The document discusses digital film restoration processes used on three classic films: Beauty and the Beast, the original Star Wars trilogy, and Dracula. It describes how Beauty and the Beast underwent image retrieval and remodeling to clean up animation and add new sequences. The Star Wars films required extensive restoration of the badly damaged original negative, including recompositing elements digitally. Dracula's restoration located missing scenes, which were heavily damaged, and restored both film and sound through computer programs and manual frame-by-frame editing.

1. Digital Film Restoration
Allyn Dalton 11125179
Eimhin Daly 11121599
Emma Murphy 11114614

2. Digital Film Restoration
Allyn Dalton ­11125179
Eimhin Daly ­11121599
Emma Murphy ­11114614
Table of contents:
1. Abstract.
2. Introduction.
3. Sections.
3.1 Background
3.2 Beauty and the Beast Remastering
3.3 Original Star Wars trilogy Restoration
3.4 Dracula Restoration
4. Conclusion.
5. References

3. 1. Abstract
In this report we look at different types of films that have been restored such as technicolour,
animation and science fiction. We discuss the methods used in these process as well as
showing you some images and youtube clips of how the film has changed and evolved over the
restoration process. The three films that we focus on are “The Beauty and the Beast”, “Star
Wars” and “Dracula”.
2. Introduction
In this paper our group will focus on the process of film restoration and remastering. Film
preservation became a trend in the early 1950’s with film companies realising that movies were
no longer just a one shot chance to make money with the embrace of the medium of television.
Kodak then discovered at that time that the nitrate film stock which was widely used in the film
industry was highly unstable. This film stock would decay quite quickly and in the later stages of
decay it was highly flammable. As a result, many film archives suffered fires and numerous old
silent films were lost. This put pressure on film companies to save their films and transfer them
to new film stock that encountered less damage. This film preservation is what allows modern
day audiences to view old past cultures through the medium of film and with the modern
advances of digital film restoration they can view these moving images in higher quality than ever
before. In the following sections we will take you through 3 old classic movies that have been
improved through this film restoration process. [1]
3. Sections
3.1 Background
We chose this topic as we all felt that this is a subject that we could learn some
information that may help us in our future studies. This is a subject that proves to be very
interesting when you are focusing on the right area. As a group, we found that looking at the
algorithms and how the scratch and dirt programs are created to be quite tiresome, this was the
main reason why we chose to focus on the process of restoration rather than the restoration
itself. We felt that the best way to do this was through using movies that we know, which have
been restored. When carrying out our initial research we found a lot based around the Wizard of
Oz restoration which was carried out in 2007, the group decided that this would be the best
choice for our presentation which was the halfway mark to this report. From this, we learned
about the damage that can happen to film prints, the problems that can affect the start of
restoration and the process of restoration.
The damage that can affect film elements include, blotches. Blotches are caused by dirt sticking
to the frame of the film and when they are removed they take the pixel containing information with

4. them. This is can also be caused by the old style of cleaning film which involved scraping the
dirt off. Scratches, which are caused by something rubbing off the film element and taking some
information with it. Another problem is tearing with something ripping the information required to
have full frame away. The problems which can affect the start of restoration is old censorship
laws, as it may cause there to be many different edits of the one film. This means that the
company who are restoring the movie may have to acquire many different film prints in order to
get the appropriate edit for that country. The process of restoration is the main interest of our
study and something that we will expand on in this paper. [1]
3.2 Beauty and the Beast Remastering
In this section of the paper we are going to talk about Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast from
the original in 1992 to the remastered version in 2002. The film was re­released
by Walt disney
Pictures for IMAX and large theatres which was a special edition including new sound tracks.
This film went through image retrieval for image remodeling as its restoration process. This
image retrieval for image remodeling is a process within the remastering stages. These are all
types of digital video restoration, but just because its an animated film its goes through another
different procedure than a live action movie.
In the 1991 “Beauty and the Beast” was released, [2] it was the second ever film created using
the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). This was a process of scanning, inking,
and painting for a hardware developed for Disney by Pixar. This software basically allowed for
better colour options, and shading effects. This system also allows the animator/artist to draw a
character with better line precision as well as place a background behind them using different
layers. This gave the character more depth, depending if the camera was closer or further back.
The system made the creators job a lot easier while giving the production a more professional
look.[3]
On New Years day 2002, “The Beauty and the Beast” was re­released.
For this production
much of the animation throughout was cleaned up and some new sequences’ were added.
They did this by using a remastering process called ‘image retrieval for image remodeling’. This
process basically does what it says. It retrieves old images from the original scene and
remodels them to what we see on Disney DVD’s today. It is because of this process that
everytime Disney re­releases
a film it brings everyone back to their childhood no matter what
age or gender you are. In the picture below you can see the before and after pictures before the
remastering and image remodelling occur.[2]

