We’ve just finished working on a major documentary series for BBC Wales - but this time not as producers.
Slammed: The Seventies tells the story of arguably rugby’s greatest ever players. The names still resonate: Gareth Edwards, Gerald Davies, JPR Williams, JJ Williams, Phil Bennett, Mervyn Davies, Barry John. Through three hour-long episodes you can see for yourself just why those Welsh players are so revered and why their fame has lasted long beyond their playing days. We were hired by Series Producer Craig Withycombe to clean up and restore all the archive footage across the three episodes - over 750 shots in all.
A still of rugby legend Gareth Edwards from Slammed: The Seventies, showing the ‘before and after’ of archive cleanup. Image copyright BBC
Over half the running time in each episode is archive, and some of the footage really struggles when played on the big TV screens we’re used to today. Craig knew that if we could improve the quality and clarity of this noisy footage, the whole experience of watching the series would be transformed.
There’s a bewildering variety of sources: film footage, videotape recordings of live matches, film recordings of live matches, videotape transfers of film footage, most of it digitised in the early 2000s with higher compression than we’d use today. So, each shot presents its own challenges. We used a range of techniques to reduce noise, dirt and grain, and also used machine learning software which looks at indistinct details and ‘works out’ what’s missing. The results have even amazed us, suddenly you’re closer to the past, revealing details and little moments that were probably never seen when they were first shown.
Back in the 1970s, this scene would have been shot on 16mm film and then transferred via telecine onto videotape - all in standard definition. We can bring back lost details and generally make the shots less distracting and easier to take in. Image copyright BBC.
We’re using techniques which we developed after working on our own archive shows where we realised that clips from the 70, 80s and 90s were just not holding up against the quality of modern-day footage. We think there is huge potential to use our methods on a large number of archive shows and documentaries, where clean-up will just become the norm. So this is the reason we’ve set up Clearframe - our sibling company that will provide archive cleanup to programme makers and broadcasters.
There’s a well-known posh tonic water whose slogan is ‘If over 3/4 of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best’. Well we think the same applies to archive footage - if over half of your programme is archive, you should talk to Clearframe.
You can contact Clearframe on hello@clearframe.tv, call Phillip Moss on +44 777 5500793, or visit our new website: clearframe.tv.