the time it's because there will be some way to make money behind it. Now there are certain films that out of national pride will be restored. Abel Gans's Napoleon, we were speaking about this earlier. Lola Montes Bio Fuls as well are good examples. And. And these are restorations that people feel have to be done because they represent heritage cinema, they represent the cinema of the country that will be restoring that film. It's been the case in Poland. I know many films have been restored without regard to how much money they'll make, simply because they need to be archived and saved for future generations, just
[11:32.78 → 12:14.70] A: for the sakes of explanation. In Poland, we do have a program that allows for restoration of some classic films, Krzysztof Zanussi's films, but a whole long list of classics of Polish cinema. And the process is actually just as Van said, so expensive that it does need someone who will support the process from not just from, you know, Ministry of Culture, but also from the corporate world. In Poland, the largest Polish bank, Pekao Bepe, is the one who actually every year finances the restoration of some banks. Who pays for it somewhere else where there is no, say, Ministry of Culture that, you know, finds the right sponsor or finds the right partner.
[12:14.78 → 12:33.74] B: I think a Good example would be the film Once Upon a Time in America. It's a film by Sergio Leone. I think you've all seen was restored recently by the Film foundation, which is run by Martin Scorsese. And it was restored with the help of Armani. Okay, Armani makes clothes.
[12:34.30 → 12:35.66] A: Did he make clothes for the film?
[12:35.82 → 13:08.56] B: He didn't make clothes for the film. I'm not sure. He was the costume designer for the film. But Armani is looking essentially to sponsor very high profile projects with high profile directors and films that have basically marked cinema history. So it can be Armani, it can be Qatar. Qatar Airways has sponsored films for the World Cinema Foundation. It can really be anybody that wants to have a hand in restoring cinema and being seen as somebody who's preserving film history.
[13:08.96 → 13:41.98] A: I'm very happy to hear this because I just wanted to ask you to wipe out from your memory the thing that you heard before that only things that can bring money, or mostly things that can bring money, are restored because someone wants to earn money off it too. Because we're in Poland, we're romantic, we want to know that this is important. We do this because we love this and so on. But no, the truth is that sometimes you also need some very important ambassador. And Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest filmmakers living and working today, is such ambassador in the film world, right?
[13:42.06 → 14:43.68] B: Absolutely. Martin Scorsese is probably the most important ambassador today in film restoration. He has his own organization called Film foundation, which is about restoring American films. He's on the board of the World Cinema foundation along with Thierry Fromaud, the Festival de Cannes. So, you know, these are ambassadors. But again, remember that there are rights holders to these films. There are producers that paid money to make the films, and there are people that are expecting to see money back from the restorations. And generally these big films, they do make their money back. People do go out and buy the DVDs and they do watch them on TV. They do get TV sales. I think one goes with the other. I think cinema has always been about art and commerce. It's always been about finding a way balance the two. And the greatest films, most of the greatest films have always made a lot of money as well as, you know, affecting the people that see them and remaining part of film history.
[14:44.08 → 16:06.56] A: Then a great, great thing about classics is that that's what the name stands for. They're classics. I mean, 10 years later, 50 years later, 70 years later, people will still want to watch them, which means that those, those films can be also sold, by the way, I'M not sure if you know, but Martin Scorsese does not just work with, you know, American films because he's an American filmmaker. He helps restoring Italian films. From what I know, he also helped restore the. What is the English title? Manuscript found in Saragossa, or the Saragossa manuscript by Vojte Haas. And in the United States, the DVD that you can buy of that film says Martin Scorsese presents Zaragoza Manuscript, because he was the person who actually helped make sure that the film would be in a great condition. I'm wondering if it is, let's say, the blessing of the modern times that we've arrived at the point where, first of all, computers allow us to restore films, but second of all, the development of, say, the media world, where in a country like Poland, we have, you know, 180 TV channels, many of them showing movies. Has this in any way translated into this, say, inflow of funds to be able to restore films, or, for example, renewed interest for classic films in pristine condition?