5. [4]
This process includes a lot of algorithms using the RGB (red,green,blue) and other colour
components. When retrieving images for this process it has to be done in categories such as
Colour, Shape and textures. To locate or retrieve an image based on colour, a histogram is
needed. The colour histogram is need to identify the pixels holding a certain value. These values
are tiny bits that us humans see as colours. The texture process is similar to the colour process
but with a bit extra work involved. Representing texture can prove to be difficult. It normally
undergoes a 2D (two dimensional) grey variation.[2] The main problem with this method is trying
to keep the continuity between contrast, colour, brightness and regularity. So for example, a
silky or rough texture would be hard to represent when in the process of image remodelling.
One of the trickiest procedures in the image retrieval is the remodelling for shapes. The biggest
problem encountered in this area of remodelling is identifying lines, curves, corners and the
overall outline of the shape. In older films the quality is not as good, hence they are being

6. restored so the software used to identify these qualities has trouble sometimes. [5]
3.3 Star Wars trilogy Restoration
In this section of the paper we are going to talk about the restoration of the Star Wars
trilogy. The restoration of Star wars began in 1995, in order to be re­released
in theatres for its
20th anniversary in 1997. The original negative was available to be used, which is ideal for any
film restoration. However it was in dreadful condition, even though the original had been made
merely 18 years previously. It was so bad that restoration would have been impossible if left for
much longer. In the first image below you can see the horrible condition of the original filmstrip,
and the difference of the restored version beneath it.
[6]
The first step in rescuing Star Wars was to take the original negative apart and physically
wash it in order to remove any dirt; however some difficulty was encountered due to composited
elements. Compositing is a technique which allows for separately photographed items to be
placed in the same scene along with live action. This was a frequently used effect in the original
trilogy, some scenes having up to forty elements in a single shot. The most famous example of
this technique in use in the movie would be lightsabers, the futuristic weapon of the Jedi order.
The original compositing meant the negative was handled physically allowing for a lot of dirt
deposits as well as general wear and tear. Updated technology at the time of restoration allowed
for the re­composition
to be done entirely on computers, leaving the negative relatively
unhandled. [6]

7. Composited elements (seeker ball, chess pieces, lightsaber) of a frame shown
separately. [7]
A tell tale sign of the original, physical compositing is a black line around the edges of the
composited elements, that can be visible in the final production. This was not a problem for
most scenes in Star Wars as the background often consisted of a dark, starry sky. However, in
The Empire Strikes Back, a climactic battle takes place on the ice planet Hoth, requiring many
composited elements on a white, snowy background. The contrasting black line was a lot more
obvious here, and to counteract its visibility, the opacity of the elements was reduced. This
merely led to more problems as it made the backdrop slightly visible through the transparency of
these elements. It came to a point where the visual effects team were asking themselves which
visual imperfection would they rather settle for, the black line or the transparent elements. Using
computer technology, the transparency and matte line were able to be eliminated. [6]

8. An example of where transparent elements was problematic [8]
A unique aspect of the original Star Wars trilogy is the rare sound design, quite unlike
anything else heard in a motion picture previous to this time. Sound designer Ben Burtt, who
initially put together the sounds for the trilogy back in the 1970s, returned for the restoration of the
trilogy, in order to enhance the sounds that define the Star Wars world. There was a strong
belief while making the trilogy that sound was half of the overall experience, and that led to the
complex and elaborate soundtrack. However, in the 70s, when the trilogy was first released, the
sound technology was simply not good enough to hear it as vividly as possible. With the
availability of digital sound while restoring the films, the experience could finally be enjoyed at its
fullest. Five separate channels are available with the use of digital sound, which means the
sound field can be altered. This means that with the correct components and speakers available
it can be correctly set up while watching the film, the viewer experiences sounds all around
them, as a certain sound channel will play over a specific speaker. This allows for a far superior
sound experience, examples being the fact that each subtle piece of an orchestra can be heard,
or specifically in this case, a spaceship could be heard moving from behind the viewer to in front
of them. [9]
3.4 Dracula Restoration
In this section of the paper we will talk about the restoration of the Hammer classic
Dracula (1958) which was restored in 2007 by the British Film Institute (BFI) but the missing
scenes from the film were found just after the restoration was completed. This prompted
Hammer productions to carry out the restoration of these badly damaged missing scenes and
cut them into the British Film Institute's restored version.
In 2007 there was a new burst of films appearing from the Hammer Film Company, causing
more interest in their old classic horror movies including Dracula. As a result of it's rising
popularity the British Film Institute decided to carry out a restoration of this movie. To start this
process they had to get the original film negatives from Warner Brothers, because of the
different versions shown throughout the world they had to also find a British copy. The necessity
for this is caused by the different style film credits shown in America and Britain in 1958. As the
British Film Institute wanted to ensure that when they screened the film the British audience
were seeing the original British version. Luckily, the British lending library possessed a copy of
the film. [10] [11]

