Afinal Filmes uses a Cintel scanner to restore and master

One of Afinal Filmes’ most recent projects involved restoring ‘Como Vai, Vai Bem?’, a black and white Brazilian film from the late 1960s.

The Brazilian post-producer After All Movies has used a scanner Cintel and the DaVinci Resolve Studio program Blackmagic Design to restore more than 60 feature films and digitize almost 500 tapes, including the film How are you, are you doing well?, as well as 30 Hollywood silent films from the 1920s and 1930s.

Founded in 1998 by Marcelo Pedrazzi, Afinal Filmes has played a fundamental role since its origins in the field of film post-production and restoration in Brazil. By incorporating a Cintel scanner into the workflow in 2016, the company has improved the quality and speed with which it restores and digitizes the tapes.

One of Afinal Filmes' most recent projects consisted of restoring How are you, are you doing well?, a black and white Brazilian film from the late 1960s. The film is a comedy starring the popular actor Flávio Migliaccio, who recently passed away, and will be available through various platforms on the Internet and in movie theaters early next year. Likewise, Afinal Filmes will be in charge of the production and post-production of a documentary about the actor's life that will be released along with the film. This includes archival material from several Migliaccio feature films that have been restored with the Cintel scanner.

“As we did not have access to the original negatives of How are you, are you doing well?, the restoration process was a bit different, as we started by placing the 35mm positives in the scanner,” Pedrazzi explains. “The whole project took about five weeks, which is pretty quick.”

Stabilization

According to Pedrazzi, the Cintel scanner has proven to be very useful at Afinal Filmes, especially when it comes to perfect stabilization. "The device's automatic stabilization feature is ideal for us. Even when digitizing material at 24 f/s, the effectiveness of this tool is impressive, and it has made our job much easier."

As post-production began, once the film had been scanned, Pedrazzi and his team relied on DaVinci Resolve Studio to clean up some parts, reduce noise, remove dust and correct contrast of black and white images.

“When watching old black and white movies, such as How are you, are you doing well?, with high dynamic range, the viewer can appreciate all the details in the lightest and darkest areas of the image,” said Pedrazzi.

In addition to this project, Afinal Filmes recently received a file of more than 500 nitrate tapes recorded between 1917 and 1940, which was found on a farm on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Reviewing the material, the team discovered 30 Hollywood silent films from the 1920s and 1930s, including Sinbad the sailor, His New Mamma y The fourth alarm. In order to preserve them, Afinal Filmes used the Cintel scanner to save a digital version of them, in order to use them in the future. The company plans to be able to offer this content to museums or libraries, in order to preserve it.

In addition to the Cintel scanner and DaVinci Resolve Studio software, Afinal Filmes also uses various Blackmagic Design equipment, including several capture and playback cards. DeckLink 4K Extreme, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G y DeckLink Studio 4K; a device Blackmagic Audio Monitor 12G; monitors SmartScope Duo 4K y SmartView 4K; matrices Smart Videohub 20×20; processors Teranex; and converters Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 6G. All of these products are part of a room that the production company uses to digitize different types of materials and save the content of videotapes in high definition files.

"The Cintel scanner and the DaVinci Resolve Studio program are a fundamental part of our work dynamic at Afinal Filmes. Restoring films is always a rewarding experience, and this device greatly facilitates the process," concludes Pedrazzi.