Pinewood Studios Group has acquired a Northlight 2 film scanner from FilmLight for use in its newly-established media preservation, restoration and archive facility. The new scanner will be used in restoring film-based titles from the StudioCanal British Library archive, comprising some 140,000 items including the renowned Ealing film library. The archive has been based at Pinewood for 20 years.

Northlight, which recently earned FilmLight’s development team one of four AMPAS Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards, sets the standard for 4K scanning with Northlight 2 delivering the highest quality, alias-free 4K resolution images. Pinewood selected the system after conducting a rigorous review of high-end film scanners over several months.

“We chose Northlight because of the quality of the scans,” said Darren Woolfson, Group Director of Technology for Pinewood Studios Group. “We were also impressed with the company itself. The quality of FilmLight’s engineers and R&D team is exceedingly high.”

Northlight 2 will be part of a workflow devoted exclusively to film restoration. Pinewood’s new facility also includes two state-of-the-art temperature and humidity controlled vaults for storing archival elements.

“Restoration work has often been undertaken by companies with a DI infrastructure who do a bit of restoration during downtime,” Woolfson noted. “We’ve come to this from a different angle. We have built a restoration department to deal exclusively with restoration work. We have a film handling area and an area for performing physical repairs to film media. We also have an area devoted to restoring film sound. It is a fully set-up picture and sound restoration department.”

Pinewood’s work on the StudioCanal British Library archive commenced after an agreement with StudioCanal and Optimum Releasing in November 2009. Restoration has been completed on Lionel Jeffries’ The Railway Children, which has subsequently been re-released and made available on BluRay/DVD. Other classic titles that are being worked on include Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Additionally, Pinewood will serve as a FilmLight beta site for developing film scanning technologies for restoration. “We feel very good about this aspect of our relationship,” Woolfson said. “FilmLight is working hard to improve what is already an extremely good scanner.”

Contact – Deepa Parbhoo ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400

About Pinewood Studios Group

Pinewood Studios Group is a leading provider of studio and related services to the global film and television industry. Synonymous with world class British and international productions, the impressive heritage of its UK-based Pinewood, Shepperton and Teddington Studios date back to the early 20th Century and are home to some of the most successful features films and TV shows ever made. Renowned across the globe for excellence in its field, the Pinewood brand is now being exported overseas to studios in Toronto—Canada, Berlin—Germany and Iskandar—Malaysia.

Comprising the best quality sound stages, a globally unique underwater filming stage, a wealth of specialist production resources, easy access to the world’s most experienced crews as well as digital TV studios, the facilities plays host to revered production crews who continue to explore and challenge the art of what is possible on the small and silver screens.

Recent film and TV productions that have used the Studios’ facilities include Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Slumdog Millionaire, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Nine, Moon, Me and Orson Welles, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wolfman, Little Dorrit, Ant & Dec’s Push The Button, Zingzillas, Would I Lie To You, Reggie Perrin.

Visit www.pinewoodgroup.com for more information.

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