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The objective of archival policy in a democratic country cannot be the mere saving of paper; it must be nothing less than the enriching of the complete historical consciousness of the people as a whole...
— Robert C. Binkley, 1939
The thing about watching old movies is their availability. The next four films on the AFI List (Close Harmony, Syncopation, Fox Movietone Follies of 1929, and Innocents of Paris) are either lost entirely, or only available on "shrinking" film reels at the UCLA Film and TV Archives. As a history nerd, this worries me. It is a reminder of how fragile our tangible past really is. In this age of Google and YouTube, we presume that just about everything and anything is available on the interweb. Not so!
Coincidently, the UCLA Film and TV Archives held a symposium this week on this very topic: “Reimagining the Archives: Remapping and Remixing Traditional Models in the Digital Era”. Thanks to the magic of the interwebs in the modern day, I was able to track down some information on the symposium, and my inner history nerd was thrilled and delighted at what is going on in the land of digitising media, and making footage accessible. Rick Prelinger, a prominent archivist, (among many other titles) and founder of the Prelinger Archives (a collection of over 60,000 “ephemeral” films) in his Keynote Address for the symposiusm, discussed the relevance and role of archivists today. According to Prelinger, old collections are slowly but surely being digitised. He points to issues of physical space for housing old footage, costs in maintaining and digitising these old collections, and the traditional closed views of the archivists and their institutions as barriers to open and available moving footage archives. In Prelinger’s view, the archival process needs to be “Social. Public. Transparent. Collaborative and Decentralized.” Here, here! Speaking of the Symposium, I highly recommend having a look at this page of the symposium blog, which shows a very cool way in which technology, archives, and the general public can all interact.
With all the technology available today, it is exciting to think what can be done to preserve movie history. In terms of movie musical history, which in its early days also preserves on film pieces of vaudeville and early Broadway history, this is absolutely crucial!
Coming up next, some research into the next four films!
Coincidently, the UCLA Film and TV Archives held a symposium this week on this very topic: “Reimagining the Archives: Remapping and Remixing Traditional Models in the Digital Era”. Thanks to the magic of the interwebs in the modern day, I was able to track down some information on the symposium, and my inner history nerd was thrilled and delighted at what is going on in the land of digitising media, and making footage accessible. Rick Prelinger, a prominent archivist, (among many other titles) and founder of the Prelinger Archives (a collection of over 60,000 “ephemeral” films) in his Keynote Address for the symposiusm, discussed the relevance and role of archivists today. According to Prelinger, old collections are slowly but surely being digitised. He points to issues of physical space for housing old footage, costs in maintaining and digitising these old collections, and the traditional closed views of the archivists and their institutions as barriers to open and available moving footage archives. In Prelinger’s view, the archival process needs to be “Social. Public. Transparent. Collaborative and Decentralized.” Here, here! Speaking of the Symposium, I highly recommend having a look at this page of the symposium blog, which shows a very cool way in which technology, archives, and the general public can all interact.
With all the technology available today, it is exciting to think what can be done to preserve movie history. In terms of movie musical history, which in its early days also preserves on film pieces of vaudeville and early Broadway history, this is absolutely crucial!
Coming up next, some research into the next four films!
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