The first edition of Restoration Asia to include technical presentations was hosted by Technicolor, Bangkok on May 31st, 2013 in conjunction with the17th SEAPAVAA Conference. Mick Newnham, a presenter from the NFSA in Canberra, Australia wrote:
“The … event attracted approximately 30 people, with speakers from Italy, USA and India and South-East Asia presenting information and case studies of recent restorations. My contribution to the event was participating in a panel with Ray Edmondson discussing issues surrounding ethics. My focus was on the significance of conservation and the associated ethics and values that inform a restoration project. I was also on a second panel discussing audio components and the issues involved in the technical selection of the most appropriate components for incorporation into a restoration project.
The two major areas of discussion for the event were around the importance of thorough research on different versions of available material, especially significant where a film may be found in several archives (and spread across several countries), and technical workflows in the digital realm. The latter topic was of particular interest to me.
Restoration projects aim to use the most original generations, ideally original negatives, and since there is significantly less generational loss in digital workflows compared with the traditional photographic process, the end result may have a significantly higher spatial resolution on projection than the film that was originally experienced when it was first released. Having spent many years working in NFSA’s lab using the photographic processes to duplicate a range of original negatives as well as later generations for preservation and restoration, I think this is an area that has not yet been fully discussed in terms of ethics.” https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/seapavaa-conference-bangkok
Ethics in both preservation and restoration and international collaboration, along with technical advances, were to become on-going themes in Restoration Asia
