Join Mark Rance in this show-and-tell style lecture as he discusses many of the issues encountered and (with varying degrees of success) resolved in a digital restoration of Murnau’s Nosferatu.

The evening will begin with a description of the original production and the technology used to make the film. The film’s own troubled history complicated the film’s physical reconstruction, and that impacted the digital restoration. The reconstructed master print was made from many disparate elements, as a single negative was simply not available. Scenes and shots will be examined in a side-by-side comparison of the unrestored reconstructed print and the digitally restored version of the same material. This talk will investigate many of the problems faced by any restoration team when not all the original elements are available. Rance will also examine the use of VFX tools, grain management, tinting processes and photo-chemical to digital translation issues when restoring motion pictures.

This talk will primarily explore the complex and subjective issues currently floating around in many analog-versus-digital discussions of film and how those opinions can influence the determination of what the restored version should look like if the goal is to replicate the original projected image at the time of first release. Can digital restorations generate valid preservation copies of photo-chemical materials? Let’s find out.

About the Instructor:
Mark Rance is a documentary filmmaker who for many years was a producer at The Criterion Collection before forming his own company in Los Angeles and producing DVDs and Blu-rays for the Hollywood studios. His titles include THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, HARD EIGHT (aka SYDNEY), BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA, SEVEN, I,ROBOT, THE PRESTIGE, RESERVOIR DOGS and THE DARK KNIGHT. He moved to London in 2004 and established Watchmaker Films to restore and distribute lost independent films. Those restorations include Eagle Pennell’s THE WHOLE SHOOTIN’ MATCH and LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO; Tobe Hooper’s first feature, EGGSHELLS; and Jack Hazan’s A BIGGER SPLASH.