ACK Declaration of the DRA

Declaration of the Association of Czech Cinematographers of the Digital Restored Authorizate (DRA)

approved by unanimous vote on 12 March 2014 in Prague at the General Assembly of the Association of Czech Cinematographers

Czech Cameramen Association is a non-profit, non-trade-union professional association uniting the most important professional cinematographers in the Czech Republic, striving, together with other colleagues – cinematographers associated in the European Federation of Cinematographer Associations, IMAGO, for the recognition of the cinematographer as one of the key creators of audiovisual art. One of the objectives of the Association of Czech Cinematographers is increasing artistic and technical quality of cinematographic works. Cinematographers as co-authors of a film work and also authors of its visual component hereby declare that only the Digitally Restored Autorizate (DRA) maintains in the highest attainable degree all the qualitative characteristics of the visual component of a cinematographic work shot by them, thus ensuring protection of moral and proprietary copyrights of cinematographers as co-authors of cinematographic works.

A. Digitisation of Film Heritage:

Digitally Restored Authorizate (DRA)1 is a digital transfer from the Original Camera Negative (OCN)1 or if not available from the intermediate films (IM)1 approved by the Director of Photography and Representatives of a professional Author Cinematography Association according to the Reference Show Print (RP)1. DRA is physically represented by Master Archive Package (MAP)1 as long-term digital preservation master and Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM)1 as digital projection master which both are satisfying the below criteria.

The Digitally Restored Authorizate (DRA) can be considered the original source of a film work only if it meets the following criteria:

1) the image is digitised in resolution corresponding to the original cinematographic material + in the original frame rate + in the aspect ratio and image size corresponding to the original + with the sufficient range of brightness and colour depth of the image faithful to the original;

2) it is produced with the supervision of officially recognized professional film restorers

3) it is produced with the collaboration of authors of cinematography, sound and direction (if they are available) and representatives of their professional associations;

4) it is approved by an expert group consisting of restorers and authors (officially recognized film restorers, the aforementioned authors of the cinematographic work if they are available and representatives of professional associations of authors) whose members should sign, after mutual consent, an official certification document on the DRA;

5) the differences in visually perceptible quality between RP and DRA must be in reference to image tonality and colour distribution unrecognizable as a key prerequisite for preserving the authenticity of film heritage;

6) it is used as the single source for creating the Intermediate Access Package (IAP) from which, subsequently, all the copies of any distribution formats (digital cinema, television, home video, web etc.) are made, namely without any intervention into the appearance of the work as per the above-defined criteria (except for the changes in the overall size of the image and the different levels of compression depending on the respective distribution format).

In case that those criteria are not fulfilled, the digital master without official certificate has to be considered an infringement of unwaivable moral rights and copyrights of cinematographers as co-authors of film works.

B. Digitally Originated Movies:

Digital Authorizate (DA)1, digitally originated film physically represented by an Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM), constructed from digitally born images by a digital cinematographic camera and graded by the Director of Photography of the movie satisfying Digital Cinema relevant ISO standards.

The Association of Czech Cinematographers declares that, if an audiovisual work is certified under the DRA methodology, cinematographers will not claim any remuneration under the Copyright Act for its creation, however, they do not renounce the remuneration for granting individual authorizations for any its use. Therefore, final costs of digitisation of film works will decrease while DRA will contribute to ensure higher quality of digitisation.

European Commission reported that 85% of 1.03 million hours of European film heritage is out-of-commerce, and hence not accessible. While 98.5% is still not digitised, currently locked away in cans in the archives. That is also why the ACK promotes the right of reproduction in the sense of Art. 2 Information Society Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society and the making available right in the sense of Art. 3 of mentioned Directive but consider that therefore it is absolutely necessary to recognize Digital Restored Authorizate (DRA) as the standard of digital master to preserve film heritage for future generations.

In Prague, 14 March 2014

Prof. MgA. Marek Jícha
President of the Association of Czech Cinematographers

Prof. Mgr. Jiří Myslík
Vice President of the Association of Czech Cinematographers