It doesn't seem like you've tried to improve on the original, but restore the film to its original level of quality.Ĭrisp: I don't think restoration is about modernizing a film, or altering a film to make it more compatible with what current audience tastes may be. some of the low-level hiss in the original audio has been retained. And of course, that six-track was the source for the audio on the DVD, which is a fairly accurate representation of what the theatrical experience was.ĭOc: It looks like you preserved some of the flecks that might have been in the negative. Because it had never been released that way, in 35mm six-track. So this allowed us to re-release it in 35mm, its original anamorphic scope format, for the first time in six-track stereo. Also, it was released in its original six-track stereo format only in a few limited-release 70mm blow-up prints. You lose the overture, and the intermission, and the exit music they never intentionally cut anything else out of the film. Shortly after its release, they cut it down so it would play without an intermission. In this particular case, it's been released in theatres and on DVD.Ĭrisp: It hadn't been seen in its original format since it was released. And if they release it on video or DVD or whatever, then that's great, and if they release it in theatres, that's great. Any time you hear that a film has been restored by Sony Pictures it means that the film has been restored. And we decided at that time to do a really complete restoration of the film, and fix it up as best we could.ĭOc: And this was restored on film as the archival medium?Ĭrisp: Yes. And though that print had not been made from the original negative, in going back to square one and seeing what we had, that's what we discovered. And when we pulled out the original negative to have it evaluated, we discovered that it was really in quite poor shape. So we decided to take a step back and take a look at what we had on the film. But there were also a few other problems that we were noticing with that print. So I went down and took a look at it, and it was out of synch by a lot, by a wide margin, which was pretty shocking. She looked at it and sent it back, and said, 'it's out of synch in a couple places.' That can happen at any lab, when they're threading it up separately and trying to run the picture and the track. In this particular case, what initiated it is that the studio made a print for Barbra Streisand, at her request. We take this on a title by title basis, and we'll slowly but surely go through the entire library. we have an overall program to evaluate and analyze the library, to preserve it and decide if we need to restore it. I have been in this current role, working in the area of restoration and preservation of the feature film library, for most of the last decade.ĭOc: What made Funny Girl a candidate for restoration?Ĭrisp: There are any number of ways that we work on a film, any number of reasons that can instigate work like this. when it was still Columbia Pictures Entertainment, and owned by Coca-Cola at that time. Our conversation has been edited for continuity and clarity.ĭOc: Tell us about your background at Sony Pictures.Ĭrisp: I've been working here since the early eighties. Ĭrisp has also overseen the restoration of such classics as Easy Rider and Shampoo. By Dale Dobson Grover Crisp, in his capacity as Vice President of Asset Management and Film Restoration at Sony Pictures, recently spent some time discussing the studio's restoration of Funny Girl, currently playing in limited theatrical engagements with a DVD release on.
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