[16:06.96 → 17:22.15] B: Yes. The minute a broadcaster needs content, they will go looking for what's available. If it's not available, obviously they can't purchase it. The minute a right holder knows that in Poland, for instance, there's 181 stations and they are actively looking for content, then they will look to give value to their catalogs. That means to digitize their catalogs, to restore the films that need restoration and to essentially sell them on to the broadcasters. The advent of new media has basically shot us into the golden age of classic cinema. We're living the golden age of classic cinema today. It is everywhere around us. In France, the cinema chains that only did the latest, biggest blockbusters are today also showing classic cinema because they can receive the films on a digital format. They can show them to a public that maybe has become tired of seeing the biggest blockbusters every weekend. And maybe they want to see something that's been restored and part of classic cinema. So it's not just TV media, it's also the chain cinemas that are looking for new films.
[17:22.15 → 17:56.57] A: I also think that the life of those films is completely different today from the Polish perspective, for example, because, you know, in the past, When I was 10 or 15 years old, we only had two TV channels. And basically you would know Hitchcock films because you saw them on tv. You would know Sergio Leone's films. But now I don't think young people know cinema so well, which means that if you have a chance of showing them an Alfred Hitchcock film in a great condition, this is a chance to simply get them to see that film for the first time as if it was completely new, Right?
[17:56.81 → 18:53.12] B: Absolutely. And I would go further. I would say that it's also a way of discovering directors that they might not know. Maybe some Cassavetes in Poland, maybe some Wojciech Haas films in America. Really, I think that it's not just about the ultra classic films. It's really about cinema history. It's everything that has taken place throughout cinema history is now available on the Internet, either through VOD platforms, whether it's through films that no longer have rights held by anybody, so they're in the free domain, or on TV stations, TV stations that specialize in films today from a certain period or different genres. It's really not just about the ultra classics. It's about any films from film history today that have been digitized and can be broadcast. You can find them on some format or another.
[18:54.80 → 19:35.82] A: If we are film fans, and I do believe all of us are, we know that it happens quite often that a film was made and, for example, the director was not happy with the way that say, studio changed his film or her film, and then a new version of that film is made, perhaps a version for a different country where it was maybe because of, for some reason it was censored and so on. I know from people in Poland, but I know from interviews with Martin Scorsese that it's not that easy to actually, in some cases, to actually simply get a reel of a film and try to digitize it very quickly. Is this a difficult process to find the elements?
[19:37.72 → 21:15.88] B: It depends on the film. If you take a film, for instance, like Metropolis, we, up until, I think in 2011, we found a new version of Metropolis in Argentina. So up until 2011, everybody thought there was only two versions or three versions. Now there's four versions, and who knows, maybe in five years there'll be a fifth version that will come out. It's important to understand that, let's say before World War II, when a country received a film to be distributed and they didn't like it, they would essentially recut it so it wouldn't be the same film. You would not see the same film in Argentina that you would see in Germany or that you would see in France. And these prints have to be kept somewhere. Someone has to store them properly. They have to be archived. So, you know, tomorrow we might find a new version of Metropolis, and we'll have another one to look at. But if we want to come back to the original version of the director's cut, that he or she wanted. That's very difficult to do. You need original shooting scripts, you need original continuity reports, you need to have editing notes, and you need to compile all of this to understand exactly what the director wanted. A Touch of Evil by Orson Welles was re released maybe 10, 12 years ago, re edited by Walter Murch, who is a sound editor, but also image editor. And he had to go buy 40 pages of notes that Orson Welles left in order to understand what it was Orson Welles wanted.
