NFSA blog entries in Preservation

In Wellington, New Zealand, Audiovisual Conservation Assistant Kerry Yates found that objects and artefacts have a life of their own.

Conservator Shingo Ishikawa and Audiovisual Conservation Assistant Kerry Yates recently attended a series of workshops run by Sylvie Penichon, from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

Graham Shirley and Meg Labrum mark the passing of Susanne Chauvel Carlsson this week in Toowoomba, Queensland, after a short illness.

Senior curator Matthew Davies reports from the 43rd annual conference of IASA – the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives – in New Delhi, India.

Rod Butler reports from UNESCO’s The Memory of the World conference in Vancouver on digital preservation projects from countries including Austria, Latvia, Singapore and the USA.

Rod Butler meets the man who invented the internet and grapples with the latest developments in preservation at UNESCO’s The Memory of the World conference.

NFSA’s Head of Preservation and Technical Services, Rod Butler, reports from the International Council on Archives Congress in Brisbane.

NFSA CEO Michael Loebenstein reports from day three of the International Council on Archives Congress in Brisbane.

NFSA CEO Michael Loebenstein reports from the International Council on Archives Congress in Brisbane.

The NFSA is building a stronger relationship with its South East Asian counterparts through a new preservation award. Mick Newnham reports from the SEAPAVAA Conference in Ho Chi Min City.

Mould, vinegar odours and baby spiders; just another work day for film curators.

Sally Jackson on the importance of silent film preservation as seen in Hugo.

The NFSA is proud to present the race that stopped the nation… 114 years ago!

National Film and Sound Archive CEO Michael Loebenstein delivered a speech to mark the UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage on 27 October.

The final days of Mick Newnham’s preservation conference feature a wet gate and a storm: a fitting juxtaposition of the subtlety and power of liquid.

Mick Newnham visits Latvia and Lithuania to share his extensive knowledge of audiovisual preservation.

NFSA Development Manager Executive Dominic Case looks back at the days when computers first infiltrated the film industry, and wonders what the digital present – and future – holds for film archives.

Mick Newnham is in Latvia to provide training for the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property.

The NFSA gives New Caledonians an important window to their history by providing a copy of a short documentary made in the 1920s and previously unavailable in New Caledonia.

Rod Butler and Mick Newnham share the NFSA’s preservation expertise in Noumea. Rod is reminded of the value of archives opening their collections and offers a great tip for lovers of cheesy ’70s cinema.

Rod Butler and Mick Newnham of the NFSA’s preservation team provide advice and training to industry colleagues from across the Pacific region.

NFSA’s head of preservation, Rod Butler, helps launch the NFSA SEAPAVAA Preservation Award in Malaysia.

Rod Butler visits Filem Negara Malaysia and their impressive facilities and gets an unexpected shock from some archival footage.

Rod Butler continues to blog from Malaysia about NFSA’s current engagement in preservation discussions among South-East Asian and Pacific nations.

NFSA’s head of preservation and technical services, Rod Butler, is a delegate at the SEAPAVAA conference in Malaysia. He reports on the first day’s discussions.

Rod Butler, head of the NFSA’s preservation team, is in Malaysia to address the South East Asian and Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association.

Craig Dingwall arrives in Rochester, tours the city and spends his first day at George Eastman House as part of the NFSA’s exchange program.

The NFSA’s Craig Dingwall continues his exchange program in the USA with a visit to The Paley Center for Media, in New York.

Craig Dingwall visits Cineric in New York, one of the industry’s finest film restoration and preservation companies.

Craig Dingwall visits DuArt Film and Video in New York as part of the NFSA’s George Eastman House exchange program.

On his first day in New York, Craig Dingwall is caught up in an historically significant moment. Craig is visiting the USA in May as part of the NFSA’s George Eastman House exchange program.

The feature film Father (1990) has been selected for the Deluxe/Kodak Collection.

Students and staff who work with the film collection belonging to the TVN Thoroughbred Racing Archive receive training from Conservation Officer, Pat O’Connor.

As Queensland and Western Australian towns are devastated by massive floods, efforts will need to be made to save precious film and other audiovisual treasures. We have prepared simple steps to minimise damage caused by water, dirt and debris.

I’ve been thinking about film preservation – not unusual for someone working in the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) I suppose – but my thoughts were triggered by a recent comment by NFSA’s Curator Emeritus Ray Edmondson that a particular film had 'been preserved’.

