A 21st Century Religion in the Age of Multimedia

Scientology is truly a religion for the 21st century and so utilizes new-millennium technology to carry out its religious mission. To that end, the Church moved into the multimedia age with establishment of state-of-the-art film and audio facilities at Golden Era Productions. Set on 500 acres in Southern California, this is the worldwide dissemination center for the entire Scientology religion, responsible for all film, video, television, Internet and international event production.

It is here the staff of Golden Era Productions produces audiovisual informational and training materials for use within Scientology Churches, as well as films and public service announcements centered on Church-sponsored social betterment activities and humanitarian initiatives.

The focal point of Golden Era Productions is the 80,000-square-foot film studio. The main sound stage rises more than three stories, with an interior the size of two football fields.

Final production of the religious audiovisual properties filmed at Golden Era Productions is accomplished in the cutting-edge post-production facilities, which include six fully digital editing suites, while to create any required digital effects, Golden Era’s special effects department harnesses more than 500 computers with the computing power of 6,360 billion calculations per second.

Moreover, all religious film and video musical scores are produced and mixed in-house in Golden Era’s recording studios. The audio division facilities were designed to meet every production need: from an 84-track studio large enough to accommodate an orchestra, to a 112-track 5.1 cinema surround sound mixing studio.

Golden Era Productions is likewise responsible for the production of all L. Ron Hubbard recorded lectures on Dianetics and Scientology. The lecture studios feature one-of-a-kind echo chambers, used in the restoration and reproduction of Mr. Hubbard’s recordings and built to Golden Era's specifications.

Additionally, there is an entire building devoted to recording translations of Scriptural and other religious materials, where a bank of digital studios operates 24 hours a day. It is here that foreign-language voice talent record Mr. Hubbard’s translated lectures on Dianetics and Scientology in 15 languages.

Cutting-Edge Film Restoration & Preservation

The last decade saw the restoration and release of L. Ron Hubbard filmed lectures and an exclusive interview with Mr. Hubbard. The first to be restored was the Clearing Congress films, a series of six lectures delivered in Washington, D.C. in 1958. The next release, in 2006, was the only filmed interview of L. Ron Hubbard, An Introduction to Scientology shot in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1966. The final restoration was completed and released in 2008, the Classification and Gradation film—shot at the Scientology headquarters in Sussex, England in 1965.

The condition of these films had greatly deteriorated over the ensuing years. The project to fully restore and preserve them was initiated by Mr. David Miscavige and carried out by a 70-person team in Golden Era Productions’ film lab. All told, more than 620,000 frames of the original negatives were digitally scanned, meticulously cleaned by hand and fully restored. The result: Scientologists and the general public now and for all time can experience these seminal lecture series and the exclusive L. Ron Hubbard interview for themselves.

Who is David Miscavige? - A Biography