Film restoration project, need filters

Question

Does anybody have any recommendations for filter plug-ins for FCP for a film restoration project I'm doing? I had about 1600' of old family 8mm movies scanned to DV and I'm editing them together. As expected they are more than rough around the edges. They could stand some noise filtering and some heavy color correction (over exposed, under exposed, you name it) I've looked at a few of the plug in vendors (Joe's Filters, CHV Plugins, Boris) but I don't have any experience with any of them. I'd like to avoid buying the wrong product as much as possible.

Answer 1

Hello there,
as I regularly need to handle (ancient and recent ) S8 footage my general advice would have been to color correct while scanning (with a scanner like the german-engineered MWA FlashScan8 which has a primary color correction built into the hardware).
Anyway, as you are obviously already beyond this step:
FCPs built-in color correction toolkit (Color Corrector 3-way) should be absolutely sufficient to achieve the results you may want. Hence the built-in moniker, it comes free with FCP
For stuff like noise and dirt I would recommend the Too Much Too Soon plugin set.
I contains a pretty good noise reduction plugin and a hair removal plugin.
http://www.mattias.nu/plugins/
It's free too, so there should be no (price) concerns whatsoever.
For really heavy-duty pre-processing (e.g. actual film restauration) there are some pricey options available.
RedGiant has the "FilmFix" product available ($800 or so?). This is an AfterEffects plugin that more or less can (semi-)automatically correct all problems associated with age-old film stock: flickering, noise, vignette, hair, scratches, grain etc.
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/filmfix.html
From british company TheFoundy comes "Furnace" for Shake.
The algorithms in this product are more or less the same as in FilmFix.
As the restauration functionality is only a part of the package it's even more expensive ($4000?).
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/pkg_plugins.aspx?ui=44213E51-76C0-4926-9D5D-3A805944 9900
These two options above are actually able to really clean up the footage.
From an aesthetic standpoint I usually prefer to keep as much of the "authenticity" of the S8 footage as possible, fixing only the major technical glitches.
To do so, the two option I described first will do just fine, IMHO.
Best regards, Oliver