[21:16.12 → 21:27.00] A: Because the version that was on screen was not completely or in the form that it was on the screen. It was not completely edited by Wells or his people. It was re edited by the studio
[21:27.00 → 22:31.27] B: before, exactly like most of Welles films. In fact, except for the very first one, I think almost all of his films in some manner or another were re edited. And today we can say we don't have the definitive Orson Welles film because there's no real concise indication of how Orson Welles wanted it. But we have a much better vision of what Orson Welles wanted. If you know the film and if you haven't seen it and you plan to see it, it's important to pay attention to the very first scene. It's one shot, it's about eight minutes long. The studio hated it when they saw it, so they put the credit sequence over the first eight minutes. And it's a disaster because it's a beautiful shot. The camera moves very fluidly throughout the city as they follow Charlton Heston and his wife before they leave the border. And that's a perfect example of how we try to come back to what the director wanted. And to do that you need elements, written elements, visual elements, sound elements, anything you can get your hands on to try to get back to the original version.
[22:31.91 → 23:21.33] A: But this is A Touch of Evil is a fantastic example of that story because the film existed, as you know, for half a century in the form that the director was not completely happy about in the beginning. Then I don't know how many people knew about this, but somewhere in a safe in the United States, this 40 page material, 40 page document with his comments, what should be, where was stored and then it was taken out. And because the digital age allows us to come up with new versions of films, this original version, which never existed before, could be established or was not shown before it could be established. This is completely shocking. But this also shows us that the filmmakers have to be in a way involved in the whole process. Right? Are they normally involved? I mean, those who are still alive?
[23:23.50 → 23:52.09] B: Again, we should make a distinction between Perhaps studio pictures in America and independent pictures in America and abroad. In European pictures, Studio pictures essentially belong to the studio. Anything that the director does, the studios can undo and redo the way they want it done. And that's very few people in the studio system escape that law. It's called Final Cut, and the studios have it and they hold onto it and they don't let it go.
[23:53.93 → 23:59.53] A: So basically, there is no film director, perhaps. Maybe it's Steven Spielberg, but no one else.
[23:59.53 → 24:00.33] B: Woody Allen.
[24:00.33 → 24:08.17] A: Oh, Woody Allen, who can basically make a film in 100% the way that they want. If the studio is unhappy about something,
[24:08.17 → 24:33.21] B: there are very few directors, let's say very few. I wouldn't even try to say who they are because I might be wrong, but I think Woody Allen, I think, is one of them. But yes, Final Cut belongs to the studio. It's a contractual term that gives them every single right to change the film if they want to change it, and they do it. And they apply that to a lot of films. There's also a test process that the
[24:33.21 → 24:45.34] A: films go through because, of course, the studio is not in the business of making art. It's in the business of making good products. So the audiences have to test the film and then they verify if something's funny or not and so on, right?
[24:45.34 → 25:05.70] B: Exactly. Exactly. In Europe, it's different. It's not the case. The author of the film is the director. He or she makes the film that they want to show. And the backers, the financiers, tend to respect that, even though they might have their own opinion, might want to see some things changed. It tends to be the artist and the director who keeps the vision on the screen.
[25:07.22 → 25:43.25] A: I'm wondering if the whole process changes the films, actually, because we're talking about restoring the films, right? Restoring, meaning we get something to the state that it was in before. But I'm wondering if perhaps it actually does change the way the film looks. For example, let's say half a century ago, the projection, the technical machinery that we use for projection was completely different than we do it today. How do we actually verify if, for example, the red that the director wanted is the red that we have on screen today?
[25:44.37 → 27:44.96] B: I would say that there are enough tests done in the period to know, for instance, let's take Technicolor. When that was developed in Hollywood, technicians, scientists were all involved in the process. What's called three strip Technicolor. And if you can imagine a camera having three rolls of film running through it, okay, blue, red and green. And that was essentially married into one roll of film. Okay, we pretty much know what colors came from that. Today we could look at a color panel and say it was that, that and that. So when a restorer is trying to bring back the colors to what they were, they will look at the film stock that was used. They will compare earlier prints that still exist today, for instance, Lords of Arabia, there are still 70 millimeter prints from the period that are fairly well archived, therefore can be screened today. And we can see what it needs to look like when there's a digital restoration done to that. Obviously, digital projection changes everything a bit. DLP technology is micro mirrors that reflect light at certain angles, which creates colors. It's not the same as a carbon arc projection. And if you want to explain what carbon arc is, it's when two carbons are touched together, there's an electricity formed and a spark goes out and that light is projected out of the projector. That's a very powerful light. It doesn't have anything to do with digital projection, but it's very close. So we can never be 100% sure. And restoring the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, who knows if it looks like what the original artist wanted it to look like.
