(photo source: official photo)
On November 15, the 4K restoration of the movie "The Pianist on the Sea" was officially released in the Mainland. While fans are revisiting the classics, the restoration of old films has gone again in this seemingly niche area. Into the public eye. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that after cleaning, collection, and digital restoration, it takes at least 20 people to repair an old movie for four months, and the restored old movie is re-entering mass consumption production. Later, it will bring up to one million yuan in income for the people behind the scenes.
has the highest single-chip income of one million
from "Longmen Inn", "The True Colors of Heroes", "New Love" to "Red Sorghum", "Sea Flowers", "San Mao Wanderings", and now "Sea Piano" "Master", the film consumer market has quietly blew a wave of "nostalgia" in recent years. It often takes a lot of costs to "replace the old look with the new look" of some old movies. How much benefit will it bring to the people behind the scenes?
A reporter from Beijing Commercial Daily found that the film price of the national restoration project at this stage is between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan. Depending on the degree of film damage, some old movies need to be repaired with artificial intelligence when repairing, so the price will be higher, and the maximum single film can reach one million yuan.
China Film Base Digital Restoration Center Director Xiao Bo said, “Take the previous documentary "My Country" as an example. Almost all of the film is TV material. It needs to be distinguished from TV resolution to cinema resolution or even giant screen. The difficulty is relatively high, and we finally realized it with an artificial intelligence image processing system. This project had an income of millions of yuan at that time."
According to Chen Xinxin, general manager of Jiangsu Huaxia Film Repair Technology Co., Ltd.: "We have undertaken more than 20 film repair projects this year, with an income of more than 5 million yuan. The price of repair will be based on the degree of damage to the film and the estimated repair workload. For example, the film has less damage and can be repaired in one month, the price will be relatively low, otherwise it will be high, and the overall price will fluctuate between 200,000 and 500,000."
(photo source: official photo)
Public information shows that the rise of the domestic old film restoration wave can be traced back to the 2006 “Film Archive Digital Repair Project” implemented by the country, which was led by the China Film Archive and joined with China Film Group. Other institutions promote the digital restoration and archiving of 20,000 old motion picture films in China.
According to Wei Pengju, Dean of the Institute of Culture and Economics of the Central University of Finance and Economics, the restoration of old films is not only an act of protecting cultural heritage, but also one of the content that enriches the current cultural market. At the same time, it is also a business with considerable income. From the perspective of commercial interests, old movies do not have the cost of shooting and production, only need to consider restoration, distribution, etc., so as long as there is a certain attendance rate, break-even can be achieved. If IP is recognized as a hot box office, derivative value is developed, and profits are even more substantial . And this is also an opportunity for the entire old film restoration industry."
manpower costs account for the bulk of the
"replacement of the old look" requires a lot of time cost, technical cost, hardware cost, and the highest proportion is the labor cost. It is reported that the labor cost of repairing an old film is about 100,000 to 200,000 yuan.
old film restoration mainly includes three links: physical cleaning, "gluing revolution" collection, and digital restoration. It takes 20-30 people on average to complete it together for more than four months. The whole process first requires 5-10 people to physically clean and repair the film itself in a week; then, 2-3 people use the glue rotation equipment to digitally collect the pictures on the film.
(picture source: official picture)
and the digital restoration is the most time-consuming part, usually 15-20 people are required to repair the sound and the picture at the same time, which includes color correction, noise elimination, noise, etc. Chen Xinxin pointed out: "The two parts are repaired separately. The sound repair usually takes 3 days to 2 weeks, and the screen content repairs at least 1-2 months. For example, "San Mao Wanderings" is a movie released in 1949, which is a long time away. , There are relatively many problems, and it took us more than 3 months for the digital repair part."
Normally, the scanned images of an old film are 120,000-150,000. Xiao Bo told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that the repair time of the film depends on the quality of the film itself, ranging from a few weeks to as many as 1934. The film "Yuguangqu" released in 1991 can last up to two years. "Film movies are prone to mold, shrinkage, etc., because they are relatively old, and the pictures presented will have problems such as dirty spots, scratches, and large mold spots. As long as the problems that cause visual discomfort during continuous playback, all problems need to be repaired."
love business needs talented people to escort
When the re-screening of old films has gradually become a boom, everyone is paying more and more attention to film restoration. In fact, although old movies have huge market potential to repair this kind of business supported by feelings, they also have to face problems.
According to Xiao Bo, there are only a few hundred employees in the entire industry. With the increasing demand for the restoration of old movies, on the one hand, the anxiety of the old restorers facing the era of artificial intelligence has increased; on the other hand, the fact that the current talent shortage is highlighted.
Due to the introduction of artificial intelligence technology, it has now entered the repair 2.0 era. Traditional repairs are time-consuming and labor-intensive, with mixed results. It is an inevitable trend to replace labor with machines in the future. When talking about artificial intelligence repair, Xiao Bo was gratified and expressed his concern: "Maybe when artificial intelligence repair is fully popularized, we will also face the survival of the fittest, and practitioners must continue to improve themselves."
From the perspective of practitioners, automation can solve 60% of the things to be repaired, and the remaining 40% cannot be solved, because the bottleneck of automation is that it can only identify some inherent things, and content outside the algorithm can only be manually operated. Therefore, as far as current technology is concerned, talents for film restoration are still in large demand.
Chen Xinxin emphasized: "The most important thing for a film restorer is to be patient and able to settle down to repair. Film repair is not a purely technical job. What should be repaired and what should not be repaired, and to what extent is required. I have a certain understanding of film and aesthetics, otherwise I can't do it."
"The current shortcomings of talents are stressful. Demands increase in a short period of time, and talent training requires a certain cycle, so contradictions arise. But as long as the industry itself has market demand and considerable benefits, the shortcomings of talents are still Will gradually be compensated." Wei Pengju said.
