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| Post Logic Studios Restores One-of-a-Kind Scientific Films for National Archive |
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June 25, 2009
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The films themselves are sometimes spectacular, especially for their vintage.
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A still from one of the microcinematography efforts
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Maybe you saw them in a kid at school—time lapse color microcinema footage of biological processes like plants growing and flowers blooming, shot from 1967 to the mid-1970s with $20 million from the National Science Foundation, part of the nation’s science education race against the Soviet Union.
Post Logic Studios, a Hollywood-based division of Prime Focus Group, is now completing restoration of more than 80 one-of-a-kind short films developed by world-renowned scientists.
They were originally intended to be archived at the Library of Congress, and are even
listed in the catalog, but were never delivered after the NSF funds became
depleted.
Ranging from three to 20 minutes, the films were shot in the late sixties by a team led by British natural history filmmaker Joseph V. Durden, and produced under the direction of
some of the world's leading scientific experts, many of whom are now
deceased.
One film provides view of Nobel Laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, who turned 100 this year, and her pioneering work with nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein substance that attracts
regenerating nerve cells. Another depicts the live meeting of sperm and egg
in ferns, exemplifying plant sexuality. One 14-minute film narrated by
Durden displays all six developmental stages of the population explosion
potential of a flatworm, Cryptocotyle lingua, which is similar to a
parasite that causes liver fluke disease in humans, and is invaluable to
researchers and students of parasitology.
Evolutionist and distinguished University of Massachusetts professor Lynn
Margulis has been using a selection of the EDC films each semester since
she first began her Environmental Evolution course at Boston University in
1972. The prints eventually became faded and discolored, and were retired
to the non-book section at the Smith College library, while the film
masters, thought to be lost, languished in a Massachusetts warehouse.
"These films are timeless national treasures, and even with funding
equivalent to 100 times the original National Science Foundation grant they
could not be recreated," Margulis commented. "Evolution is a slow process,
and the cells and tissue interactions of organisms do not change, even over
millennia. I consider the restoration of these films for delivery to the
Library of Congress to be my most important contribution to the world of
science."
Working on a Spirit DataCine film scanner, Post Logic colorist Alex Berman
cleaned and digitized the 16mm films, painstakingly balancing the black,
white and mid-range tones to achieve the final look of the source material.
"The important thing was to maintain the integrity of the original prints,"
he said. "We wanted to make these films a pleasure to view without
changing any of the natural coloration. The goal was to push a little more light through so everything looks vibrant and sharp. The Spirit captures so
much detail, which is great because it really highlights the features of
the cells-the particles inside are nice and clear."
"The biggest challenge working with these microscopic images was the lack
of any external references," Berman said. "If you see a car, you know
that the tire should be black, but there are no visual references like that
for a cell. This makes it much more difficult to know for certain that the
colors have been balanced correctly."
MORE INFO:
Post Logic Studios www.postlogic.com
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