[27:45.20 → 28:19.17] A: At least in case of the Sistine Chapel, we know what chemicals were a part of the specific color. But the great thing about film is that of course, many of those filmmakers whose films are being restored or cinematographers are still alive. I know that in Poland, for example, even if the director is not present or is not alive anymore and the cinematographer is, it's the cinematographer who quite often participates in the whole process and says, yes, that's exactly the kind of characteristic we wanted to have.
[28:19.73 → 28:46.91] B: I think the director of photography in Poland, in fact has certain moral rights to the image as the author of the actual image. So if he or she is alive, they need to sign off on whether it looks like what it did in the period, which is not the case for the studios. The studios very rarely call the original directors of photography or directors to come in and do it. They have technicians that do that.
[28:47.79 → 29:24.88] A: And that's a very strange thing that Polish cinematographers are so, well, so highly regarded in Hollywood than working with great filmmakers. I'm wondering if there are major problems also connected with the digital age. Meaning that if we restore a film, if we show it on high definition screens, if we can watch it at home, it has to, in some cases, for example, make it much more obvious than in the past that I don't know that the set is Fake, for example. Do you know of such problems?
[29:26.80 → 30:30.61] B: No, I wouldn't say those problems really exist. A set is a set. If it looked fake in the beginning, it would look fake today. There's no way to change that. I think there is one other problem involved. There are some directors of photography today, and I won't mention any names because they might see this and they won't be happy if they hear it. They actually want to change the way it looks because they Weren't happy in 1956 when they made the film. And today, with the digital tools that they have, they can do what they couldn't do then. So they say, no, no, you know, push the reds more. I want more reds here and there. And the restorer is saying, well, no, wait a minute, you can't. This is. This will not look the same. And the director of photography said, no, no, I am the director of photography. I want you to change it. So there are examples where the films change completely because the people that made them today can do something different with it. So who knows, is it better to have a technician do it or is it better to have the original director of photography? I'm not sure.
[30:31.01 → 31:11.25] A: That's a fantastic example of a situation where it might turn out that it's not just a restoration, it's the act of creation. Actually, it might be a different film. I ask the question because I have heard of a case in the past, and again, I'm not going to give you the names or the title where the film director realized that when he watches specific shots of some close ups in high definition, he says, I can see that the mustache is fake. And I assume this might happen perhaps because of the fact that, you know, cinema screens were smaller in the past. And nowadays we're at home and we have this huge screen. We're watching something from up close, right?
[31:11.64 → 32:33.27] B: Absolutely. And you know, it's even worse for things that are filmed today on digital. We have. L' Oreal now has high definition makeup, which is used for high definition photography. So we don't see the fake mustaches. But it's true, it is a problem, you know, but we're finding ways around that. We're finding ways of being able to get back to the feel of film, because the feel of digital cinema is very cold. It's difficult to get depth when you're using video. So the idea is that the digital medium is trying to get as close as it can to film while maintaining its own style as well. Michael Mann shoots all of his films on video. Today. And I think he has a very distinct video aesthetic that he uses. And he's not trying to get to film. He's trying to get to another video aesthetic. You know, these are bumps in the road. These are birthing pains. At the beginning of any new format or any new aesthetic, we will see these sort of problems. But in time, you know, it will change. People will get used to them, and we'll find that video and the digital medium has its own qualities that. That will stand alone.
