People's Army Cinema preserves heritage in the digital age

In the era of smooth digital film, the People's Army Cinema is still the only unit in Vietnam that still maintains the ability to shoot and develop film itself - a manual art that was thought to be a thing of the past.

Images in the movie "Because They Are Soldiers" produced by People's Army Cinema in 2024 won many prestigious awards.

In the strong flow of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, when the phrase "Digitalization" becomes an inevitable trend in all industries and fields, the People's Army Cinema faces a challenging dual mission: both preserving the priceless treasure of historical documents and pioneering the application of technology to adapt to the digital age.

General Phan Van Giang, Minister of National Defense, visited the People's Army Cinema Archives.

The Archives is considered the "heart" of the People's Army Cinema. It is preserving a huge heritage: more than 1,000 celluloid films, 262 video and digital films, and hundreds of thousands of meters of valuable documentary films about President Ho Chi Minh, the leaders of the Party, State, army and the great resistance wars of the nation.

Image from the film "Research on technology application in fire fighting", Golden Lotus Award 2023, Science Film category.

Each film is a vivid "historical witness", truly reflecting the social atmosphere, the ideology of great solidarity and national independence during the years of war and national construction. Many of these documents were exchanged for the lives of martyrs and soldiers, becoming invaluable spiritual assets for generations of Vietnamese people.

Preserving this huge volume of data stored on various media such as film, tape, VCD, DVD, and hard drives, has always been a major challenge.

Over time, these film materials inevitably age, deform, and mold due to environmental impact, leading to reduced quality or even irreversible damage.

Images during the filming of the feature film "Red Rain".

To address this challenge, the People's Army Cinema has continuously improved traditional preservation methods and boldly applied modern technology. The data warehouse has invested in advanced facilities, with a strict temperature control system (9-10 degrees Celsius) and humidity (30-35%) for celluloid films.

Tapes, discs, and hard drives are stored in specialized dehumidifiers. Archives staff regularly check, periodically clean, add desiccant, and perform film rotation procedures according to the schedule to promptly duplicate or digitize when necessary.

In particular, since 2010, the People's Army Cinema has begun digitizing data using a high-quality Telecine system. After digitization, the films are restored using specialized software such as Digital Vision's Phoenix Finish to remove scratches, mold, and color correction, bringing "new life" to images that have been damaged by the erosion of time.

The restored film can even be printed back into plastic format using a 2K digital format machine, ensuring the originality and historical value of the document.

People's Army Cinema has a film archive of up to tens of thousands of meters of film.

Currently, more than 70% of finished films have been digitized and stored on a dedicated SAN system, making content retrieval faster and more efficient than ever. To ensure absolute safety for rare documents, Military Cinema also applies parallel storage methods on both plastic and hard drives, creating a multi-layered protection system.

In the context of the digital age, the issue of copyright and digital data management has become more urgent than ever. Although storing on hard drives is convenient, it also poses the risk of unauthorized copying and editing.

Realizing this, the People's Army Cinema has issued Regulations on the exploitation and management of documents, creating a solid legal framework to improve the quality of management and exploitation of documents, ensuring compliance with State and Army regulations.

General Phan Van Giang visits the Traditional Room of the People's Army Cinema.

The Film Production Engineering Workshop is responsible for the management and maintenance of equipment, including the repair of specialized production equipment such as the Picot 50 optical sound printer, central air conditioning system, printing and developing system, modern plastic film cameras such as the ARRI 235, ARRI 535B and especially the film developer.

Maintaining the stability of these devices is a key factor in ensuring the quality of the output. In addition, overcoming humidity and consolidating archives, as well as making an important contribution to the long-term preservation of films.

To continuously improve capacity and keep up with the development of technology, the unit focuses on learning and transferring technology. The unit also regularly organizes forces to attend training courses on management, use and technology transfer of ARRI 535B video cameras abroad.

General Phan Van Giang visits the Film Color Correction Room at the People's Army Cinema.

In addition, the Workshop also received and transferred the technology to purchase a color light-setting machine and completed the necessary procedures to purchase a BHP 7700 RD color film printer, demonstrating a serious investment in new technology. Finally, the technical department plays an indispensable role in the unit's annual film production, directly participating in post-production, ensuring sound quality and film editing. Along with that, close coordination is needed to ensure other technical stages, from recording to data processing, to complete the product in the best way.

A "specialty" of the People's Army Cinema is the ability to develop its own film - a complex and highly technical process that most other film production units in Vietnam no longer perform. While the film world is completely shifting to digital, the fact that the People's Army Cinema still maintains this capacity creates a special advantage.

Documentary films are strictly preserved at a stable temperature of 10 degrees Celsius and are periodically checked for timely restoration.

The ability to develop its own film allows the People's Army Cinema to fully control the image quality from filming to post-production, ensuring the authenticity and artistry of the work, which is especially important for documentary cinema. This also means that the People's Army Cinema does not depend on outside units for the film processing process, helping to secure documents and optimize the production process.

This is a rare skill, requiring a team of technicians with high expertise, extensive experience and passion for the profession. They are the last workers to keep the fire burning for an art that once made a name for world cinema.

The existence of the Technical Workshop with its film coating capabilities does not contradict but also effectively complements the digitalization of the People's Army Cinema.

Thanks to this ability, precious celluloid films, once restored and digitized, can be “reprinted back” to celluloid format via the Cinevator system, ensuring that the physical original is maintained alongside the digital version. This not only helps preserve heritage in both formats, but also opens up the possibility of presenting traditional celluloid films, providing a unique experience for audiences.

In the context of the digital age, the Technical Workshop has integrated the latest technologies into the production process. From using the Telecine system to convert film to digital, to applying modern editing and restoration software, the unit's team of technicians has demonstrated their ability to adapt and master technology. They are both skilled film workers and experts in the digital field, ensuring that all materials, whether old or new, are processed with the highest quality.

The unique combination of preserving documents and being proactive in digitization has created a People's Army Cinema that is steadfast in preserving and promoting heritage values, bringing heroic historical stories closer to the public in the digital age.

In the context of "Revolution 4.0" reshaping every aspect of life, People's Army Cinema has been proving that tradition and modernity can go hand in hand and complement each other.

The values ​​they preserve are not only documents but also part of the soul of cinema. The application of digital technology is inevitable, has been and is taking place, to expand the accessibility and spread the value of the document treasure. This is a meaningful journey, contributing to enriching the cultural and historical heritage of the Vietnamese people.

THUY PHUONG

Source: https://nhandan.vn/dien-anh-quan-doi-nhan-dan-giu-gin-di-san-trong-ky-nguyen-so-post899980.html