Behind the Masters: The Unsung Art of Film Restoration and Disc Mastering

BEHIND THE SCENES OF MASTERING - THE UNSUNG ART OF FILM RESTORATION AND DISC MASTERING 

When it comes to physical media, most of us focus on the packaging, the transfer, or the extras, but few stop to think about how it all comes together. In this months interviews we speak with  David Mackenzie and Clayton Baker, who runs Fidelity in Motion,  and Head of Operations at  Film Finity,  these gents are some of the most respected names in disc mastering today.  Between them they have worked on everything from Blade Runner and the Wizard of Oz to obscure British comedies and 16mm Paddington Bear reels.  

Their work defines how we experience the classics and ensure that these films can be appreciated for generations to come 

Firstly we speak to David  McKenzie who has worked on countless releases for labels loved by collectors and cinephiles alike, helping shape the viewing experience from the inside out. We caught up with David to discuss the nuts and bolts of mastering and the challenges of UHD, and of course what keeps physical media alive and so exciting. 

GENERAL BACKGROUND 

Q1. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you first got into disc mastering? 

My love of film and display technology goes back to when I was little. My dad had this high-end VCR (Mitsubishi HS-B82 if you want to look it up), which was a Super VHS machine with early digital processing. It must have been aimed at videographers since it was semi-professional and had a fold-down front panel with a bunch of different dials on it, and one of those amber-green LED audio level indicators that were all the rage in the '80s. At that age, you're obsessed with cause and effect, so I'd adjust the controls and try and see or hear what they did. Some were obvious, like adjusting the tracking, or isolating one of the audio channels, others less so. 
 
When the transition from analogue to digital displays (CRT to flat panel) was happening, I had a video capture card in my computer, and I learned how to digitise VHS tapes and off-air analogue TV. Capturing SD video losslessly (meaning a perfect capture of the source without visual loss) resulted in huge file sizes that filled up the hard disks in use at the time, which is what led me to start playing with software MPEG encoders to reduce the file size. Some of the encoders were much better than others and produced visually different results. 
 
This was around the time that the first or second gen of DVDs was appearing. On most interlaced consumer CRT TVs at the time, it was difficult to tell a decently encoded DVD apart from a really good one, because the thick scanline structure from the picture tube masked a lot. But on a high quality progressive computer CRT monitor, you could tell the difference. This was an early sign of what was to come: extremely high quality digital flat panel displays that reveal every pixel of the source. In this environment, the upstream mastering processes make a huge difference to the quality of the end result. 

Q2. For those who might not know, what exactly does “disc mastering” involve, especially at the level you work at? 

It involves taking a variety of different sources and producing a complete disc out of them, and laying things out so they technically comply with the format requirements (Blu-ray, UHD Blu-ray, and even still the occasional DVD). Some of these elements exist already, like the feature master, audio tracks, commentaries, subtitles, bonus features, still galleries, others need to be created, like menus, chapter markers, and so on. And sometimes, masters will need some fixes applied. 

The most interesting and critical part is the video compression, which reduces the master file size down to something that will fit on a mass-producable disc, and describes the video in a way that the player can understand. Without this stage, you would, in theory, need a high-spec server in your living room connected to your TV in order to enjoy a film (and you'd need to slot expensive and fragile hard disk drives into it). 

Video compression reduces the file size by approximating data both within the frame ("that block of blue sky here looks pretty similar to the one on the other side of the frame, copy it and change it up a little") and across frames ("the blue sky doesn't change much over time"). This is the most critical stage of the process for determining quality, and is the reason why the same film, made from the same master, can look quite different across different releases, especially if the master has a high amount of texture detail such as film grain. A lot of image data is being approximated by the encoder and re-built by the decoder in the player.  

Authoring is the process where the various different assets (encoded video, audio, subtitle tracks and so on) are assembled together. User interface features like chapter markers and menus are added, and code is attached to different points of the disc ("play the opening logo when the disc is inserted, turn on the subtitles when the Subtitles On button is chosen"). 

THE CRAFT 

Q3.  What are some of the most technically complex challenges you face when assembling a release? 
 
As the film scanning technology improved, the amount of data reduction required to fit a film on a disc grew. The quality of today's Blu-ray Discs is much higher than the people who originally designed the format in the early 2000s would have imagined. Fine-tuning the downscaling of a 4K film scan from the original camera negative to look its best on an HD Blu-ray Disc is fairly complex. UHD Blu-ray has its own challenges too. 
 
The most complex challenge from a mastering perspective is titles that use seamless branching (where multiple versions of a film are stored on the disc by repeating only the differences, to maximise quality). There are strict requirements that have to be adhered to, to ensure that the player really can play through the entire thing without pausing between the different segments and, the physical location of the content on the disc matters. For example, if one version of a film has an extra inserted scene that has to be skipped in one version, it might be possible to make that jump if it occurs closer to the centre of the disc versus the outer edge, because of the exact mechanics of how the disc spins in the player. Branching titles often involve a lot of trial and error. 

