Apollo 11 Restoration Project is Out of This World

After making a name for himself improving analog video images in real time, John Lowry next tackled restoring films digitally when time wasn’t a factor. The Lowry Process has been applied to hundreds of films, including some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, to remove dirt, scratches and other flaws that ruin the picture. This summer the staff at Lowry Digital in Burbank used their skills on footage taken on the Apollo 11 moon landing as NASA marked the 40th anniversary of that landmark event. It was also one of the first times that Lowry Digital had done restoration work for a non-entertainment client “The business opportunity for content is growing and quality expectations are higher than ever,” said Mike Inchalik, the firm’s chief operating officer. Inchalik described his boss as a serial entrepreneur always looking for the right opportunity to apply the latest technology. With Image Transform, Lowry developed a method to clean up video images as they were broadcast, including transmissions from the moon on the Apollo 16 and 17 missions. He followed that up by designing digital time base correctors, and then multimedia CD-ROM projects. In 1998, Lowry and Inchalik started Lowry Digital Images. The idea was to flip the model of Image Transform and figure out how to improve picture quality when time was not an issue. Audio technology firm DTS Inc. bought Lowry for $11 million in 2005. Three years later it was acquired by Reliance Big Entertainment, the largest Indian entertainment company. The transition from videotape to DVD drove the first wave of film restoration. A second wave is now driven by high definition Blu-ray discs and larger televisions with better picture quality. NASA has made available online short clips restored by Lowry Digital showing astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface. The complete 2-1/2 hour footage will be completed in September. The project presented challenges in that the original instrumentation tapes of what was transmitted to three tracking stations had been lost. So the space agency handed over alternate sources the original broadcaster version, kinescopes, an 8mm film made with a handheld camera at a monitor, a videotape made in Australia. Unlike restoring a movie where a shot may last about five seconds, the moon footage included shots that lasted minutes long that gave more frames to work with in restoring the image. With a staff of tech savvy science and sci fi buffs, Lowry was the ideal place to bring the Apollo film, Inchalik said. “Working on Apollo 11 has a lot of people jazzed,” Inchalik said. “And it closes the loop for John Lowry from the work he did on Apollo 16 and 17.” Other endeavors Lowry Digital isn’t the only connection that Reliance Big Entertainment has in the Valley. The Indian conglomerate is a 50 percent owner of DreamWorks Studios, recently announcing a match to $325 million in loans arranged by J.P. Morgan Securities. The Walt Disney Co. will provide a $175 million line of credit for the studio headed by director Steven Spielberg and business partner Stacey Snider and will distribute up to six live-action films a year under its Touchstone banner. Among the first films to be released through the Disney distribution deal is a remake of “Harvey,” directed by Spielberg. Fundraising Former Paramount exec Chris Essel leads in fundraising in the campaign to fill the vacancy on the Los Angeles City Council created by Wendy Greuel being elected as City Controller. Having worked at Paramount for many years and rising to senior vice president, Essel has received as of Aug. 8 more donations from the entertainment industry than her closest challengers, current state Assemblyman Paul Krekorian and Los Angeles Unified School Board member Tamar Galatzan. In Essel’s corner you will find executives from Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Co., Fox Entertainment Group, Sony Pictures, and NBC Universal; the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America; media mogul David Geffen, producer J.J. Abrams; Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America; the MPAA Local PAC; actor Dennis Quaid; and actress and singer Barbra Streisand. Krekorian is a Burbank resident who chairs the Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee and the Select Committee on the Preservation of California’s Entertainment Industry. He received donations from an executive at Disney and from the MPAA Local PAC. Galatzan received a donation from a senior vice president with Warner Bros. Pictures. The special election is Sept. 22. The Second Council district includes parts of North Hollywood, Studio City, Sunland and Tujunga. Conference Encino-based documentary programming distributor Richard Propper has teamed with director Chuck Braverman for Westdoc: the West Coast Documentary and Reality Conference taking place in Santa Monica from Sept. 14 to 16. The pair started the conference having seen similar event give short thrift to the genres of documentaries and reality programming. Westdoc is designed by producers for producers featuring programming executives speaking on a variety of topics. The conference’s featured speaker is R.J Cutler, producer of “The War Room” and “A Perfect Candidate.” Other speakers schedule to attend include Thom Beers, Founder and CEO of Original Productions; John Saade, senior vice president of Alternative Programming, ABC; Gena McCarthy, senior vice president of Programming, Discovery; and Charles Norlander, vice president of programming, History Channel. Staff Reporter Mark Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected] .