Film Preservation

Fanchon the Cricket (1915) was restored through a unique partnership between the Pickford Foundation and the Cinematheque Francaise who held a nitrate dupe of the film. An incomplete nitrate print was preserved at the British Film Institute and, with their cooperation, L’ Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory in Italy photochemically and digitally restored the film, using the highest quality available elements, scanning the film onto 4K high definition. The missing English intertitles were reconstructed by translating from the French on the dupe negative. The Mary Pickford Foundation commissioned a new score by Julian Ducatenzeiler and Andy Gladbach. Digital mastering was completed at Roundabout Entertainment in Los Angeles. The restored film elements are housed at the Library of Congress and in the MPF collection at UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Packard Center in Santa Clarita. The French version is housed at the Cinematheque Francaise’.

The Restoration of Johanna Enlists by The Library of Congress

By 1948, when the Department of Agriculture Film Lab copied the nitrate elements on Johanna Enlists for The Library of Congress, the original negative had already decomposed and the first half of reel three was already missing from the sole surviving nitrate print. There was not much of a concept of “film preservation” at that time; the lab used 16mm film for the copies. In our research, we found that all the existing material on Johanna Enlists comes from that 1948 copy: even the 35mm material, which is a blow-up of the 16mm. And while the film has been available to view for many years, parts of it were copied in “tinting order,” meaning all the shots to be tinted blue, for night scenes, and all the shots tinted amber, for interiors, were spliced together and were placed in proper order later when the prints were made in a process called “positive assembly.” This rendered certain parts of the story unintelligible. The Library’s reconstruction team not only placed all the scenes in their correct order, but also was able to ascertain the tinting for the entire film and has restored that as well.

Next, it was noticed that most, if not all the intertitles had been poorly copied. The titles all feature a very decorative border and, in most cases, that border had been cut off in the copying process. Several members of the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center took the best copy of each of the borders and
created new, clean versions with no text. Then, every title card was digitally cleaned up, recomposed with the new border and a slight bit of movement added to match the rest of the film.

The biggest issue facing the team was the missing portion of reel three. A complete continuity script, which showed exactly how the film was edited together, existed and a storyline for the missing section was constructed. Assistance from the Margaret Herrick Library was invaluable in this process. A large group of stills from the missing section was located, thanks to collector Todd Terpening, and a script was worked out. It was felt that reconstructed section needed to continue the light- hearted feeling of the film and keep things moving, so motion was added to some of the stills and vignetting of the characters when they spoke.

It was a great thrill to see the final project for the first time and we are proud to have been able to bring William Desmond Taylor and Mary Pickford’s film back to life.

The Mary Pickford Foundation and the Paramount Film Archive partnered to access all elements available in the Pickford collections both at the UCLA Film & Television Archive and at the Library of Congress. Even though the archives were shut down during the pandemic, all parties cooperated to send the film elements to Paramount so they could be scanned in 4K resolution and commence work on the restoration.

The two primary elements used in this restoration were a 1967 35mm B&W Dupe Negative and an incomplete 1925 35mm Tinted Print. Scans from the Dupe Negative were used for the majority of the feature, and all surviving material from the print was inserted where possible. New inter-titles were digitally recreated for the Dupe Negative to match the feel and length of the Print, as the cards in the Negative were static and much longer than originally intended. The tinting scheme of the Print was used for all evening sequences: amber for night interiors and blue for night exteriors, with the rest of the feature B&W for all daytime sequences. Lastly, all the most egregious damage was digitally repaired, the film’s printed-in jitter was stabilized, and the film’s frame-rate was digitally varisped to 19fps, mirroring a more natural, hand-cranked projection speed suitable for 1918, the year of the film’s release.

Written by Jeff McCarty/Paramount Film Archive

Little Annie Rooney: (1925) The process of restoring and scoring Little Annie Rooney took several years. The original tinted nitrate print in Mary Pickford’s personal collection at the Library of Congress, made from the camera negative in 1925, was brought to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences archive in Los Angeles. The Academy Film Archive preserved the film photochemically, creating new 35mm preservation duplicate negatives and tinted prints. All photochemical work was completed at YCM Laboratory.