 
Subtitles, commentaries, branching,  these things often seem invisible unless they go wrong. What part of the process do you think deserves more credit? 
 
Hard to answer this one - all of the upstream processes deserve credit! 

Q4.  How do you approach preserving the filmmaker’s intent when putting together a disc, especially for older or restored films? 
 
On this end, we've made sure that things like brightness levels and colours don't change when encoded for disc. The video compression process involves dropping small details that the eye can't easily see and approximating others, but the overall look of the film should not significantly change when compared to the master. The data reduction step has to be carefully checked on the output side to make sure no distracting artefacts appear, and if they're unavoidable (as they sometimes are), they have to be kept to a minimum. 
 
The biggest risk factor for the filmmakers' intent being destroyed is actually at the final point of delivery: in the TV. It's kind of heartbreaking for various reasons, because the people doing restoration and colour grading work put a lot of care into their craft, just as we do in maintaining as much of that quality as possible for final delivery on disc, but the unfortunate fact is that 99% of people out there will be watching using their TV's default settings, which wreck the picture by doing things like tinting it blue, adding sharpening, manipulating the contrast, noise reduction (which was originally designed to reduce noise in weak TV broadcasts, but now blurs out textures like film grain), and so on.  
 
Most people are aware of damaging in-TV features like motion smoothing (to the extent that it became a meme), but are less aware of the various other things that have to be sidestepped. And there are so many confusingly named options in the TV menus that make it difficult for the user to know which one to pick. There have been steps to address this, including branded modes like Filmmaker Mode. But the user still has to manually find it inside a sea of menu options and select it. 
 
There's also the issue that, after years of watching distorted blue-tinted TV, for a typical user, seeing the correct colours as intended by the filmmakers can look strange at first, so they need to be advised to stick with it. 
 
These days, there are amazing TVs on the market, and when fed with a high quality BD or UHD BD, they can produce a picture that's extremely close to what we see in the studio. But it all falls apart at the point of delivery, unless the TV has been instructed not to mess around with the picture. 

Q5.  How has UHD/Blu-ray technology evolved in recent years, and how has that changed the way you work? 
 
The original BD format, by its nature, is the same as it was when it was designed in the early 2000s, which makes it all the more amazing. It was an amazingly future-proofed design that can be made to produce quality that its inventors probably couldn't have imagined.  
 
And of course, the format was extended in the early 2010s to add support for UHD resolution and High Dynamic Range. This was the biggest change, as we went from having ~40mbps video on a 50gb disc to having ~100mbps video on a 66gb or 100gb disc; that is to say, UHD video needs all the breathing room it can get. In terms of planning out a release, bit-budgeting a UHD title is closer to how it was in the DVD days. It also takes far longer to compress at optimum quality and involves more trial and error. 

THE STATE OF PHYSICAL MEDIA 

Q6  In a streaming dominated world, what keeps physical media exciting for you — and what do you think its future looks like? 
 
The exciting part of physical media is that when it's done correctly, you can own an extremely close approximation of the original studio master - on a 12cm disc you can place on a bookshelf. That idea was impossible before Blu-ray came along. And, the data that's on your copy is the same as the data we prepared here at FiM. In a streaming environment, there are various different automatically encoded versions produced on the streamer's side, and it's hard to say which one you're getting at any one time: it might change depending on your internet speed, network conditions when you're viewing, which device you're using to access, etc. 
 
If you were to sit close to a large display and switch between the unwieldy, large, high bandwidth original master and the version encoded for disc, if it's been done correctly, the difference is slight. I have a warped perception of this stuff because that process of sitting close to a big screen and A-Bing the source and the encode is literally what I do all day, so I only see the parts that we couldn't reproduce, but looking at the bigger picture, it's amazing how close the home experience can be to the studio. We've never had it as good as we have it now.  
 
As for the future of physical media, I imagine it'll look fairly close to how it does now. In terms of market trends, people forget that DVD, which pleased movie lovers and casual viewers alike, was a one-off. We're back to a more typical market now, where there's a mass-market product (which used to be renting a VHS from Blockbuster, and is now renting from a streaming service), and an enthusiast product (which used to be LaserDisc and is now BD/UHD BD). And just as in the LD days, we're seeing studios license their product out to dedicated physical media labels, while they concentrate on the mass market. 

 Q7.  Is there a Release that you are especially proud of? 
 
There are so many. FiM is very lucky to be working with such top-notch labels and studios - far more than are listed on our web site, which is due for an update - so I get to work on some great releases.  

