When "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration" was released on DVD and Blu-ray at the end of September, many people saw the classic films in a new light.
One of those people was director Francis Ford Coppola.
Assistance from new technology (and a certain Mr.
Steven Spielberg) has the films looking truer to the director's vision then they did in theaters 30 years ago.
At the time of the first film's release (1972), the practices of preserving and copying film negatives were not as streamlined as they are today.
As a result, the original negative of "The Godfather" was destroyed when the film struck box-office gold and Paramount used it to print copy after copy (the film would earn over $134 million in theaters throughout its run).
It took until the late 1990s for the people at Paramount to realize the legacy of two of their prize pictures (almost universally considered two of the best films ever made) might be in trouble.
Problem was, the technology to clean up the film prints properly just wasn't far enough along for the massive overhaul "The Godfather" required.
At that point, the company placed all "The Godfather" film elements it had left in a cold vault to preserve them until the technology "caught up" - roughly the equivalent of Walt Disney freezing his head.
Then, in 2005, DreamWorks pictures, the brainchild of Speilberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, was acquired by Viacom, the parent company of Paramount.
On a whim, Coppola wrote to Speilberg asking him to help push forward the restoration of "The Godfather" films.
Spielberg being Spielberg, he quickly got the ball rolling.
But, even with advanced technology, the restoration of the first two parts of "The Godfather" was no easy task (part three wasn't ignored because it is a lesser picture - which it is - the film negatives were just in far better condition).
No single usable negative of "The Godfather" remained that was suitable as a source.
So, the company tasked with restoring the film, The Film Preserve (which also completed restorations of classic films like "Lawrence of Arabia", "Rear Window", and "Spartacus" ), gathered a bunch of backup film materials and an Italian-subtitled print to use as a color reference.
The Film Preserve then worked with Coppola, Gordon Willis (the cinematographer on the original films), and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer on movies like "E.
T.
" who is considered a leading historian of photographic technology, to get expert opinions.
The entire process of restoring the film, from Spielberg to DVD release, would take over two years.
While most film restorations are done by applying a photochemical to negatives, since that was impossible with "The Godfather" films, the process had to be done via digital technology.
Film Preserve technicians carefully scanned the film materials into digital form 4K files (video made up of 4,000 lines of horizontal resolution, or four times the quality of HDTV), and cleaned up dust specks, lines and other flaws frame by frame.
Ultimately, more than 1,000 man hours were spent removing digital dirt and scratches from the two films.
It was also during the restoration process that technicians noticed some imperfections that had been in the films since their theatrical release, which somehow managed to fly under the radar.
For example, the classic scene in "The Godfather" when Michael Corleone commits his first acts of murder in an Italian restaurant had originally been incorrectly processed.
The scene was filmed on two separate nights, so the footage was processed separately, and the picture quality of many of the shots did not match up.
Through the magic of digital technology, this error was corrected for the new DVD release.
When placed side-by-side with the 2001 DVD release of the films, the new presentations offer a very different picture - at least for film aficionados.
Blacks are darker, colors more vibrant, the trademark fade-away transitions much smoother, and, perhaps most notably, the films are now basked in a golden glow that better suits the epic and tragic story.
While many classic films have been lost forever due to film stock damage, it is a testament to digital technology that great, great films like "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II" now look better than they did projected on film screens three decades ago.
One of those people was director Francis Ford Coppola.
Assistance from new technology (and a certain Mr.
Steven Spielberg) has the films looking truer to the director's vision then they did in theaters 30 years ago.
At the time of the first film's release (1972), the practices of preserving and copying film negatives were not as streamlined as they are today.
As a result, the original negative of "The Godfather" was destroyed when the film struck box-office gold and Paramount used it to print copy after copy (the film would earn over $134 million in theaters throughout its run).
It took until the late 1990s for the people at Paramount to realize the legacy of two of their prize pictures (almost universally considered two of the best films ever made) might be in trouble.
Problem was, the technology to clean up the film prints properly just wasn't far enough along for the massive overhaul "The Godfather" required.
At that point, the company placed all "The Godfather" film elements it had left in a cold vault to preserve them until the technology "caught up" - roughly the equivalent of Walt Disney freezing his head.
Then, in 2005, DreamWorks pictures, the brainchild of Speilberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, was acquired by Viacom, the parent company of Paramount.
On a whim, Coppola wrote to Speilberg asking him to help push forward the restoration of "The Godfather" films.
Spielberg being Spielberg, he quickly got the ball rolling.
But, even with advanced technology, the restoration of the first two parts of "The Godfather" was no easy task (part three wasn't ignored because it is a lesser picture - which it is - the film negatives were just in far better condition).
No single usable negative of "The Godfather" remained that was suitable as a source.
So, the company tasked with restoring the film, The Film Preserve (which also completed restorations of classic films like "Lawrence of Arabia", "Rear Window", and "Spartacus" ), gathered a bunch of backup film materials and an Italian-subtitled print to use as a color reference.
The Film Preserve then worked with Coppola, Gordon Willis (the cinematographer on the original films), and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer on movies like "E.
T.
" who is considered a leading historian of photographic technology, to get expert opinions.
The entire process of restoring the film, from Spielberg to DVD release, would take over two years.
While most film restorations are done by applying a photochemical to negatives, since that was impossible with "The Godfather" films, the process had to be done via digital technology.
Film Preserve technicians carefully scanned the film materials into digital form 4K files (video made up of 4,000 lines of horizontal resolution, or four times the quality of HDTV), and cleaned up dust specks, lines and other flaws frame by frame.
Ultimately, more than 1,000 man hours were spent removing digital dirt and scratches from the two films.
It was also during the restoration process that technicians noticed some imperfections that had been in the films since their theatrical release, which somehow managed to fly under the radar.
For example, the classic scene in "The Godfather" when Michael Corleone commits his first acts of murder in an Italian restaurant had originally been incorrectly processed.
The scene was filmed on two separate nights, so the footage was processed separately, and the picture quality of many of the shots did not match up.
Through the magic of digital technology, this error was corrected for the new DVD release.
When placed side-by-side with the 2001 DVD release of the films, the new presentations offer a very different picture - at least for film aficionados.
Blacks are darker, colors more vibrant, the trademark fade-away transitions much smoother, and, perhaps most notably, the films are now basked in a golden glow that better suits the epic and tragic story.
While many classic films have been lost forever due to film stock damage, it is a testament to digital technology that great, great films like "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II" now look better than they did projected on film screens three decades ago.
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