Archival Moving Image Preservation and Restoration
The State of the Archive
In 'Archive Zones', no. 81 (Spring 2012), pp. 33-34.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It discusses the technological landscape facing audiovisual archives, and argues that we are currently in the middle of a 'digitisation gold rush', prompted in part by the impending obsolescence of photographic film.
Download (.pdf) El film de montaje. Una propuesta tipológica
"El film de montaje. Una propuesta tipológica", Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, nº 23, 2006, pp. 67-82.
The "montage film" offers a discourse that gives new meanings to previous materials, because it assembles... more The "montage film" offers a discourse that gives new meanings to previous materials, because it assembles images and sounds recorded with different purpose. The process of recontextualizing implicitly establishes a critical exercise and inquires into how some images were produced and received. Depending on the level of formal experimentation and its critical and mediatic charge, we discern three types of footage films: a) "informative compilation", close to conventional documentary and fairly respectful with the original sense of the recycled images; b) "ironic montage", visually close to compilation but which intends to subvert ideological values or mainstream discourse; c) and "collage", where the avant-garde aesthetic and the deconstruction developed by the editing process challenges the referenciality of images.
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Ken Loach Save the Children Film - Commentary
'Archive Zones', no. 80 (Winter 2011), pp. 12-13.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It discusses the ethical issue raised by the preservation and recent screening of a documentary made by Ken Loach in 1969, commissioned by the charity Save the Children (STC) in order to promote its work. Upon completion, STC believed that the film portrayed them negatively, and the resulting court case ended in the film being preserved by the British Film Institute, but suppressed completely from public access.
"Education, Training and Careers in Moving Image Preservation"
Published by the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA); a modified and condensed version of an article originally published in Film History, v. 12 n. 2 (2000).
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Seen by: FIAF's Declaration on Fair Use and Access
In 'Archive Zones', no. 65 (Spring 2008), pp. 32-33.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It examines the controversy within the moving image archiving profession caused by the Declaration on Fair Use [of film archive collections] and Access issued by the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) in 2007. The declaration's authors defended it as being a necessary step in countering what they perceived as copyright holders' morally illegitimate restrictions on, and profiting from, access to films preserved in taxpayer-funded archive institutions. Its detractors characterised it as an incitement to break the law, thereby jeopardising private sector preservation and restoration activity.
FIAF - The International Archive Industry's First Professional Body
In 'Archive Zones', no. 68 (Winter 2008), pp. 22-23.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It discusses the origins and initial development of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), and the careers of its four founding protagonists, Iris Barry, Frank Hensel, Ernest Lindgren and Henri Langlois.
Twenty-first Century Academic Media Center: Killer App or Chindogu?
by John Vallier
John Vallier. "Twenty-first Century Academic Media Center: Killer App or Chindogu?." Library Trends 58.3 (2010): 378-390. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.
What is the role of the academic media center in the twenty-first-century research library? Will it be relevant or... more What is the role of the academic media center in the twenty-first-century research library? Will it be relevant or irrelevant? In this article the author attempts to answer these questions by first abstracting and summarizing recent reports from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Both reports offer guidance on how tomorrow's research library can be best prepared to meet future challenges and opportunities. The author then uses themes generated from this review, along with his own experiences as a media librarian and archivist, to frame a discussion of how academic media centers around the nation are already actively engaged in imagining and transforming their institutions into the research library's twenty-first century killer app. He ends by suggesting that research libraries look to media centers as models of how to be adaptive and innovative for twenty-first century academic environment.
It can cost up to five figures and take two years ... or you can go the one-week or one-day route
'Archive Zones', no. 23 (Spring 2010), pp. 13-14.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It provides an overview of the formal education and training opportunities available for moving image archivists, including a survey of the five full-time postgraduate programmes available worldwide, and a range of smaller-scale, more specifically focused provision.
Note: Since this article was published, the University of East Anglia announced the temporary withdrawal of their MA in Film Archiving for the 2011-12 academic year.
Buy gold or granite optical discs for longest life ... or destroy a cheap version in a car on a hot, sunny day
'Archive Zones', no. 74 (Summer 2010), p. 14.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It outlines some of the issues and challenges involved in preserving optical disc media (principally CDs, DVDs and BDs).
'Go Away Back to Berwick and Die: 'The Blackhill Campaign', the Coal Industry and the British New Wave
In 'The Moving Image', vol. 10, no. 2 (2010), pp. 83-103.
This article examines the production and release history of 'The Blackhill Campaign' (UK, 1963, dir. Jack Parsons), a... more This article examines the production and release history of 'The Blackhill Campaign' (UK, 1963, dir. Jack Parsons), a feature-length documentary about the political controversy precipitated by the closure of a coal mine in Northumberland in 1959. It was made almost single-handedly by a sociologist and amateur filmmaker, who had no previous experience of filmmaking. The article argues that the film is significant for two essential reasons. Firstly, being an amateur production, it articulates a political perspective not found in any of the mainstream media of the time, criticising the role of both the employer and the trade union in the dispute. Secondly, because the filmmaker returned to his former career as an academic and did not make any further films, 'The Blackhill Campaign' was quickly forgotten and remained a lost film for over three decades. I therefore argue that this represents an important case study as to how films can come to be orphaned.
Some Bald Assertion by an Ignorant and Uneducated Frenchman: Technology, Criticism and the 'Restoration' of 'Vertigo' (1958)
In 'The Moving Image', vol. 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 130-141.
This article examines the response by critics and academics to the 1997 restoration and rerelease of 'Vertigo' (US,... more This article examines the response by critics and academics to the 1997 restoration and rerelease of 'Vertigo' (US, 1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock). I argue that this response illustrates how many humanitites scholars display a lack of understanding of the nature and extent to which technical intervention by archivists affects the aesthetic qualities of a film, and that this lack of understanding undermines many of the resulting critical judgements.
Have Digital Technologies Reopened the Lindgren/Langlois Debate?
In 'Spectator' (ISSN 1051-0230), vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 10-20.
This essay examines the increasing use of digital imaging technologies by film archives to provide access to their... more This essay examines the increasing use of digital imaging technologies by film archives to provide access to their holdings. It argues that two distinct forms of this technology are emerging: low quality, online access (as epitomised, for example, by video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video) and high quality offline media, principally the DVD and its higher resolution successors. In conclusion, I suggest that archivists are increasingly having to battle the myth that vast quantities of footage can be made available at little or no cost using digital media, and that they remove the need for long-term preservation. By comparing the current debates over the use of digital technologies by archives with the Lindgren/Langlois debate of the 1950s and '60s, I hope to show that the issue of whether preservation or access should take priority when their needs conflict is as relevant now as it was then.
The Film Industry's Conversion From Nitrate to Safety Film In the Late 1940s: A Discussion of the Reasons and Consequences
In Roger Smither and Catherine Surowiec (eds.), This Film is Dangerous: A Celebration of Nitrate Film, Brussels, FIAF (2002), pp. 202-212.
This chapter investigates the circumstances of the technical research and development which led to cellulose... more This chapter investigates the circumstances of the technical research and development which led to cellulose triacetate film base superseding nitrate in the professional film industry. Citing evidence in hitherto overlooked files in the British Government's archives, I argue that the seizure of equipment and materials in Allied-occupied Germany may have been the catalyst. If so, this suggests that the Nazis may have made more progress in the development of safety film technology than had previously been thought.