9. Example of unrestored British credits [12]
Example of BFI’s 2007 restoration [13]
There was a rumour of the missing scenes of the Dracula movie being held in the Japanese
Film Institute. These scenes were censored out of the film in all western countries and was only
shown in Japan. Unfortunately the BFI only managed to get confirmation of these scenes
existence ten months after the restoration of Dracula was completed. [10]

10. Example of one of Dracula’s missing scenes [14]
The Japanese Film Institute (JFI) possess many copies of nitrate based film stock, which is
highly unstable and can be dangerous. Eventually these nitrate film stock caught fire and
damaged the first few reels of their Dracula film stock, with the rest suffering some form of water
damage. [15] Fortunately, the JFI has a restoration process for all their film elements that every 4
or 5 years a certain selection will go through a restoring process. As a result, reels 8 and 9 were
saved and these contained the missing scenes of the film. [10]
Example of the state of the Japanese reels [16]
Hammer horror then hired Molinare to carry out the initial restoration of the missing scenes. The
reels were converted to HD in Japan in a resolution of 1920x1080, making the damage caused to
film very apparent. These reels had been put through a lot of mis­handling,
bad storage and
unsuitable projecting over the years caused it to be highly damaged when it reached the Molinare

11. company. There was major scratches and continuous lines on this film stock. This led to a
problem for the Molinare studio as since the damage was in every frame of the film, they couldn't
use the previous or next frames to fix the scene as this is what is usually done in film restoration.
This caused them to have to use other film prints to gather the information to recover the
damaged pixels. Molinare then put the element through a process of despot and destratch, done
by a computer program.[10] The element is scanned through and this attempts to reduce the
amount of blotches and scratches shown in the frames. This, of course, is a limited process
and some imperfections will still be on the frame after this carried out. The studio went through
a process of adjusting the grain structure and frame size of the film print in order to ensure that it
will match the BFI's version when it is cut in.[17] And lastly Molinare carried out color correction
to bring out the vivid colours of the sets and costumes which were seen in the original film.
Example of Final Blu­ray
Restored version Dracula [18]
Molinare then sent all these reels with the restoration that was carried out so far to Deluxe. They
took the missing scenes and cut them into the full film reel. They then ensured that the film
flowed together with these scenes added. The film print was then put through another dirt and
scratch removal program before they started manual restoration. This involves the technician
going through the film frame by frame and circling the damage they want to remove prompting
the program to go to the previous and next frame to find the missing information. One of the
problems when using this type of restoration is that you have to ensure that you aren't copying in
other damaged pixel information into the frame which would make the damage worse.[15] As
expected, this is a very time consuming process, it is estimated that 50 seconds of footage
between two technicians can take up to 7 days to restore.[10]
The sound also had to be restored from the Japanese reels, in order to fix this they had to
replace the sound effects over the original, damaged tracks. Then they had to mix these sound

