BEFORE 4K DIGITISATION: RESTORATION AND CLEANING OF SUPER-8 ORIGINALS

In this particular case, the work entrusted to us by a well-known institution in Galicia consists in the digitisation in 4K of a collection of Super-8 films shot between the late 1960s and the end of the 1980s by a figure of some notoriety, a man whose name even appears in the Guinness Book of Records, which already gives an idea of the historical interest of the material we are dealing with.

When one is faced with footage of this nature, simple telecine is not enough. If the films are to remain worthy of their origin —and if we want these very same reversible originals, which were physically present at the moment of filming, to retain their dignity when, sixty years from now, they are digitised again with technologies we cannot yet imagine, or perhaps even projected directly— then the first obligation is restoration.

We are the main Fujifilm splicing tape customer in Europe

As mentioned in the previous entry, the vast majority of this archive was shot on non-substantive colour stocks, mainly Kodachrome and Dynachrome on polyester base, which means that the chromatic stability of the image is, for all practical purposes, guaranteed for eternity.
Only about fifteen metres were filmed on the far less stable AGFA Moviechrome, whose presence reminds us that not all colour processes of that era were created equal.

We found splices with ordinary adhesive paper!!!

The first task, therefore, is mechanical: the rebuilding of splices. Some of them are made on acetate cement, others with ageing adhesive tape, and a few —to my astonishment, although after so many years nothing should surprise me— with ordinary household adhesive paper. Over the decades I have encountered every imaginable solution, from carefully sewn joins with thread to repairs held together with metal staples.

All of them must be removed and replaced. The new splices are made using Fujifilm pre-perforated polyester splicing tape, a material of proven stability, rated for archival use and expected to last a century under proper storage conditions.

When redoing ECS ​​splices, they are not cut, they are simply reinforced with pre-perforated Fujifilm tape.

Work on the editing viewer allows, at the same time, a careful inspection of the film itself: scratches here and there, but nothing serious; occasional emulsion cracking in certain passages; identification of the type of sound track, when present —in this case laminated magnetic stripe—; and the inevitable perforation damage, which must be repaired one by one.

We clean even the reel and boxes

New white polyester leaders are added to every reel, both for protection and for future handling, and each roll is then cleaned and polished, as are the original boxes, using specialised products that we import from the United States and that are suitable for archival film without attacking the base, the emulsion or the magnetic coating.

Only after this painstaking preparation is completed do we proceed to the next step: a full projection check of the entire footage, to confirm that the film runs smoothly and safely before undergoing liquid cleaning in our JoBo machine, the final stage before 4K digitisation.

But that, as they say, is a story for another day.