Olive Films' Blu-ray release of
Dragonfly Squadron 3D, which streets today
(October 14), represents an interesting new development in the restoration of 3D films in
the high definition era. Instead of a studio doing its own (often very expensive)
restoration, the team at 3-D Archive, including Robert Furmanek and Greg Kintz,
undertook this project themselves at a significant cost savings, hopefully opening the
floodgates for a bevy of still unreleased 3D product from the brief but exciting heyday of
the format in the 1950s. Blu-ray.com staff reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman interviewed 3-D Archive's Greg Kintz,
Technical Director at 3-D Archive, about the
Dragonfly Squadron restoration and
3-D Archive itself.
Hi, Greg. Many of our members and casual readers are familiar with Bob Furmanek,
but for those who aren't up to speed, give us some background on both you and Bob
and the 3-D Archive.
Bob and I first started our discussions and partnership on 3-D preservation roughly 15
years ago. He had been working on 3-D film preservation efforts some ten years before
that, starting in 1990 with the formation of the 3-D Film Archive. We met in 2003 at the
first 3-D Film Expo in Los Angeles.
I've been an avid 3-D buff since the late 1970s and like Bob, was steeped with the
1950's 3-D movies being staple marks of quality. With my day job as a video technician, I
had experimented throughout the 1990's with different 3-D delivery formats and their
various pros and cons. There was no digital gear at that time nor were there any
universal 3-D video standards in place, so there were a good number of hurdles to
overcome. This required making my own gear to overcome the technical limitations of the
time. But now with universal 3-D home theater and D-Cinema standards finally in place,
plus advanced digital tools at our disposal along with HD/2K/4K options, these classic 3-D
titles can finally be seen literally better than ever before.
On Bob's side, throughout the 1980's and 1990's, 3-D film preservation was the last
thing on the studio's minds. It was through his efforts that a number of stereoscopic
features were saved. Bob also raised public awareness that these titles were indeed
quality 3-D presentations. All were originally shown in polarized 3-D, which is not all that
different from today's Real-D and IMAX polarized 3-D presentations. And to that end, Bob
supplied most of the prints for the three World 3-D Film Expos which generated a far
greater appreciation of the genre from casual viewers and critics alike. These events
generated a lot of attention from the studios and some finally began to reassess their
own stereoscopic inventories.
How did you get involved in the Dragonfly restoration? Did you pitch this to
Olive or vice versa?
Bob and I work together on the restorations. He handles the film end of things and I
take over once the HD scans are created. When Bob began shopping around for a
distributor, Olive expressed the most interest in this film and that's how we made the
deal.
What exactly was involved in this restoration?
Archival materials assessment is a crucial start to the process and very important.
Knowing what elements you have and what will deliver the best results for mastering is
easier said than done. This first step often requires a lot of investigation and research.
An important aspect throughout the process is never to assume that something has
been done correctly or that there were not complications. QC passes plus checking and
double checking on all of the various aspects of a restoration are essential. I think we
have all seen companies that have simply assumed a given element or transfer "is what
it is" and leaves it at that. Sometimes that approach can work but it is often a recipe for
trouble.
What elements were available? In the press material Bob supplied to me with this
release, there's a mention of painstaking vertical alignment which you supervised. What
exactly is that? Were any other restorative efforts (like digital cleanup) employed?
All of the archival and preservation 35mm material owned by the 3-D Film Archive was
available for this project. After testing, what yielded the very best results was a wet-
gate, low contrast 35mm positive preservation master made by YCM, Inc. in Burbank
directly from the original camera negatives.
Vertical misalignment refers to when the left and right images have respective vertical
shifting to each other. Our eyes are separated horizontally and that is how we perceive
depth. All stereoscopic cameras are configured this way as well. But if there are vertical
misalignment issues, it forces one eye to look slightly upward while the other eye looks
slightly downward. Our eyes were never designed to work that way and this results in
eyestrain. These films were shot with top cinematographers but the camera rigs were
new and issues could still creep in. We can now correct for vertical alignment and other
baked-in stereoscopic problems which serves to greatly enhance the 3-D viewing
experience.
