Monaco, Interformat Work Together to Preserve Nitrate

by Michael Hinton, Interformat

Monaco and Interformat teamed up recently to preserve a number of 35mm nitrate reels for George Eastman House and for University of South Carolina's Newsfilm Library. USC Newsfilm Library's Benjamin Singleton provided close to 10,000 feet of 1930's Fox News camera negatives, each with sound on film. Subjects of the newsreels, which were distributed and shown in theaters as the only visual news outlet of the era, included a Harry Houdini live performance, parades, conventions, a zeppelin in flight and bathing beauties on the beach.

The preservation Fine Grain Master Positives were optically produced by Interformat's Michael Hinton on a specially modified Research Products optical printer, exposing only the picture area. Scratches were suppressed using Interformat's Solid State Scratch Removal® system. The exposed negatives were then run though a modified B&H contact printer, laying down only the sound tracks. Picture contrast was managed with gamma control of the master positive film processing.

Working with sprocketmeisters La Vezzi Precision and with Jaakko Kurhi of JK Camera/Meritex, Monaco General Manager Jim Moye directed the manufacture of a set of unique sprocket drives in order to accommodate copying of the optical tracks from the fragile and shrunken nitrate negatives. During the two-pass process, the sound offset was readjusted from the obsolete 11 frames to the normal 20-frame advance.

In a joint project overseen by Ed Stratmann of Eastman House's Selznick School of Film Preservation, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Monaco/Interformat worked with recent Selznick graduate Anne Smatla in preserving "Screen Snapshots: 7th Series," a 1924 nitrate print with a hand-tinted section. Smatla prepared extensive notes on the film's condition and content. Her input was essential in achieving the final look of the reel.

The Screen Snapshots were a series of home movies of current Hollywood stars mixed with clips from their performances. The reel depicted Lloyd Hamilton in black face and scenes of Clara Bow, Ethel Shannon and Kenneth Harlan clowning on the Budd Schulberg Studio property.

The tinted section presented some challenges. Before color film, sections of black and white print were tinted and toned by hand with vegetable dyes to add interest. Interformat tried several conventional film solutions in an attempt to match the unique look of the nitrate. One test, referred to as the Desmet process, called for copying the nitrate to a black and white internegative. A second pass was subsequently run while printing to color positive stock, exposing a series of negative color filters to simulate the final color of the print.

The faded reddish-orange tint combined with the high silver content inherent in the nitrate images presented a very rich hybrid appearance that could not be matched with traditional film reproduction. In the nitrate image, the shadows tend to retain more of the b/w appearance while the mid-tones and highlights reveal the tint.

Further testing with Interformat's Digital/Optical printer and a 4K capture followed by color correction using Assimilate Scratch software and recorded to fresh color internegative yielded a print with the closest match. The color section was then spliced in with the print from the black and white preservation negative.

"Screen Snapshots: 7th Series" will be presented during the 14th Annual Silent Film Festival, July 10-12, 2009 in San Francisco. The showing will be sponsored by Monaco DigitalFilm and presented by Anne Smatla.

For more information about this event, visit the San Francisco Silent Film Festival site.