Fremont, CA - October 11, 2016 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Brazilian based post production house Afinal Filmes has taken the next step in its archival documentary restoration initiatives by integrating the Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner into its workflow.

 

Afinal Filmes is known for its post work on a number of award winning documentaries, particularly for its skills in film restoration. In addition to Nelson Pereira dos Santos, its portfolio includes collaborations with renowned directors including Walter Salles, Eduardo Coutinho, João Salles, Eduardo Escorel, Miguel Faria Jr. and Silvio Da-rin. The post house counts on a streamlined restoration workflow to manage its myriad of archival footage, and the addition of Cintel was vital to its future success and growth.

 

“We had been using telecine to digitalize our films, but the quality suffered during the transfer and ideally we needed RAW files to truly correct the footage. With this knowledge, our search began for a film scanner that would deliver the quality we desired with realtime performance and of course without breaking our budget,” said Marcelo Pedrazzi, CEO at Afinal Filmes. “When Blackmagic released the Cintel, we found that it was not only a high quality scanner, but also a scanner that could work in realtime, which we had not found anywhere else. It was exactly what we were looking for.”

 

Pedrazzi explains that, because the Cintel allows him to turn projects very quickly and with a high-degree of quality, he is able to expand his projects to include high-profile digitalization opportunities. “Adding Cintel really opens the doors for working on large and influential projects. One of the first Cintel project requests we have is to digitalize some of the classics from legendary film director Nelson Pereira dos Santos for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Cintel is getting Afinal into more discussions and more opportunities.”

 

Instead of spending hours scanning, the team is now able to scan each film minute for minute in realtime. Pedrazzi adds, “Previous to Cintel, this process would have taken three times as long, as we would have to send out for the telecine, then upconvert the footage before we could even start the restoration process. With Cintel, we are literally leaping over the time consuming steps of digitalization and producing RAW files in real time with much more color information for us to work with.”

 

Afinal Filmes uses secluded rooms for each step in the film restoration process. The input room features a Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio, a Blackmagic Design DeckLink 4K Extreme and Cintel. To begin the restoration workflow, the team digitizes older footage through the Cintel, captures it through the DeckLink and sends to a Mac Pro for editing and polishing in Resolve Studio.

 

“We work with a vast amount of archived materials, and before the Cintel, I had to do much of our footage transferring in other facilities,” said Marcelo. “Now, we can do it all at Afinal Filmes in our input room. We are even contacting many archive institutions like MoMA and owners of old films so we can work with them to restore and remaster these films right inside our own facility. The Cintel is already helping our business to grow, and we can’t wait to see where the future takes us.”

 

Press Photography

Product photos of Cintel Film Scanner, DaVinci Resolve, DeckLink 4K Extreme and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

 

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.