Each 3-D restoration presents its own unique challenges. One interesting quirk found in
Dragonfly was half a dozen shots scattered throughout where one side was a
single frame ahead of the other. This caused some very irritating motion artifacts when
viewed in 3-D. But the shot edit changes for all of these incidents was frame accurate
which means the problem was inadvertently introduced in the post production stage and
before the final edit. We have fixed these issues and now these shots are presented in
sync and eyestrain free.
If there was film damage that could be addressed we did so, and while we do have tools
on hand that can automatically clean up things like dirt and / or film grain, we are
opposed to that mindset. As all of your readers likely know, automatic scrubbing tools
can cause a number of issues and film grain is something to be embraced vs being
removed. Not all casual viewers may agree with our mindset, but I suspect most film
lovers do.
There's one other item which we are particularly proud of: the 35mm camera negatives
have the original opening titles only in 2-D. However, back in 1954 - somewhere in the
chain after the OCN - most likely on some now lost fine grain, the titles were presented
in full 3-D. Thankfully, Bob located the missing element just in time which provided us
with the correct opposing side for the opening credits. So not only is
Dragonfly
presented in 3-D for the first time ever, but the original 3-D opening credits have been
fully restored.
Without giving away any trade secrets (unless you want to), you tout the cost
savings of your approach—what for example do you think Warner spent on the
restoration of House of Wax 3D for BD and what was the cost of restoring
Dragonfly?
First off, I should say I really feel bad for the deck that Warner Brothers was handed with
the restoration of
House of Wax.. The original camera negatives were no longer
viable so they opted to go from the separation elements which required six 4k scans!
Those needed their own alignment issues taken care of, which in turn caused other new
stereoscopic issues. The final restoration cost was several hundred thousand dollars.
But for your typical vintage 3-D transfer, a studio may say
if they are going to do
a scan, it must be done at 4K or higher. They will only use a certain transfer facility and
must have their required team on board. The project has to go through their normal
processing chain and in the end; they often price themselves out of a release. I wish that
every classic 3-D feature could get the
How the West Was Won or
Ben-Hur
restoration budget but realistically, that is not going to happen.
We were able to bring in the final 3-D master of
Dragonfly Squadron for
approximately 12K. While it's not scrubbed clean of all grain and other film-related
anomalies, the 3-D is now flawless and at least people can finally see it as the
filmmakers intended. We feel that is a much better option than leaving it locked in a vault
and never seen again.
Are there any other upcoming releases you can tell us about?
Yes, thank you for asking. We've got Arch Oboler's
The Bubble – fully restored
from the 35mm OCN - due on 3-D blu-ray next month from Kino Lorber. This 1966 feature
- which some people feel was the inspiration for Stephen King's
Under the
Dome - originally introduced SpaceVision optics which ushered in the first
widespread use of both shooting and exhibiting a 3-D feature on a single-strip of 35mm
film. And for those who like their share of 'out of screen' effects, this is the one to see.
The floating beer tray sequence is one of the top off-screen effects in 3-D film history.
Our restored version of
The Bubble will premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in
New York on November 7 as part of their 12th annual Festival of Preservation. It is really
worth seeing on the big screen.
2015 will bring our third and most challenging release to 3-D blu-ray and select Digital
Cinemas:
3-D Rarities from Flicker Alley will contain 2-1/2 hours of archival content
dating back to 1922 with some incredibly rare gems, all restored from 35mm elements:
M.L. Gunzburg Presents Natural Vision Three-Dimension with Beany and Cecil
introduced the public to the Natural Vision camera that was used to shoot features like
Bwana Devil and
House of Wax. The amazing Technicolor animated short
New Dimensions was first shown in 1940 at the New York World's Fair. There will
be original and truly stereoscopic movie trailers for
It Came From Outer Space,
Hannah Lee and
The Maze which features some incredible production
designs by William Cameron Menzies. There's a controversial short from 1953 called
Doom Town which includes stereoscopic atomic bomb footage. There's also a
beautifully restored Technicolor widescreen Casper cartoon called
Boo Moon and
much more.
Wow! You had me at Beany and Cecil. Congratulations on this exciting first release
and I look forward to future releases by 3-D Archive.
(
Note: For those interested in reading more about
Dragonfly Squadron and 3-D Archive, there's more information
here.)