On October 5th, the first black-and-white-to-color 4K restoration feature film "The Eternal Electric Wave", jointly completed by the CCTV 5G New Media Platform and the China Film Archive, was screened in Shenzhen.
When it comes to "The Eternal Wave", perhaps most readers are not unfamiliar. This classic spy film released in 1958, written by Lin Jin, directed by Wang Ping, starring Sun Daolin and Yuan Xia, is based on the deeds of martyr Li Bai and tells the story of Li Xia, a member of the Communist Party of China, lurking in enemy-occupied areas and dedicating his life to the cause of revolution.
When he starred in the film, Sun Daolin was 37 years old. When his li xia, played after 63 years, reappeared in front of the audience with a clear and vivid color image, and once again said the classic line "Comrades, farewell, I miss you", who can not wet their eyes.
Why fix The Eternal Wave?
The CCTV 5G new media platform and the China Film Archive formed a project restoration team to combine China's human-computer interactive AI coloring technology with independent intellectual property rights with traditional restoration techniques, and repaired the 165,000 frames of black and white images of the original film frame by frame for more than 7 months, making this red classic full of new vitality and becoming a vivid teaching material for party history study education and patriotism education.
According to the leader of the project restoration team, the restoration of classic films is generally divided into three stages: physical restoration, digital restoration and artistic restoration. Black-and-white films like "Eternal Waves" need to be completed after the first three stages are completed, and then the black-and-white images are converted into color images through AI and artificial coloring technology.
Among them, digital restoration is to digitize the film. This is the largest stage of the entire restoration process, which requires great patience to use 4K digital restoration technology to deal with mold, color loss, image jitter, scratches, flicker, noise, discoloration, blur and other problems frame by frame after digital scanning of the film.
Usually, each film restorer repairs about 6,000 frames a day. The repair time of a frame can be as short as a few seconds, as long as several hours or even several days. "The Eternal Wave" is 117 minutes long, the whole film has 165,000 frames, and the project restoration team has hundreds of people before and after, and the repair took 7 months to complete.
The soul of film restoration is artistic restoration. The head of the project restoration team said that the highest principle of film restoration is "repairing the old as old", which is more important than using modern technology to turn classic films into "new films" and keeping the texture of the original film. If you want to do this, you have to find out how it felt when you first shot it.
After the preliminary restoration work is completed, it is time for the most critical coloring process. In order to do a good job in this restoration, the restoration team combined the human-machine interactive AI coloring with traditional restoration techniques with independent intellectual property rights in China, and repaired and colored the original black and white images of the film frame by frame, injecting fresh vitality into this red classic.
AI coloring mainly relies on the AI database to complete, through the training of tens of millions of pictures in the early stage of the neural network, the color generated by AI has been relatively close to the original color. But because AI coloring technology is determined by the amount of data of the elements in the image, when the amount of data is small, there will be color deviation after coloring. This requires manual modification.
However, the color can not be randomly messed up, must be rigorously examined. The location of the live-action shooting in the film is relatively easy to restore. For example, the color of attractions such as the Peace Hotel and Yan'an Pagoda can be solved by finding color films of the same era.
Interior details require a lot of effort. The head of the project restoration team recalled that there was a vase in the peace hotel scene that appeared in the film, and the black and white images could not tell whether it was blue flowers or enamel colors, so they had to be inspected on the spot.
In order to make the color matching of the visual elements such as costumes, props, and old Shanghai street scenes appearing in the film accurate, the restorers search for experts in the field of costumes, literature and history, and collect massive pictures and historical materials for reference. Frame by frame comparison, little by little adjustment, only to hand over this answer sheet that satisfies the discerning fan group.
Audience experience "Red Classic + Digital Technology"
This year is an important node in the centenary of the founding of the party, as the first film in New China to tell the hero of the party's hidden front, "The Eternal Radio Wave" has set a model for the creation of later domestic spy war films.
The film integrates the thrilling revolutionary struggle into ordinary family life, shaping the image of Li Xia, an optimistic and resolute Communist Party member who is not afraid of danger and has the courage to dedicate, and has influenced generations of Chinese.
As the actor Lin Yongjian elaborated at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Film Festival, "The Eternal Electric Wave" is a "people's film" masterpiece that combines film art with new life and new characters. Such a classic film depicting outstanding Communist Party members deserves to be re-screened on the big screen, and it is worth being understood and familiarized by more audiences.
Previously, the film has been held in many places across the country. It will also be released on October 6 in major cinemas across the country. This will be the first black-and-white classic feature film to be re-screened in theaters after 4K color restoration, and the audience can experience the unique charm of "red classic + digital technology" on the big screen.
[Reporter] Dai Xiaoxiao
【Author】 Dai Xiaoxiao
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client
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