Vectracom is a Memorist company specialising in the restoration of audiovisual documents. Currently, it is bringing back to life the documentary film about the incredible odyssey of Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones: the first people in history to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon in less than 20 days, in a tribute to Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. The film has become an endangered document that needs preservation.

Almost 25 years after it was made, the standard-definition images and poor preservation of the film have given "Around the World in 20 Days" the status of a derelict work. But that's without counting on the recent interest shown by Espace Ballon, a Swiss foundation dedicated to the history of balloon travel. Espace Ballon called on Memorist’s expertise to breathe new life into the documentary about this extraordinary adventure.

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A complete circumnavigation of the globe (without a single stop) in less than 20 days aboard a balloon:

It is the eve of the second millennium. No one has yet managed to circumnavigate the globe (without a single stop) in less than 20 days aboard a balloon. The impossible record became an obsession for many more or less seasoned adventurers, including British entrepreneur Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire, and Steve Fossett, American businessman and adventurer. Finally, in March 1999, Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and his British sidekick Brian Jones completed the impossible record in 19 days and just under 22 hours. An on-board camera enabled filmmaker Garfield Kennedy to make a fifty-minute documentary film, the audiovisual record of a fantastic epic to the four corners of the earth and almost twenty thousand leagues in the sky.

Memorist's technical solutions for restoring documentaries

For Memorist, restoring a document such as this represents a new challenge. The first step is to transform the SD (standard definition) images of the time into HD (high definition) images. To do this, experts have mastered the many software programmes available. However, it is the human eye that will determine all the settings, restoration and colour-grading. Espace Ballon wanted to project 'Around the world in 20 days' directly into a screen in the shape of a porthole. The Memorist teams therefore had to convert the original 4:3 format. This task was made all the more difficult by the multilingual subtitles (English and German) that had to be inlaid on the film. Memorist's restoration of "Around the world in 20 days" was therefore a project in keeping with the documentary's subject: perpetuating mankind's techniques and expertise on its continuous quest for progress.

The Mobilitas group federated five key assets to create Memorist, the first centre of expertise in:

Preservation: Memorist offers strategic support for heritage collections of all kinds, to establish targeted action plans.

Restoration: Memorist traditionally restores all types of ancient documents (parchments, bundles, covers, iconographic documents, film media, cinematographic films, etc.) and contemporary documents (administrative documents, audiovisual and photochemical media), in order to extend their life and restore their original appearance that may have been altered by time.

Digitisation: Memorist digitises paper, iconographic, audio, video and film documents in 2D, and sculptures, monuments and historic sites in 3D, for the purposes of conservation and distribution to different audiences.