[32:33.59 → 33:36.52] A: But you're touching on a very important problem which we, as the audience seldom think about, which is that, you know, the filmmakers change tools. What we want to do, what we want to be able to do is sit in the audience and watch a great film, right? But very often we don't understand why something works, why something doesn't work. And when we watch something shot digitally, we don't ask ourselves what kind of camera they were using, right? And I think a conversation like this shows us that. That the tools used in the industry, first of all, serve us to make sure that we're watching a film and not watching a projection, wondering who cleaned it so nicely. In Cannes, the most important film festival, you have been dealing with the whole concept of showing classic films, presenting restored versions. Can you tell me something about the policy of the festival? Is there a concept that, you know, this is a specific anniversary. We have to show a specific film. What is the point of the festival concerning the selection of films and the actual presentation of them?
[33:37.00 → 35:05.71] B: That's one of the policies. Anniversary films. I think, like almost any festival that has a classics program, you try to give every film that you choose a reason why it should be there. And not just, okay, this year we're going to do a thematic program, musicals. Next year, we'll do a thematic program of film noir. It's not like that. Every single film has to have its own legs, has to stand on them, and has to be able to justify why it's there. An anniversary film. It won't just be the fact that it's anniversary. Who will come to present the film? An actor, the director, somebody involved in the process. Has it been restored, and by who? Has it been restored, and for what reason has it been restored? We showed films by the World Cinema foundation, which are, I would say, films from countries that don't have a very strong support in cinema but deserve the platform of Cannes because they're part of film history, world film history, not just of the country that they're from. So our policy was not to have one Single policy was that every single film in itself had a reason why it should be there. And we took all the films that were presented to us and applied that to them and slowly, slowly came up with our program. And in the end, I think that works best than having a thematic approach
[35:05.71 → 35:59.72] A: to things, I think so. I mean, obviously, quite often you have to see what's happening in the film world. Specific filmmaker coming with a new film and so on. We, by the way, have the same case in Poland. Andrzej Vaida's Men of Marble has just been recently restored and it was shown at the Gdynia Film Festival in its completely new form. And of course, as you know, Andrzej Vaida's new film, Vawenza is coming out in just a week's time. So we're in a situation where you can see the beginning of that story, the shipyard, the person, the worker who refuses to become a hero, and then sort of the end of the story with Wawenza, with the worker who actually decides to become a hero. Do you have any questions as audience? You can ask them in Polish, you can ask them in English, you can ask them actually in French, but we'll need someone else to translate them.
[36:11.24 → 36:18.35] B: You said it's mostly about making money. Who gets the copyright after restoring the film?
[36:18.35 → 36:19.31] A: Who gets the money? Right.
[36:19.63 → 36:59.80] B: Who gets the money? That's my question. The rights to a film always stay with the person that has them. Unless they sell them on. The studios will always maintain the rights to their catalogs, the films in their catalogs. What they'll do is that they'll license the film for a period of five years or 10 years or one year or one broadcast. Everything depends on the platform. If it's for theatrical, if it's for video, if it's for television. But the actual rights holders will always maintain the rights. Don't ever sell the rights to anything. If you have them, keep them for yourself and just do. It's basically what's called sub licensing.
[37:00.52 → 37:26.23] A: So it's a great advice. If you make a classic, keep the rights, okay? That's the thing. But listen, it's not just about the money, right? I think this is the main thought of what we're talking about here. The benefits are on our side as well. We can watch a fantastic film in a great condition and not worry about scratches. The sound. What the hell did they say? We can see, we can hear it in the form. And the filmmakers hopefully wish that we
[37:26.23 → 37:49.75] B: would see that in every single screening as well. That's what's Important to understand is that with the digital medium, every screening will be the same, whether it's in Poland, whether it's in France, whether it's in Africa somewhere. And that will never change. That's what pushed me to become a distributor of classic films in the digital format, is that I knew the films I would be releasing would be the same for the audience at every single screening.
[37:49.99 → 38:08.74] A: So that also means that the process that happens now, even if it costs half a million dollars, is done once and forever in 50 years time the same. Well, perhaps there'll be some new process to even further the whole thing. But the most important thing is it's done and the film will not disappear. That's it.
