YouTuber Denis Shiryaev used artificial intelligence to refurbish the oldest-known film footage on record.
A Little History
This film was called “Roundhay Garden Scene” created on October 14, 1888, by French inventor Louis Le Prince. The film shows 4 people including Le Prince’s parents-in-law, Joseph and Sarah Whitely, his son Adolphe, and Harriet Hartley walking in a small circle around the Whitley’s garden that sat near the British city of Leeds.
Louis Le Prince has been widely credited for making the very first recorded motion images on film though he still remains pretty much unknown, possibly due to his bizarre disappearance in 1890.
Although this film only runs a few seconds while shot at 12 frames per second, this black and white film marks the first incredible step toward the development of technology. During this time, Van Gogh was creating his masterpieces, Jack The Ripper was terrorizing and stalking the streets of London, and the Eiffel Tower was still under construction!
The Process
To refurbish the film, Denis Shiryaev colorized and upscaled the frames of the original film using neural networks as one. Check Out This Video Explaining The Process.. He collected stills from the Science Museum UK website. Each of the frames was centered using algorithms and increasing their brightness levels more regularly. Adding just a small amount of color, the neural networks were used to fill in the gaps of missing frames, allowing for a more realistic flow.
Originally, the film had 20 frames, but when refurbishing was completed, there were 250 frames. Lastly, a background atmosphere was added to give the film more depth.
To Date
Sadly, Sarah Whitley, who was the oldest woman in the film, died 10 days after the scene was shot. On top of that, Le Prince mysteriously disappeared in 1890 while on a train heading to the French region of Dijon. He and his luggage were never recovered.