The New York facility provided support, strategy and services
to the monumental documentary on the World Trade Center site throughout its
eight years of production.

NEW YORK— Rebuilding the World Trade
Center, Irish artist and filmmaker Marcus Robinson’s remarkable documentary
about the reconstruction of the New York City landmark, makes its U.S. premiere
tonight at 6 p.m. on HISTORY. More than eight years in the making, the two-hour
television special is the result of a labor of love both on the part of
Robinson and Technicolor-PostWorks New York,
which has been providing critical support for the project from its earliest
days.

A majestic statement on the themes of triumph and rebirth, Rebuilding the World Trade Center tells
the story of the construction of some of the world’s tallest buildings at the
World Trade Center site—from laying the first foundation layer to the topping
of the new One World Trade Center with a gleaming spire. Robinson, renowned
equally for his architectural cinematography, photography and fine art, placed
more than a dozen cameras around the site to capture the construction process
in time-lapse. He also recorded scores of interviews with workers involved in
every aspect of the effort. Stop motion sequences of Robinson’s site-inspired
drawings and paintings serve as a framing device for the powerful narrative.

 “The film is an allegory or parable about the human
spirit,” says Robinson, who recently received a BAFTA Award for an earlier
version of the film that aired on the U.K.’s Channel Four. “The reconstruction
of the site, which occurs over many years, is an amazing story, one that’s
stirring and inspiring.”

 Technicolor-PostWorks became one of Robinson’s
earliest allies in making the documentary. The facility donated a host of
services to the filmmaker including workflow and technical consultation, editorial
facilities, film processing, film archiving, dailies, editorial conforming,
color correction, and sound services. “Technicolor-PostWorks was very generous
and gracious in their support, providing whatever was needed to keep the
project alive,” Robinson says. “We felt very confident that we were in safe
hands from a technical point of view.  Their participation helped make
this film possible in a multitude of ways.”

Initial work included processing 16mm and 35mm time-lapse
film at its New York City laboratory, and dailies transfers at its post
facility in Soho.  The latter involved color correcting the voluminous
time-lapse material, which spanned the eight years and comprised over a million
frames. 

“Marcus wanted all of the material to be beautiful and
usable,” recalls Colorist Eli Friedman. “So we spent time color correcting all
of the film to a near-finished form at the point of the dailies transfer.”

Providing the time-lapse sequences with a consistent look
was challenging, Friedman notes, due to immense variations in lighting and
weather conditions over months of shooting from any single vantage point.
“Marcus shot through all seasons and all types of weather,” Friedman says.
“There were snowy days, rainy days, rainy nights. In New York, you can have a
beautiful blue sky and an hour later, it’s totally whited out. It wasn’t
possible to just set a look and run with it.” Friedman addressed the issue by
creating a gallery of hundreds of still frames as reference points and by using
transitional color correction to mirror changing light and contrast patterns.

Editorial also began early on. Editor Leo Cullen, who
worked, in part, independently and, in part at editorial facilities supplied by
Technicolor-PostWorks, says that simply storing, logging and organizing source
material, produced with a variety of film and digital cameras, was a big job.
He adds, however, that there was nothing random about the material that
Robinson captured.  “He shoots very carefully,” he observes.  Cullen
ultimately cut both the Channel Four and HISTORY versions of the film, and was
also in and out of Technicolor-PostWorks cutting several shorter pieces for use
by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the 9/11 Memorial and
Silverstein Properties, developer to the World Trade Center project.

Cullen says that from the two feature-length versions,
Robinson’s intent was to tell the story of the construction project from the
construction workers’ point of view. He wanted the film to be a forward looking
and hopeful message. 

The memory of the terrorist attack, however, remains a
palpable presence and the tragedy is honored in the film in numerous ways.
“Marcus began shooting in 2006 and that became the beginning of the story,”
Cullen says. “But in the end we do address 9/11. It’s seen through the building
of the memorial, through the beams of light and through the memories of the
workers.”

Final color correction and editorial conforming from the
panoply of film and digital sources was performed by Technicolor-PostWorks’
Sean R. Smith. Smith took the film through the finishing process twice, once
for the U.K. version and, more recently, for the extended version debuting on
HISTORY. In both instances, Smith recalls, finishing work was done with a light
touch.

“Marcus liked the authenticity of the footage he had and
wanted to stay true to its natural look,” Smith says. “He had a strong vision
for the work that flowed from the material and seemed to sense what he wanted
to accomplish from the very beginning. It was quite inspiring.”

A similar naturalistic approach was applied to sound mixing,
performed by Re-Recording Mixer Christopher Koch. Koch says that considerable
care was taken to eliminate the extraneous or distracting sounds from interview
segments, many of which were conducted on-site, but that the myriad vocal
idiosyncrasies of interview subjects were preserved. “We always opted for the
more natural choice in terms of inflection,” Koch recalls.

Although work on the project extended over a period of
years, interest among the staff at Technicolor-PostWorks never waned. Rob
DeMartin, the facility’s COO, says that the film held special significance for
the company, noting that the original Twin Towers stood in direct line of sight
of its Soho headquarters on Avenue of the Americas. “The events of that day
continue to resonate with all of us,” he recalls.  “We were grateful for
the opportunity to participate in Marcus’s project, and help him tell this
amazing story.”

Robinson continues to have cameras set up at the World Trade
Center site and plans to carry on shooting new time-lapse and interview
material through completion of reconstruction. At that time, he plans to
produce a final version of the film that he hopes will have both a theatrical
release and be kept on permanent display as part of the 9/11 memorial.

“The belief that I had in this work inspired the people at
Technicolor-PostWorks and many others to believe in it as well,” Robinson says.
‘There is something in its message about human resiliency and our capacity to
rebuild from disaster. There is a creative spirit that all human beings share
and want to celebrate, and this film has been able to channel into that.”

About Technicolor – PostWorks New York

Technicolor
– PostWorks New York is the East Coast’s most comprehensive digital motion
picture and post-production facility, employing an exceptional team of artists,
engineers and project managers to serve our clients through the film and TV
finishing process.

Technicolor
– PostWorks New York offers one complete source for every post requirement,
including data workflows, film processing, telecine/scanning, non-linear
editorial and HD picture finishing, digital intermediate and film recording,
high-volume encoding and high-speed data transmission, as well as comprehensive
film and TV sound services on nine mix stages.

For more information,
visit http://www.technicolorpwny.com