Telluride Showcases Five Technicolor Film Projects – and a “Miraculous” Restoration

• Technicolor’s work on the “encore” presentation of The Cotton Club enabled Coppola to restore, remix, and return the film to its full glory.
• Technicolor provided services on other strong projects at Telluride, including The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Lean on Pete, and Lady Bird.
• The festival presented its highest honor – the Silver Medallion – to Edward Lachman, ASC, who has worked with Technicolor for nearly 40 years.

Now in its 44^th year, the Telluride Film Festival featured another strong showing of projects, tributes, and world class cinema – living up to its reputation as an awards season bellwether. Technicolor was honored to have collaborated on many of the films at this year’s festival. One in particular was the hotly-anticipated screening of director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club Encore – a full restoration of the film first released in 1984.

Technicolor not only provided color on the original film, but Coppola worked with Technicolor Production Services again on the restoration. Original cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, also returned to oversee the film’s final color, working alongside Technicolor Senior Supervising Finishing Artist Steve Scott. The new “encore” presentation of The Cotton Club is Coppola’s definitive cut – a full realization of his creative intent on one of the greatest dance classics in Hollywood history. Sequences removed and lost had to be restored from the work print, a complex and expensive digital process. “What Technicolor did was miraculous,” Coppola told IndieWire.

Another five of Technicolor’s projects of 2017 also had North American or World Premieres at this year’s Telluride, including Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. The director has a close working relationship with Technicolor’s Toronto-headquartered VFX boutique, MR. X. Senior VFX Supervisor Dennis Bernardi led the MR. X team working on del Toro’s latest project – a film generating lots of awards season buzz.

On Darkest Hour, directed by Joe Wright, the final color finishing was done by Technicolor’s Senior Supervising Colorist Peter Doyle, who has a longstanding creative relationship with the film’s cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel, AFC, ASC.

Director Alexander Payne’s Downsizing was photographed by cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, ASC. It was color finished by Technicolor Senior Colorist Skip Kimball – reuniting the team that worked together on the Academy Award-nominated Nebraska.

Technicolor provided dailies out of NYC on Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, Lady Bird, and Alex Bickel graded the film at Technicolor Postworks NY. Finally, Technicolor performed DI and VFX work for the filmmakers of Lean on Pete, a coming-of-age story directed by Andrew Haigh also getting a lot of attention at Telluride.

The festival’s highest honor – the coveted Silver Medallion – was presented to cinematographer Edward Lachman, ASC. Only days before the festival, Lachman could be found in a Technicolor Hollywood color suite, working with Colorist Steven P. Arkle (aka “Sparkle”) to put the finishing touches on a tribute reel that was showcased at the festival. Lachman, whose relationship with Technicolor dates back nearly 40 years, was the recipient of the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award earlier in 2017.

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