[38:09.21 → 38:46.97] B: For most of the films, that's the case. Some films have gone through many restorations over the last 10, 15 years. And I think the reason they do that is because before the digital age, restorations were photochemical. So everything was done using chemicals to restore the films. And then when the digital age came around, there was another opportunity to restore the films even more, to go deeper into the problems that were there things that chemicals could never get rid of. The digital process could. So we did a second digital. First digital restoration, second restoration.
[38:47.05 → 39:04.12] A: Ah, so you're saying an interesting thing, because back then when they were doing the photochemical restoration, I'm sure they were saying, this is the best thing possible. Now something better is possible. Does that mean that right now, when something is restored digitally, there are still limitations, we still cannot do something?
[39:04.59 → 39:47.16] B: Absolutely. The highest level of restoration today, I believe, is 9K, which is the resolution, right? Yeah, that's the resolution. 9,000 lines, for instance. But what happens tomorrow or the day after when we can do it at 15k? You know, are we going to do another restoration? So we do one restoration, we think we'll have it for the rest of our lives. But no, there's a second one that comes around and a third restoration that comes around. Sometimes people take advantage of this to resell the films. It's another marketing approach to the film. It's important to state that regardless of whether people want to make money from these, we, the audience, profit from it. And that's the most important thing, ultimately.
[39:48.92 → 39:50.12] A: Proshima Barzo.
[39:55.56 → 40:54.77] B: What was the oldest movie ever restored? What was the oldest movie you have restored? And what was the most difficult restoration in your experience? Tell us something about it. We have one customer tonight, it seems. I'm not a restorer, I'm not a technician, I'm a distributor. So basically, I either suggest what should be Restored or I distribute what is restored. Okay. So it's not actually my job to be in the laboratory and to make those decisions. I know people that do that. I talk to people that do that, but that's not actually my job. The earliest restoration, I would say the earliest restoration was the very first film ever made, which would be the Train Arrives at the Station by The Lumiere Brothers, 1895.
[40:54.93 → 40:56.49] A: The station was La Ciota, right?
[40:56.49 → 41:11.65] B: La Ciota was the station or Leaving the Factory, which was at the Lumiere factory, the photo factory in Lyon. Both of those have been restored. So I would say those were the earliest restorations. There's nothing earlier?
[41:12.05 → 42:06.39] A: I think so. And actually, I would assume Van is the person to comment on that as he cooperates with the Institut Lumiere, which is still headed by the same person who runs the Cannes Film Festival. And, of course, he makes sure that Lumiere Brothers films are not only in the best possible conditions, but are also known all over the world. He does an incredible thing, by the way. He shows those films, in some cases to students, to some audiences, and he pinpoints why we know that it was an actual film, not a documentary, but that it was something rehearsed. He shows Lumiere Brothers films, and he shows that someone look back there. Somewhere in the back, someone's watching at the camera. Okay, Someone's looking at the camera. This is possible to see only because those films are restored. They're in, you know, as good condition as possible. In the older versions, you would never see that.
[42:07.35 → 42:09.95] B: And the third question was the difficulty.
[42:09.95 → 42:14.23] A: The problems connected with, you know, if you know anything about the most difficult process of.
[42:15.49 → 42:41.63] B: I would say one of the hardest things to do and one of the most damaging in some way to these films is stabilizing the image. When film used to go through the camera and it wasn't stable, it would move. So if you. A lot of old films, if you look at them, they jump around all over the place.
[42:41.63 → 42:46.07] A: And it's not the problem with projection. It's right there at the beginning. There is no better version of the film.
[42:46.07 → 43:29.32] B: It's printed on the stock like that, because technology at that time wasn't good enough to stabilize the film as it goes through the projector. So it moved a little bit. What you need to do is essentially go into the image and digitally hold it, and you lose the frame around it. So you actually lose some of the image by stabilizing it. It's really the only way that you can do it today. There's no other way. Maybe in 10 years there'll be a new way and we'll re restore everything again. But it's expensive, it's time consuming, and you also lose some of the image. So you're essentially losing some of film history as well in that respect.
