20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has commissioned HTV illuminate Arts-Media-Entertainment to restore two of its classics for a Blu-ray release later this year: 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' and 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'', two 1965 films shot in Todd-AO (a film format that used 65mm negatives and 70mm release prints).

The movies have been scanned at 2K from 65mm interpositive source materials. By current standards, this seems a little low, especially for such a large negative. For example, Warner Brothers scanned 'The Wizard of Oz' (shot on 35mm) at 4K. So did The Film Foundation with 'The Red Shoes'; and 'A Star Is Born' has reportedly already been restored at 6K. However, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

According to the company, its proprietary deep scanning process (with an equally proprietary scanning device called the Illuminate Light Scanner) makes it possible to extract far greater detail from film elements than is possible with other restoration processes without changing their original look and character. "The original image is not modified in any way," observed HTV illuminate CEO Jim Hardy. "It has allowed us to produce great results for both recent films and for older titles such as 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' and 'Those Magnificent Men'."

According to company colorist Mark Nowicki, a major challenge with 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' were density changes throughout the movie, "associated with the leader that was used to separate scenes in the original master."

On the other hand, the film elements available from 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' were in much better condition, although it had problems with shading and other color-related aspects of the film. Additionally, film opticals made at the time looked "crude by contemporary standards", so it was decided to apply sharpening and grain reduction "to make those scenes look more acceptable to modern viewers." Hopefully the results will be subtler than those on the previous 70mm films from Fox previously released on Blu-ray.

Additionally, the restoration team performed a significant amount of wire and rig removal that simply was not possible at the time the film was made. For both films, HTV illuminate used 65mm interpositives as its source material. Before scanning the films, they were subject to rigorous analysis to identify trouble spots. Post scanning grading is done via Digital Vision's Film Master, which is also used for post-grading scratch removal and other image repair and enhancement functions.