 
JUST FOR FUN 

Q8. What’s a feature or extra you’d love to see included on a disc that rarely gets done? 
 
Video commentaries. In the early days of BD, I was pushing for this more, because at least in my mind, it would be interesting to see the filmmaker talk instead of just hear them. But perhaps it wouldn't be so interesting over an entire feature-length film. I guess we won't really know, because it's done so rarely, to the extent that the feature was dropped from the UHD format (the second video decoder is instead sometimes used for one of the Dolby Vision modes). 
 
On that same theme, more visual features. People forget that the subtitle tracks on a Blu-ray Disc are actually Presentation Graphics tracks. You can put any 256-colour image you like in there, so that feature can be used to overlay storyboard graphics (see Umbrella Entertainment's release of HARDWARE for an example of that), timed behind the scenes images, and so on. In reality, Presentation Graphics tracks are just used to display white subtitles with a black border, 99% of the time. 

Whether you're popping in a Blu-ray to enjoy a pristine restoration or navigating a labyrinth of extras on a loaded special edition, chances are you've experienced Fidelity in Motion's handiwork. 

Huge thanks to David for taking the time to pull back the curtain. For collectors, film fans, and tech obsessives alike, his insights offer a rare look into one of the industry’s most essential, and often unsung roles! 

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Now we turn to Clayton Baker - Head of Operations, at Filmfinity.  

Clayton is a London based specialist in film scanning, digital restoration and colour grading. He has worked on  projects ranging from early British Cinema and The Hitchcock 9 to the Beatles No 1s and the award winning Band Aid Trust Documentary ' Do They Know its Christmas" 

Here he candidly shares his journey into the world of film restoration and what it really takes to save cinematic history - You are in for a treat here! 

Behind the Scenes of Film Restoration: A Journey Through Time 

 Q1. Let’s start with the basics—how did you end up working in film restoration? Was it a love of old movies, or something more hands-on that pulled you in? 

Haha, OK, we’re going to have to go way back to my childhood for this one! 

I grew up in the 80s in Romford, Essex, where my parents owned a corner shop. Half the shop sold newspapers, magazines, and sweets, while the other half was a VHS rental haven - complete with a couple of arcade machines. We lived in the same building, so I could literally step from our living room into a world of movies and games. 

Saturdays were the best. I’d borrow the keys to the coin boxes of the arcade machines, recycle the coins while playing endless rounds of Street Fighter and OutRun, grab a bag of sweets, and pick a movie to watch. 

Fast-forward to the late 90s: after school, I drifted through jobs I didn’t really enjoy - flat roofing was one of them - before landing a junior role as a Video Tape Operator at MTV Europe in Camden Town. I spent a decade in broadcasting, but eventually craved another change. That led me to Deluxe Digital London, where I discovered film scanning, restoration, and eventually, colour grading 

Q2  Do you remember the very first film you restored? What was that experience like - more thrill or sheer panic? 

Some of my earliest projects at Deluxe were titles from the Adelphi Films collection - Penny Points to Paradise and Miss Tulip Stays the Night. They were wonderful classics but required a lot of cleanup, which was both thrilling and nerve-wracking. 

We also restored The Wizard of Oz in 4K. Sounds magical, right? Well, let’s just say the technology we had at the time wasn’t quite fast enough for those massive files. Two teams worked around the clock for months, with painfully slow playback. That one felt less “thrill” and more “endurance test.” 

A standout early project was The Great White Silence (1924), a British silent documentary filmed during Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition. This was a collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI), and it was one of the most challenging projects of its time. Restoring endless backdrops of white snow while preserving subtle details took well-trained eyes and a lot of patience. But it was worth it - the restored film looked breathtaking and even won Best Archive Restoration Title at the 2011 FOCAL International Awards. 

Q2  For those of us who’ve never seen a film print in real life, what sort of condition are these reels usually in when they reach you? Be honest - are we talking dust, mould, total chaos? 

It really depends... Thankfully, many of our regular clients are perfectionists who go the extra mile to source original negatives whenever possible. About half the titles we work on are from well-preserved negatives, which need a medium level of restoration - challenging, yes, but not total chaos! 

The other half? Lower-generation copies, heavily worn prints, reels with scratches, mould, or fading. Those require serious dedication - and sometimes a few clever tricks up our sleeves - to bring them back to life. 

Q3. What’s the actual process like? Is it still very hands-on, or is it all computers and software now? 

It’s a blend of both. Before anything goes digital, we do a lot of careful physical prep work - cleaning, inspecting, and repairing the reels. We use a Cinetec film cleaning machine for surface dirt, but for fragile reels or stubborn stains, our technicians still rely on gentle hand-cleaning methods. 

