David Frost Vs.

‘You can’t fake interest. You can’t fake curiosity’ - Sir David Frost.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, David Frost lost neither his interest nor his curiosity whilst breaking new televisual ground, first in the UK as the anchor of the satirical comedy series That Was The Week That Was, and then in America with The Frost Report. The latter proved his theory that television, rather than simply following the stories in the newspapers, could actually make the news itself. His interest and curiosity, as well as an interviewing style that was sympathetic but never simpering, meant that high-profile figures from royalty and politics to sport and entertainment flocked to appear on his show and, crucially, to keep coming back. As a result, each episode of David Frost Vs. is built on over 50 years’ worth of rare or never-before-seen archive and examines each subject in fascinating detail. This archive footage is supplemented by interviews with an extraordinary list of contributors, who help to uncover Frost’s incredible life and career as one of the nation’s most renowned broadcasters.

Speaking about the commission, Sky News journalist and son of David, Wilfred Frost said: “For the last decade since Dad died I have focused on accumulating more rights to his interviews and recovering and restoring lost footage. Every conversation is carefully selected to be staggeringly relevant today, told by blockbuster names from The Beatles to Jane Fonda, Muhammad Ali to Richard Nixon. Working on this series has been a privilege - not just as Dad’s immensely proud son, but also as a journalist."

Achieving that historical sweep required the restoration of footage from across the decades in myriad formats and various states of repair to make it viable for transmission. In order to do justice to that material, and to give the smoothest possible viewing experience, we challenged Online Editor Jon Slade to repair and restore a treasure trove of footage, and all done at speed. The results are very special and Jon was kind enough, not just to detail how he did it, but to demonstrate his processes as well.

Jon Slade – Online Editor

Third party material always poses the most potential for requiring correction in some way to stand the best chance of passing Quality Control and the legacy and archive holdings for the programmes of Sir David Frost were complicated. Alongside the more typical mastering videotape formats of the day (typically 2” Quad), in many instances the only surviving copy might be on a legacy format, or a 16mm film black and white telerecording. A number of episodes also owe their existence to having been recorded off-air by the President Nixon administration.

My career began in the 1990s during the age of analogue videotape and although non-linear editing was just taking its first baby-steps within the industry, I am most definitely a product of the tape generation as well as something of a nerd when it comes to production techniques of the past. Whilst I personally don’t go back as far as the 2-inch, Quad days, I do have a keen interest in the mechanics and technology of video and studio production from the 1960s and 70s. Knowledge which, I assumed, had become utterly redundant. Until now. 

The first episode of David Frost Vs. to reach final post was episode 2, where the varying quality and preservation of the sources became evident. I painstakingly painted out around 400 notable video dropouts or examples of oxide shedding (generally presenting themselves as black lines or tears appearing for a frame at a time) or line sync errors (a narrow pulse that runs horizontally across the width of the frame distorting the image).

In a somewhat personal bid to make the archive really shine, I sought out ways to remove the most egregious and distracting damage, whilst also improving on some of the other faults I was finding. This led me to ‘Phoenix’ by Filmworkz – a trusted tool used by professional restoration facilities. I reached out to the team within Sky Post, who were able to install and licence the product for use on the project. Restoration is a specialised business because it’s time-consuming, intricate and costly. I had to find a way to achieve results within the existing and allotted online schedule, whilst engaging on the very steep learning curve associated with new software. This prompted me initially to set up a priority list of shots to tackle. 

My aim was to remove the technical flaws that were the most distracting of all and to give an overall polish where possible. I didn't want to completely remove all the damage as a small amount is aesthetically quaint. So, some of the third-party film dust/scratching is retained to a degree, although a few instances required a slightly more intensive digital clean-up. Whilst some film light-leakage and a few tramlines may be considered in keeping with the period – heavy black dropouts, non-synchronous cuts, jagged interlacing and other video artefacts do nothing except draw attention away from the narrative. 

It’s not about making 60-year-old material look like it was shot last week in UHD. Phoenix’s speciality is detecting differences on one single frame and patching blemishes over using a motion-estimated alternative frame. It also proved useful at removing colours that were bleeding, and in reducing noise and grain. By the time the third edit had locked and came into the Online, I was working on approximately 70% of the Frost material within Phoenix to some degree or other, alongside a good chunk of the surrounding archive. A lot of the film damage and smaller dropout errors were taken out largely automatically, whereas some of the other video-based errors needed more manual intervention.

Alongside this, the rest of the process was typical of a longform Online. There were routine fixes and tidy-ups to the rushes and other archive, as well as the correction of framerate conversion errors and resizing all shots to fit full frame or within a pillar box without blanking errors. 

It’s been immensely enjoyable working on the series and it was great to be able to take the onus of enhancing some of the archive in a speedy but effective way, purely for the good of the series, without impacting the schedule or having any cost impact to the client.