London facility house The Machine Room has restored, treated and edited both old and new footage for three one-hour programmes that chart the life of former British prime minister Sir Winston

London facility house The Machine Room has restored, treated and edited both old and new footage for three one-hour programmes that chart the life of former British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill. A TWI series for ITV1, Churchill required both traditional film treatment techniques and digital technology to restore old footage, some of which dated back as far as 1900. Smoke editor John McLaren blended archive footage with modern drama reconstructions shot on video. This entailed resizing the archive footage to fit today's 16x9 TV formats, and treating the video with a film effect to match the archive shots. McLaren then spent time conforming, cleaning, de-spotting and stabilising the original footage, removing film flicker and adding film effects and grain. Telecine op Gerry Gedge carried out a full tape grade and provided finishing touches on Thomson Shadow. Churchill airs later this year.

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