Once scanned, the real magic happens in the digital realm - but you’d be surprised how much manual skill is still involved. 

Q4. When you’re working on a film, how do you know when to stop? Do you ever worry about polishing it too much and losing what made it special? 

Absolutely. We’re film fanatics ourselves, so we never want to “over-restore” a film. Over-processing can strip away the grain and texture that give a film its character. Our goal is always to respect the filmmaker’s original vision, enhancing the image without erasing its soul. 

Q5.  Do you see yourself more as a technician, an artist, or somewhere in between? 

I’m definitely somewhere in between! I manage a small team, but I’m also very hands-on. When I’m scanning or restoring, I feel more like a technician. But when I’m colourising black-and-white films or grading, that’s where the artistic side really comes in. 

Q6. How much detective work is involved? Are you ever hunting down missing scenes or trying to match audio to badly damaged footage? 

Oh, plenty of detective work! We often help clients choose the best surviving elements from vault inventories. Sometimes, entire scenes or reels are missing, which means sifting through countless reels to find the right material. 

Matching damaged visuals to audio - especially when sections are missing - is one of the toughest challenges. It’s like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces are lost 

TOOLS OF THE TRADE 

Q7. What sort of tools or tech do you rely on now? Are things like AI making their way into restoration, or is that still more hype than help? 

For scanning, we use a 6K Arriscan and a 6.5K LaserGraphics ScanStation - both excellent for producing high-quality images while being gentle on delicate archive material. 

For digital restoration, we rely on Filmworkz Phoenix, Diamant Restoration Suite, and DRS Nova. Each has its strengths, so we pick the best tool for the job. 

AI has definitely entered the scene. Diamant now has DeepDust for AI-driven dirt removal, DeepInpaint to fill missing or damaged areas, and DeepNoise for fast noise suppression. DRS Nova has MTai FrameGen for repairing jump cuts and missing frames, plus AI motion estimation for smoother stabilisation. 

We’ve also been using Viva Pro, Algosoft’s AI-powered software, for over three years. It’s fantastic for cleaning up heavily damaged footage - removing scratches, flicker, mould, and stains - and has saved countless hours of manual work on projects that might otherwise have been impossible. 

But AI isn’t a magic button. It still requires operator finesse, fine-tuning, and manual intervention. It’s a tool, not a replacement for skilled restoration. 

 Q8. Do you still use photochemical methods at all, or is it all digital these days? 

We do as much physical repair as possible to stabilise and clean the reels before scanning, but photochemical restoration alone can’t achieve what digital can. So, it’s a hybrid approach - physical prep, then digital finesse. 

Q9. Has there been a restoration project that really tested you - something that felt impossible at first? 

Oh, many! One that stands out was restoring the Paddington Bear 16mm film elements for Blu-ray release. Fabulous Films tracked down prints from archives and collectors worldwide. Many episodes were so heavily worn, scratched, and grainy that we really had to think hard about taking it on. 

It took multiple approaches and endless patience, but in the end, it was deeply rewarding. Everyone was thrilled with the final result. (Here’s a promo clip: Watch here) 

Q10. And on the flip side, is there one you’re especially proud of, where the result still gives you a buzz? 

Definitely the Band Aid Trust documentary Do They Know It’s Christmas? for the BBC. 

Last year, we digitised 14 hours of 16mm film and magnetic sound recordings from the historic day in 1984 when Bob Geldof and Midge Ure brought together some of the UK’s biggest stars - Bono, George Michael, Boy George, Phil Collins, and more - to record the iconic charity single. 

Bob Geldof even visited us personally to review the restoration work, which was a real honour. The project went on to win Best Archive Restoration Project/Title at the FOCAL Awards last month - a moment of huge pride for the whole Filmfinity team. 

The 75-minute documentary The Making of Do They Know It’s Christmas?—featuring never-before-seen footage—is still available to watch on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer. Seeing this footage, much of it never seen before, come back to life after 40 years was incredible. It felt like uncovering a lost piece of music history. 

Q11. Why do you think restoration matters? Is it about preserving history, keeping these films alive for new audiences, or something else entirely? 

All of the above. Films and TV shows are part of our cultural history. They’re the legacy of the people who made them, and they deserve to be preserved, cherished, and shared with future generations. 

Q12. If someone says, “Why not just leave the film the way it was?” - what’s your response? 

A little dirt and grain? Fine. That’s part of the film’s texture. But when damage and degradation become so severe that it distracts from the story - or completely erases what the filmmaker intended - then it’s a problem. 

Why watch a completely red-dye-faded film when you could see it as it was meant to look? Or suffer through a shaky, unstable print when it could be stabilised and preserved? Damage won’t fix itself - if you don’t scan and restore now, it might be lost forever.