The preservation master was then scanned at 4K resolution so that the MPF, in cooperation with AMPAS, could create a digital version, evaluating the film frame by frame, removing dirt and other signs of deterioration to perfectly match the original nitrate tints and tones.

Then, through the MPF Composition Program at Pepperdine University, an extremely gifted young composer, Andy Gladbach, was chosen to create a new sound track for the film. Mentored by professionals, Gladbach was joined by a 16 piece orchestra that included three percussionists, as well as a conductor and engineers, to record his original music. The film was digitally mastered at Modern VideoFilm. The end result combines and showcases the finest work of artists, craftspeople and musicians from this century and from 1925. The restored film elements are housed at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Film Archive.

Restoring The Love Light

At its inaugural Festival of Preservation in 1988, the UCLA Film & Television Archive premiered their photochemical restoration of Mary Pickford’s The Love Light, which had been undertaken with funding provided by the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. The film had not been seen in its entirety for many years and parts of the original negatives had disintegrated. As was a common practice in making silent films, each scene was photographed with two cameras simultaneously, thusly creating separate original negatives for the domestic and foreign release markets. The restoration was produced by combining portions of the original American and European release negatives, and in the process, returning the film to its original eight-reel configuration. Due to their superior quality, the original nitrate picture negatives were used as much as possible, supplemented with nitrate prints and safety duplicate negatives from the Mary Pickford Foundation Collection, and 16mm material from the George Eastman Museum. All these different elements were matched image-wise by developing the new negative at different gammas, and by flashing (a technique used to bring out detail in darker areas of an image) where necessary by Film Technology Company, Inc. and YCM Laboratories. Several reels of the foreign version negative underwent a re-dimensioning process before printing to improve steadiness. Not only were new prints made for screening, but a preservation fine grain master positive was also created for preservation protection.

In 2021, 100 years after the release of The Love Light, the UCLA Film & Television Archive partnered with the Mary Pickford Foundation to scan this preservation element in 4K as the basis for the current digital restoration. With an eye to mastering the film as closely as possible to its original form, Film Historian, David Pierce and Film Preservation Specialist, Jere Guldin were consulted on the tints, which were recreated using tinting standards of the day. Notes from Preservation Officer, Robert Gitt from 1988 indicated that a sunset scene was to be tinted pink and it was subsequently determined that other sunset and sunrise scenes should also follow this pattern. Without any other tinting reference, the team carefully looked through the film, and decided that night scenes had been filmed day-for-night to simulate evening exterior settings, and therefore should be tinted blue to represent nighttime. Since many of Mary Pickford’s silent films have a coinciding evening interior amber tint, that scheme was adopted for the third tint for the film. After the preservation elements were scanned in 4K high definition at UCLA, all work—including DRS, color grading, tinting, and vari-speeding (used to recreate the original natural speed of the film) were completed at Roundabout Entertainment working closely with Vice President of Mastering, Vincent Pirrozzi, and colorist Gregg Garvin. Thanks to these efforts, this newly restored version of The Love Light has been returned to the original beauty of its initial 1921 release presentation.

Sparrows was reconstructed by the Library of Congress from the best quality film elements, a 35MM nitrate print and a 35MM safety dupe negative. Additional lab work was performed by Colorlab.

The Mary Pickford Foundation scanned the preservation elements in 4K, and worked closely with Roundabout Entertainment, Inc. to complete all digital work, addressing imperfections to ensure that Sparrows is presented in its best possible form for a modern audience. Since this film is known for its stunning visuals, we worked hard to ensure that audiences today can enjoy it in all its splendor.

The Mary Pickford Company commissioned a new, original, orchestral score by the Graves Brothers, which was produced and recorded at the Savannah Studios in Los Angeles.