New Tools for
Film Sound Restoration

Download Presentation (ppt).................... . Speaker Bio

Robert Heiber
President, Chace Audio

Removing pops, crackle and hiss are well known sound restoration technologies and are as ubiquitous for sound restoration as wet-gate printing is in the laboratory. However, developers are continually working on new and more powerful tools to address more difficult problems with a narrowly focused solution. These new developments offer opportunities to correct more severely distressed or damaged audio or make more successful repairs. Additionally, improvements in existing technologies offer new methodologies for film sound preservation and restoration work.

The development of these new tools has also created new responsibilities for archivists. The ability to rescue materials thought once unrecoverable can present quite a dilemma for determining the end of the useful life for legacy sound elements, like 35mm magnetic and optical sound.

Another issue facing archivists is whether to revisit earlier sound restorations that might now benefit from these new methods. With limited budgets, re-doing a program must be balanced against preserving and restoring other at-risk content that remains unprotected.

New Tools for Film Sound Restoration examines the “improvement-in-the-art” that has occurred since the late 1980s and the issues that this improvement brings.

Examples of the results that can now be achieved will be demonstrated with before and after examples of recently completed work on Vi gifter oss (We are Getting Married) 1951, for the Norwegian Film Institute.

 

Bob Heiber
Bob has been involved in film sound preservation since 1990 when he joined Chace Productions. A member of AMIA since 1991, SMPTE, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and ACVL, Bob has served on the National Film Preservation Board Advisory Task Force and the Library of Congress panel for the State of American Television and Video Preservation. He has spoken on film sound preservation, restoration and re-mastering at AMIA, ACVL, SMPTE and ARSC conferences. Prior to joining Chace, Bob was the Manager of Technical Operations at Warner Hollywood Studios and an award winning documentary/industrial filmmaker in Chicago, Illinois. Bob graduated from Purdue University in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in Radio-TV-Film.