'You can’t ever say a film has 'been preserved’ he said. 'It’s an ongoing task.’

It was back in 1973 that Paul Simon immortalised colour photography in this song, but if he saw the writing on the wall, it was a long time coming. The last ever roll of 35mm roll of Kodachrome film will be processed, at Dwayne’s Photofinishing Lab in Kansas City, in December this year. Manufacture of the film stock was discontinued some time ago.

It was great to see so many people at the premiere screenings of the NFSA’s new 35mm prints of Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett, 1996) and The Last Days of Chez Nous (Gillian Armstrong, 1992) at the Sydney Film Festival last Saturday morning. The new 35mm prints were recently preserved as part of the NFSA’s Deluxe/Kodak Project and they looked fantastic on the big screen in the Art Gallery of New South Wales theatre.

The International Centre of Photography (ICP) is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas between 43rd and 44th Street New York. The digitisation department and photographic collection is located on the 12th floor and, incidentally, has the best view from its lunchroom I have ever seen!

The Image Permanence Institute of Rochester (IPI) makes it their business to test photographic material of all types, for all types of stability issues. These include exposure to light, contaminants and chemicals. Part of the Rochester Institute of Technology College’s Department of Imaging Arts and Sciences, the Institute just celebrated their 25th anniversary.

Carol Galbraith, the motion picture laboratory specialist in film inspection at the Library of Congress, took me on a tour through the film preparation area. This section of the Library of Congress complex is responsible for the inspection, cleaning and repair of film. Films are carefully inspected over light-boxes on work benches and any damage is noted and repaired. The repairs can vary from a single perforation replacement to a major repair of missing frame sections. The repaired film is then cleaned in an ultrasonic film cleaner and then goes to the timing/grading area.

Monday and Tuesday (17 and 18 May) I spent at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Virginia.

The majority of this complex is hidden underground and houses 6.3 million collection items; 1.2 million moving image, 3 million recorded sound and 2.1 million supporting documents such as scripts, posters and photos. The building site was originally used by the US Federal Reserve Bank Center and after an extensive rebuild was officially opened by the Library of Congress in 2007.

Friday the 14^th saw me start the day with Juan Vrijs from Haghefilm for a lesson in film repair and splicing. I was joined by two L. Jeffrey Selznick School students, Josh Haidet from Alliance, Ohio and HyunJu Jang from South Korea. Juan took us through film preparation and a variety of repair techniques including ultrasonic film splicing and film sprocket repair. Careful examination of film to be duplicated is essential. This ensures any damage to the sprocket holes or film surface is repaired prior to the film being duplicated, thus reducing the chance of further damage occurring to the film during the duplication process.

Recently Technicolor donated a large and extremely important collection to George Eastman House (GEH). I was lucky enough to have a glimpse of this collection while given a tour of the Gleason Storage Facility. The collection includes motion picture cameras and printing equipment as well as papers such as technical drawings. This important collection will eventually be made available to the public to view.

Today I visited the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House (GEH) which is run by the delightful team of Nancy Kauffman and Dianna Ford. This department is responsible for the digitisation of photographic stills, posters and paper documents, all relating to Motion Pictures. One could say they are the sister department to Still image services at the NFSA, where I am based. I found many similarities between the two sections. One issue we both have is the ongoing battle of scanning collection material at as high a resolution as possible but keeping in mind the limited space available for the storage of the digital files.

After over 24 hours of travel in four different aircraft I finally arrived in Rochester, NY, on a rainy Friday night. I was met by the smiling faces of Jeff and Deb Stoiber from George Eastman House. Over the weekend I was taken on a tour of Buffalo, NY, by Jeff, Deb and past NFSA/GEH Exchange participant Tim Wagner. We met up with Juan and Gerard from Haghefilm, Amsterdam, and two students from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, Maggie Yin and HyunJu Jang. A great time was had by all and Tim made the perfect tour guide.

Last Friday I left Canberra for New York to participate in the NFSA/George Eastman House (GEH) Exchange Program.

As well as George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, I’ll visit the International Centre for Photography and the Metropolitan Museum of Art , then the Library of Congress Audio-Visual Conservation Centre in Culpeper, Virginia.

Last week the two aging nitrate shipping containers located outside the NFSA’s nitrate bunker were replaced.