[43:29.40 → 44:33.00] A: Hey, but this is again proof that the films we see today restored are in a better condition than they were back there at the beginning. Right? Because some of the mistakes of the original film can be removed because of or during the restoration process. Is there a film that you would definitely wish to be restored and it has not yet been restored for some reason? If it is, can you give an example, why has not it yet been restored? The list is 300 titles from just last week's thoughts, you know, so that's the scanning process.
[44:33.00 → 45:57.69] B: I'm going to have to think about this for a minute. I think I discover more films that have been restored that I didn't know about. And I'm glad they're restored because I wouldn't have known about them if they hadn't been restored than films that I know need restoring. Restoring. It's also important to understand that not every film needs restoring. Some films have been preserved and archived in exactly the conditions necessary to maintain them in the best conditions possible. So we don't restore everything. Only the films that need to be restored are restored. And I think. I think, let's say one film that I thought needed restoration and was restored recently was A Trip to the Moon by Melies, the color version, which somebody found a print in an attic somewhere recently and they had the color frames so that they were able to go in and recolor the frames that needed to be recolored. Perhaps that one. Because you always hear about how there was another version somewhere and you think, oh well, maybe one day we'll see the version of that film. And last year we showed it in Cannes with the colorized version. And that is perhaps one example that
[45:57.69 → 47:05.23] A: also shows us that it's not just the technicians or the filmmakers. It's also film historians quite often who know that something must be somewhere. You know, of course, in case of so called lost films, you know that there are hundreds, thousands of lost films. And historians hope that somewhere a copy will be found. A list of lost films is something that we can say is relatively complete. Whereas of course the list of restored films is endless. Right? It's a process that never ends. It will simply go on and go on. I would like to finish with just one comment to us because I think, I feel that this meeting, this conversation has to a large extent, an educational impact. Right. We are getting to know something about the process. We never question. We just want to have a good version of a film, a good copy of a film. How and where can we search for. Can we actively search for those good versions? And do you think we should boycott someone who shows worse ones, bad ones? Should we, I don't know, email a TV station that there's a better version and you're showing the old one?
[47:05.87 → 48:09.42] B: Yes, I think we should. If you can and you know that there is a better version, people should actively demand the best quality of what's out there, how to go about finding the best versions. I would say find who does the best Blu Ray and DVD editions of films. For instance, in America, there's a company called Criterion, and they really do an excellent job using source material, restoring things to the way they should be. They work with the artists, they work with studios. Anything that they do, pretty much you can be sure, is how it should be. There are other companies which I won't name that take any material they can. They just put them on the DVD and put them out there. You know, if you see it and it's in bad condition and you know that there's a better one, let them know. Tell them. Them. Tell other people around you not to buy their products and TV stations. Absolutely. If you see something that's in bad
[48:09.42 → 48:37.48] A: condition, you should complain, basically pay for those things, right? I mean, we either buy a DVD or perhaps pay a subscription fee to watch tv. Let's just understand better that there are films which are in restored versions. There are much better versions. When you buy a DVD of a classic film, make sure. Read it on the box. Make sure that this is actually the one that you should have. And this, I think, should be the final advice.
[48:37.96 → 49:05.59] B: One last thing. Remember, Remastered is not the same as restored, okay? Remastered is just about taking a video copy of a film and putting it on dvd. It's not the same thing. So when you see remastered, don't confuse it with restored. And when you see restored, do a little bit of research, see who's restored it, when did they restore it? Was it a digital restoration? These things are not hard to find. The Internet is a wonderful place to. To search for this sort of information.
[49:06.47 → 49:18.47] A: Let's just, you know, actively search for the best version available. Thank you very much for finding the time. Thank you for everything that you've said. Thank you very much for being here.
[49:19.03 → 49:20.87] B: Thank you. And thank you.
[49:31.49 → 49:51.25] A: Poletzam classic. Anglique.