Archiving Color Images to Single Strip Black-and-White 35mm Film—The Visionary Archive Process

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Publisher: SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
Doc Type: Journal Article
Content Type: Original Research
Abbreviated Title: SMPTE Mot. Imag. J
Volume: 120, No. 1, pp. 24–28
Abstract: For decades, color motion pictures have been archived for long-term preservation storage by separating the three primary color components that when combined make a full-color image, yellow, cyan, and magenta, known as YCM separations, and recorded each color channel onto a black-and-white strip of film, also known as a “3-strip.” Black-and-white film stock is known to have a longer shelf life with less degradation than color film stock. This archival process is the same whether the movie was shot on film, or with modern digital cinema cameras. In the case of stereoscopic 3D movies that contain left-eye and right-eye content, a total of six strips (three for each eye) would have to be made for archival purposes. Ultimately, a future generation would be able to take these strips, recombine them (called registration), and view a full-color movie.
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
DOI: 10.5594/j18004XY
ISSN: Print: 1545-0279
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/j18004XY
Author(s): Sean McKee
bio
Sean McKee is the director of restoration and new technology for Point.360 Digital Film Labs, in Burbank, CA. In the past year, McKee and team have developed a number of proprietary technologies for both the classic movie/archival market, as well as for current productions. The most recent being Visionary Archive, a patent-pending process that allows a full color motion picture to be archived onto a signal reel of 35mm black-and-white film stock, eliminating traditional YCM archival issues. Other developments include Advanced Restoration Tools (ART) grain and noise reduction, best-in-class RAW camera image processing, automated color matching, a perceptually uniform color space, and other bleeding-edge algorithms/software which McKee says are based on “alien” technology. For 12 years prior, McKee was CEO of Screen Time Images, a Chicago based company specializing in film restoration, rights acquisition, and distribution. McKee was the world's first user of the popular Revival film restoration system, and worked closely with da Vinci to develop the software. He has been featured in numerous interviews on national TV, radio, and industry magazines.
Victor Panov
bio
Victor Panov is a key member of the Point.360 Digital Film Labs development team headed by Sean McKee. He is a theoretical physicist, and high-level programmer. Before working at Point.360, Panov was part of team at the Motion Picture Marine that received a Sci-Tech Academy Award for camera stabilization hardware. He was a consultant to NASA JPL, creating communications hardware and software for picosatellites. Before that, Panov worked with Rockwell to design hardware and software devices for reliable wireless transmission. Before migrating to the U.S., Panov worked at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy of the Russian Academy of Science and the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Science, creating software for finite element model visualization and processing, hardware oriented programming for video adapters for finite element model, as well as data stereo visualization and 3D stereo graphics software and GUI design.
Copyright: © 2011 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.

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Sean McKee and Victor Panov; Archiving Color Images to Single Strip Black-and-White 35mm Film—The Visionary Archive Process, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 120, Issue: 1, 2011); SMPTE, 2011. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/j18004XY

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Sean McKee and Victor Panov; Archiving Color Images to Single Strip Black-and-White 35mm Film—The Visionary Archive Process, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 120, Issue: 1, 2011); SMPTE, 2011. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/j18004XY

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<span class="citation">Sean McKee and Victor Panov; <cite>Archiving Color Images to Single Strip Black-and-White 35mm Film—The Visionary Archive Process</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 120, Issue: 1, 2011); SMPTE, 2011. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/j18004XY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/j18004XY</a></span>

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Sean McKee and Victor Panov; <cite id="bib-10-5594-j18004xy">Archiving Color Images to Single Strip Black-and-White 35mm Film—The Visionary Archive Process</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 120, Issue: 1, 2011); SMPTE, 2011
<span class="doi">10.5594/j18004XY</span>
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