Archival media remaster and artificial intelligence

Discover how artificial intelligence was used in the production to enhance storytelling and bring historical archives to life.

All remastered media are always shown alongside—or after—their original versions. For example, each 3D-remastered photo is presented next to the original photograph.


Storyboarding

Concept art and previsualization of the film

AI-assisted tools were used during the storyboarding phase to generate schematics, visual references, and pre-visualizations. These tools enabled us to explore different narrative structures, test camera movements, and design spatial environments in advance. This process helped the team plan shooting sessions efficiently, prepare each shot with precision, and even begin editing early drafts of the project.

Model used:

  • ChatGPT 4o for Prompt Generation

  • Luma Dream Machine

Stereoscopic conversion

3D conversion transforms 2D media into stereoscopic 3D by generating a separate image for each eye. In the past, this process relied heavily on time-consuming techniques such as manual rotoscoping and hand-painting.

Thanks to AI, we can now automate parts of this workflow, using neural networks to cut out elements and fill in missing parts. Artists remain essential to adjust depth and ensure the 3D result feels natural and realistic.

Using AI-generated depth maps, we brought select archival photographs into three-dimensional space. These maps assign spatial depth to each part of an image, allowing us to create immersive visuals from original 2D photos.


This technology was used on the following media:

  • Four final pictures taken by Richard Taylor on Omaha Beach

  • The seven photos in the interactive photo album

  • The two photographs of Richard Taylor holding his camera

Model used:

  • Adobe Photoshop Neural Filters

  • ImmersityAI 4.0 Neural Rendering

  • Nuke Cattery

  • Apple Vision Pro native stereoscopic conversion tool

Cleanup

Archival content often contains scracthes and film noise that can hinder visual clarity. We used AI-based denoising to remove these imperfections, making the images more readable for modern audiences—without compromising their historical integrity.

This technology was used on the following media:

  • The introductory archive footage from NARA

  • Richard Taylor’s footage visible in the viewfinder

Model used:

  • Topaz DeNoise AI

  • Neat Video

3D retexturing

To reconstruct realistic 3D scenes from archival material, 3D artists first modeled the underlying geometry and mapped textures from historical photographs to create an accurate base reconstruction.

When the resolution of the original images was too low, we used AI tools to generate higher-resolution textures based on visual references.

These AI-generated textures provided additional detail, which we then manually refined—when relevant, appropriate, and historically accurate—to blend seamlessly with the real scenes. The result: lifelike recreations that remain faithful to the original artists’ intentions:

This technology was used on the following media:

  • 3D scene of soldiers leaving the landing craft

  • 3D scene when landing on the Omaha Beach

  • 3D scene with soldiers running on Omaha Beach

Model used:

  • MagnificAI

  • ChatGPT 4o image generator