Kodak Enhances Archival Life
Kodak has introduced an improved black-and-white separation film designed to extend the life of valuable color motion pictures. Kodak says that its Panchromatic Separation film 2238 is coated on a rugged Estar base that resists shrinkage, other physical damage, and chemical deterioration. ""We continue to advance our film design and improve our technology so our customers can better preserve the artistic integrity of their color motion pictures for future generations,"" says Richard P. Aschman, President, Kodakís Professional Motion Imaging division. ""Color motion pictures have enormous cultural value and financial potential. This development makes it possible to preserve our film heritage for the foreseeable future."" Aschman explains that it is common practice for motion picture producers to extend the life of the color films they produce by making three black-and-white copies, one for each of the three primary color records ñ red, blue and green. These separation masters can be used to make new color intermediate films that accurately replicate the subtlest details in the original images. The new black-and-white separation film is available now around the world. Alan Masson, Kodak Director of Engineering in the Hollywood region, says that the new Panchromatic Separation film also provides benefits for studios and other content owners, distributors and laboratories. It can be used for restoring color films with dye fading problems and for specialized optical special effects applications, including fine-grain separations for blue- and green-screen traveling mattes, and density cover mattes. The predicted Life Expectancy (LE) for black-and-white film on polyester base is a minimum of 500 years when it is stored at appropriate ambient conditions. ""Images stored on motion picture film (as compared to magnetic and other electronic media) have the additional benefit of being un-encoded, uncompressed, and without metadata,"" he explains. ""This makes future retrieval a much simpler matter, since it will not require use of complex equipment that will almost certainly be superseded by new designs and standards. Film remains the archival medium of choice."" For more information visit the Kodak website at www.kodak.com/go/motion.