12. effects in with the background soundtrack in order to ensure the flow of the audio throughout the
film.[10]
4. Conclusion
We explored in our research three examples of film restorations, and the processes
undertook in each. From the research we gathered on each of these classic film restorations, it
is clear that there is a variety of steps taken to restore an old or damaged movie. From the
search for any remaining elements of the original, and the subsequent cleaning of the negative
filmstrips, to the use of computer programs to correct visual imperfections, and sometimes
sound redesign.[15]
We also displayed the fact that a many different things can be done that make a restored
film superior than the original ever was. The three films we researched each had different
methods of restoration: Beauty and the Beast focussed on a lot of image remodelling and colour
correction [2]; Star Wars involved much computer work to fix problems with the original
compositing [7]; and the restoration of Dracula comprised of fixing imperfections on the original
strip like tears and scratches using computer technology.[10] The separate restorations differed
in many ways, for example Beauty and the Beast had new sound tracks included, whereas Star
Wars simply digitally re­mastered
the original score for its re­release.
There were also a few
similarities, one being the horrible condition of the original copies of both Star Wars and
Dracula’s missing scenes. Star Wars’ original negative had dramatically lost its correct colour,
and Dracula had gained a lot of scratches and tears on its filmstrip, both due to poor storage and
maintenance.
A positive aspect from the restoration of film is that different generations can enjoy the
same film, where quality is not lost, but rather identical to current high standards and
definitions.[1]
A negative aspect of restoration is the fact that it is an extremely time­consuming
process, as shown by Dracula’s restoration, where two technicians took a week to restore 50
seconds of footage.[10]
If work on this topic were to be continued, there is still a lot to be explored on how specific
computer programs work throughout the restoration process.
5. References
1. Crofts, C.,Digital Decay. 2008. Moving Images, 8(2). Available through: University of Limerick
Library website. <http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Library> [Accessed on 26th of April]
2. Muljadi, P., n.d. Disney Theatrical Animated Features. s.l.:Google Books. [Accessed on 29th
of April]

13. 3. Youtube Video: RkivUnderground, 2010, Beauty and the Beast ­1991
vs. 2002 (Comparison),
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRiI8sRfuU> [Accessed on 20th of April]
4. “Beauty&Beast_comparison.AVI” [image online] Available at:
<http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/2751/beautybeastcomparisonav.jpg> [Accessed on 24th
of April]
5. Goodrum, A. A., 2000. Image Information Retrieval: An overview of current research. Informing
Science, 3(2). [Accessed on 28th of April]
6. Dunn B.J. (2006) Creating Believability and the Effects of Technology on Compositing,
unpublished thesis (M.S.), Texas A&M University. [Accessed on 28th of April]
7. Anarkyvist (2011) ‘Star Wars Restoration ­1997
­part
1’, [video online], available at:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLUdy3RDpM> [accessed on 23th of April].
8. Michael Gaines (2011) Empire Matte Lines [image online], available at:
<http://www.geekistry.com/wp­content/
uploads/2011/01/Empire­Matte­Lines.
jpg> [accessed on
28th of April].
9. Whittington, W. (2007) Sound Design & Science Fiction, USA: University of Texas Press.
[accessed on 28th of April]
10. Resurrecting Dracula, Dracula. 2013. [Blu­ray]
London. Hammer Horror Studios.[Accessed
on 11th of April]
11. Dracula. 2013. [Blu­ray]
London. Hammer Horror Studios. [Accessed on 10th of April]
12. Hammer Horror Studios, 1958. “dtct.jpg” [image online] Available at:
<http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5535/dtct.jpg> [Accessed on 25th of April]
13. “draculabdcap8_original.jpg” [image online] Available at:
<http://www.dvdactive.com/images/reviews/screenshot/2013/2/draculabdcap8_original.jpg>
[Accessed on 25th of April]
14. “Dracula­1958­Blu­ray­deleted­scenes.
jpg” [image online] Available at:
<http://www.scifinow.co.uk/wp­content/
uploads/2013/03/Dracula­1958­Blu­ray­deleted­scenes.
jp
g> [Accessed on 25th of April]

14. 15. Kovacs, G.L., Kas, I. 2002. Some Problems of A Digital Motion Picture Restoration System.
Available through: University of Limerick
website.<http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Library> [Accessed on 16th of April]
16. “Tokyo_TK.jpg” [image online] Available at:
<http://blog.hammerfilms.com/wp­content/
uploads/2012/11/Tokyo_TK.jpg> [Accessed on 25th
of April]
17. Kurttila, S. 2011. Digital Film Restoration and Remastering. Available at:
<http://tols17.oulu.fi/~seppokur/Digital%20Film%20Restoration%20and%20Remastering%20the
sis.pdf> [Accessed on 18th of April]
18. “Dracula­Restoration­300x238.
png” [image online] Available at:
<http://www.theedgesusu.co.uk/wp­content/
uploads/2013/03/Dracula­Restoration­300x238.
png>
[Accessed on 25th of April]