There is absolutely no way, logistically, this kind of restoration makes sense. You can't throw bodies at it, because there aren't those bulk-repetitive tasks like dirt clean-up which comprise the most of it. And you can't sit down with a pro-colorist and just hammer the thing out even over months because it's not a "color/grading" kind of thing. It's literally where every element of every frame needs to be individually considered. In most cases, I'm pulling every single element apart and treating it independently - that means skin, lips, teeth, shirts, pants, walls, etc. It's like rotoscoping every element of every frame. Now, that's not always necessary, of course (!), but whoa - lots of times. That is, you have to if you want to really try a "recover the negative" kind of thing, because as I said, no one print has it all. So we're talking just years of maybe a handful of people doing that, because the people have to change skill sets with each shot, generally.

I was trained as a generalist - we have to be able to do a broad range of tasks for a job, so that comes in handy. I've tracked, pulled keys, done digital grading/painting, clean-up, 3D work, compositing... just tons of stuff, all of which I use constantly on this gig. And I'm also (actually, primarily) a composer, sound designer, and re-recording engineer, so that part of the task is also in hand. I have facilities and hardware for the gig, and I'm also in software development so I have friends to write tools as I need them. So really, it's just a lot of things need to happen, and they take a lot of time, and if I was charging pro rates, it'd be millions to do. Nobody spends that kind of time and money. Nobody. I mean, they COULD, sure. But... they just don't.

When it's over? Christ. That's a long way away. Ask me in 4 years. :)

_Mike