Every change in the filmmaking process creates ripples downstream. As digital intermediates grow in popularity, the ripples extend all the way to the archives. "It leaves us in archives with a tricky question," says 20th Century Fox VP of Asset Management Schawn Belston. "How do you preserve a digital master that will allow it to be used in 100 years?" The answer at the big studios has been to err on the side of safety, but the archivists are less than happy with some of the trade-offs they’ve had to accept. At Sony Pictures Entertainment, VP of Asset Management and Film Restoration Grover Crisp reports that he approached the problem from a traditional point of view, conforming the original negative that was scanned to create the DI and saving the digital files of the DI process itself. But the only record of the final digital negative has been YCM separation masters made from that negative, one generation removed from the data.
Now, Pacific Title & Art Studio is offering the Rosetta process, which produces original YCM separation masters directly from the digital data files, thus providing the most pristine preservation elements possible. Using 2K DI files for Stuart Little 2 as test material, Pacific Title produced pin-registered digital YCM masters directly from the digital data, printing to special-order Kodak stock with 50 percent grain reduction.
Digital YCMs are a solution to archivists’ concerns about the viability of DI data stored in a digital format. First, with the currently used system, they have no way to check that the digital data of the DI process isn’t corrupted or incomplete. Pacific Title’s Rosetta process includes a check print from the elements, which also offers an important validation of the data tapes. Second, archivists have been concerned for some time that, because the DI process isn’t standardized, DI data produced in one facility won’t be readable at another, due to proprietary formats and techniques. The Rosetta process includes instructions to the studios on how to write the data tapes. "No third-party software; just Cineon files," says President and CEO Phil Feiner.
Feiner debuted the results of the tests to attendees at a joint technical symposium of archivists and preservationists in September 2004 to immediate positive response. The first projects in the hopper are 20th Century Fox’s The Day After Tomorrow and Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Spider-Man 2.
"The tests were really impressive," says Belston. "We need something a little more permanent [than the previous approach], and the digital YCM master is an excellent solution. The most attractive thing about this process is that I can store it properly and know that even if all the digital media is lost, we’ll have a high-resolution version that won’t fade."
Crisp notes that this process will ensure that today’s film will be a viable asset for the foreseeable future. "One of the reasons this kind of approach to the data is so important right now is, frankly, because of the lower standard at which most DIs are being created," he says. "Many DIs created in the world so far have been done at not much better than HD resolution, and we know 4K projection is coming very soon. That will make it difficult to sell product based on DIs locked in at 1K. It’s like the difference now between HD and 1-inch tape."
If Pacific Title’s process proves successful, competitors will not be far behind. But the solution may not save all digitally graded films — independent features without studio ties, for instance— for tomorrow’s audiences. "I guess the easy answer is, yes, [indie films] are falling through the cracks," says Mike Pogorzelski, director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Film Archive. "You’re seeing any number of films made by truly independent filmmakers. But if the distributor doesn’t buy the film in perpetuity, they don’t have a vested interest in preserving it. It’s the fate of any orphan film."
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