OTHER TECH

Since THX 1138 was far less popular than the Star Wars films, the negative must have been less beat up, but did you encounter any other problems?It had been shot quite some years ago, so there were various kinds of degradation. Also, the actors were shot against a white cyclorama, and it was hard to make them look good without making the white cyc look ugly. Since everything was shot in a studio, they had to use faster films, which are grainier, and since it was a half-size negative, all the dirt, scratches, and grain are enlarged - big-time graininess.

Your restoration of Casablanca had much less grain than the previous DVD release. What are your criteria in deciding how much grain to take out?We generally try to even out the grain so changes don't interfere with the storytelling. I don't recommend taking all the grain out of anything. I used to do more of that. We took out too much grain on Citizen Kane, but on Casablanca we left more in and it looks better. There's something comforting about grain for the viewer.

If we looked at something that was scanned, processed, and shown at 4K, what would we see?We would see a picture that has a greater sense of reality. The digital-cinema committee in Hollywood has opted for a 4K standard, so there's no question that this is where the studios would like presentation to go. With 4K digital projection, the color will be very similar to what you see in film theaters today - but with the proviso that, if you scan the original negative, there are colors there that don't normally make it through the film printing processes. So with 4K the colors are more vibrant, subtle, and sharper. But the most striking thing is the resolution. The image quality at 4K in a digital theater will be similar to what you get with a good Imax presentation, but you'll be seeing it in a normal theater.

So it will be as good or better than film in every way?A really good film print can have a better contrast range than a digital transfer shown on a present-day high-def digital projector, but that's up for grabs once we get 4K projectors.

Could most people tell the difference between the high-def images on their HDTVs and 4K ones?Watching good movie images on an HDTV with a good-sized screen in the home is a stunning experience. People won't recognize the need for more resolution for a long time, as long as a good image is presented.

But in a movie theater, the audience would be astonished at the difference between a conventional film and a 4K image. You can instantly perceive it. Of course, it all depends on where you sit. If you're too far back, you can't tell the difference between any of these formats - film, 4K, 2K, or 1K.

What differences would there be between an image from a 4K camera and 35mm film?A well-shot film has a very high density of information on it. Properly transferred, a film image scanned at 4K is better than the image directly from a 4K camera sensor.

Can you tell me what movies you're working on at the moment?We are doing work for four major studios, but I can't talk about most of those yet. We are working on Aliens of the Deep for Jim Cameron. The other work that I can talk about is on three James Bond movies that are in various stages of restoration.