Page 12 - FILM STUDIOS CROPPED

PRESERVING
PRESERVING
FILM FOR
FILM FOR
POSTERITY
POSTERITY
Why Matt Bowman and the team at Content Restoration Services can’t wait to get to work each morning. Russell Forgham reports
T he reason: they know that everything they do will help to preserve cinema’s legacy
for posterity – and cure a load of major headaches for their clients. For CRS, part of the Liberty Livewire
group, is virtually unique in the film industry: a consolidation of technical expertise with skills ranging from archivist and film grading to high defi- nition telecine, which means it can han- dle any feature film requirement and guarantee that any problem thrown at it can – and will – be resolved.
“Until now clients have been forced to trade piecemeal from facility to facility and they have had to fathom out for themselves any issues or con- flicts arising between the various inde- pendent facilities,” says Matt Bowman, CRS’s Head of Production.
“But we can manage them through the huge resources of Liberty Livewire to ensure cohesion and guarantee
quality. No-one else in the
world has the ability to
handle any medium and
any format and if someone
gives us a piece of film and
we say we can deliver a
master, they know we will
give them a quality product on or below budget.”
Essentially CRS acts as a facilitator for its clients, assessing the technical expertise which is needed for a partic- ular job and finding the right person to do it in the Liberty Livewire group of companies, which include industry respected names like Todd-AO, 4MC, Rushes, St Anne’s, Soho 601, SVC, Soho Images, Computermatch , Golden Square, Stream, Vision Text and Telecine scattered through Soho and Camden in London.
CRS’s own expertise includes Business Development Manager Chris Bannister, whose first job was as a film librarian at the old British Movietone
News in the 70s, New Business Manager Richard Fish, Senior Colourist Ray King and Laboratory Services Manager John Sears, widely regarded as the top man in film restoration in Britain.
Clients include both archives and commercial film libraries and compa- nies with titles for current release both in the cinema and on DVD, such as Criterion, the specialist American quality DVD distributor.
Since CRS began operations at the beginning of the year, titles it has worked on to bring them up to the high technical standard required for DVD release include classics like The Third Man, The Life And Death of Colonel
Blimp – with a brand new commentary by legendary Oscar-winning director of photography Jack Cardiff, now 88 – Passport To Pimlico and The Ladykillers.
In addition there are several of the silent British Twenties’ two-reeler Fu Manchu titles, as well as recent films like Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas on which director Terry Gilliam and star Johnny Depp came in for the grading.
Current projects include working on the 1920s series of British 20- minute Sherlock Holmes titles from the Stoll library for high definition deliverable, some 50s and 60s Hammer titles and the 1936 Alexander Korda visionary epic Things To Come for DVD release in the US. ■
Photo inset on film can: Matt Bowman, CRS’s Head of Production; right: restoration in progress
EXPOSURE • 24 & 25
MATT BOWMAN