Program item

Archiving 2025

Digitizing Motion Picture Film

SC13

CANCELLED Digitizing Motion Picture Film
Instructor: Giorgio Trumpy, NTNU
Level: Intermediate
Duration: 2 hours
Prerequisites: Basic Knowledge of Photography Technology and Color Science.
Course Time: 16:30-18:30

Benefits
This course enables the attendee to:
- Explain the main milestones in the evolution of color technology for motion picture film.
- Identify color film processes.
- Understand the functioning of film scanners.
- Choose the best image-capture approach for different color processes on film.
- Describe the limits of current film scanning technology.

Course Description
The history of color technology on film is a fascinating succession of attempts to accurately reproduce color scenes in motion that started in the late nineteenth century. Comprised of applied hand coloring, tinting and stencil coloring, and a multitude of "true" color processes such as two-color Kodachrome, Dufaycolor, and Gasparcolor, which finally reached more convincing results with Technicolor and chromogenic processes.
The accurate reproduction of this colorful heritage with digital tools requires the understanding of the optical properties of the different color processes, knowledge about the projection techniques that were used for their screening in cinemas, and information about the features and limitations of current film scanning technology.
This course provides the tools that allow attendees to make the right choices when digitizing a motion picture film.

Intended Audience: Film archive professionals, colorists, film scholars, etc.

Giorgio Trumpy is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (https://www.ntnu.edu/colourlab#/view/about) and founding member of Scan2Screen GmbH (scan2screen.com). Imaging Scientist dedicated to Cultural Heritage with solid experience in bridging the gap between art and science. Fields of expertise span from optics to spectroscopy, from colorimetry to image processing, from heritage conservation to visual arts.