Arri-news 2014

Godzilla franchise to win fans all over the world. It was therefore vital to ensure that the restoration of images from these internationally admired films was carried out using the best available tools and expertise. “Tokyo Laboratory was in a unique position to handle this restoration work, and not just because we’re a subsidiary of Toho,” says Satoshi Kawamata, Deputy General Manager of the Image Media Department. “The Godzilla films have already been remastered and repurposed many times over the years, and staff members here have been involved in the processing and finishing of them all. They are familiar enough with the original images of the Godzilla series to instinctively determine the optimum quality for reproduction on a cinema screen or any kind of monitor.” Unfortunately the original camera negative of the 1954 film has been lost, a fate sadly shared by many other historic Japanese films. All that remained for the restoration team to work with were two duplicate negatives and a master positive print. On the plus side, they had been preserved in good condition, as had film materials from the myriad sequels. In fact, the materials displayed only relatively minor deterioration and it was possible for them to be scanned quite stably using pin-registration and the Soft Archive Mode on the ARRISCAN. “The challenge that received our most careful attention was to prepare the first Godzilla for digital theater screenings in a way that reproduced the ‘film-like’ image experienced by audiences in 1954,” explains Yoshinori Kato, Chief Engineer of the digital restoration process. “This is different to the approach we might take with a restoration for a traditional DVD package, which requires object profiles to be sharp and noise to be discreet, optimizing the image definition for home-use displays.” Kato continues, “We really appreciate the excellent image quality of the ARRISCAN and the way it accurately captures grain structure, which is an important characteristic “The ARRISCAN achieves a level of sharpness that perfectly suits the emerging media of 4K broadcasting.” ARRI NEWS 13