Film specialist TMR restores 1970s footage of T-Rex front man

TMR, part of the VTR Media Services Group, has provided extensive film treatment services for 'Born To Boogie', an in-depth documentary on T-Rex front man Marc Bolan.
The DVD will be released on May 16 2005.
Produced by Mark Roberts of Sanctuary Records and directed by Mark Allen, Born to Boogie is the result of an 18 month restoration project. The original 16mm colour film negative was meticulously examined, rejoined and cleaned in TMR’s Film Treatment Centre. TMR was commissioned to undertake the immense task of HD telecine grade and transfer and further HD restoration of nearly 30,000 feet of Bolan footage from the 1970s.
The negative was transferred to HD D5 in TMR’s Shadow telecine before going to Sanctuary Post for editing. Once the online was completed, the HD D5 returned to TMR where it was fully graded. From there it was entirely restored using the Teranex ImageRestore and MTI. A huge amount of concentration was required to ensure the restoration didn’t introduce any artefacts.
Head of Restoration at TMR, Richard Watson, said: “We had to take care to control the levels to ensure the processing filters did a good job, but didn’t blur or remove any of the finer details such as the guitar strings and drumsticks.” The team at TMR spent a total of over 40 hours restoring the pictures to their original condition.
Highlights include unique footage of T-Rex on the road shot by Bolan himself, plus footage of Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr backstage between performances at Wembley. The soundtrack to Born to Boogie was remastered by Tony Visconti, legendary music producer and close friend of Bolan’s.
“Born to Boogie was a fantastic project to work on,” said Ben Baker, Project Manager at TMR. “Also, the fact that we had the original negative to work with meant that the end result is the best possible quality. It looks great.”
The DVD also features 90 minutes of extras presented by Bolan’s only son Rolan Bolan, including 'The Making of' – a documentary shot by Mark Allen showing the restoration and editing in action at TMR and Sanctuary Post.
Born To Boogie the special edition 2-Disc DVD and 2-Disc CD will be simultaneously released by Sanctuary on May 16 2005.
(GB/KMcA)