Abstract
With emerging digital media, many established and lauded filmmakers are now tasked with the essential and often cost-prohibitive mission of preservation for their award-winning works. After ceremonious festivals and standing ovations, it becomes a race for time to digitize and preserve many daring and culturally important independent films as they begin to deteriorate. In North America, nearly half the films produced before 1950 have permanently disappeared. Only since the enactment of the National Film Preservation Act of 1988 in the U.S. can these disintegrating works be rescued. The benefit of digital preservation will offer access to an incredible range of media, on numerous subjects for academics and future generations. In addition, it also provides the independent filmmaker the valuable opportunity of renewed, potentially global exposure, and expanded distribution via today’s emerging media platforms. This labor-intensive preservation process requires the collaboration of independent filmmakers and preservation organizations. Previous research has shown the complicated, sequential steps, the rationale behind them, and the results. This paper analyzes the up-to-date status of film preservation by referencing the actual case of the researcher’s 1996 film The Love Lesson. This research provides a practical perspective on today’s film preservation practices and challenges through vigorous interviews with several esteemed media archivists in the U.S. and Canada. In particular, film archivists’ views, preservation organizations’ operating mechanisms, and filmmaker’s challenges are reported based on this case study. This engaging and in-depth analysis also offers practical guidance for film and digital media communities.
Presenters
Sharon GreytakFilmmaker, Director/Writer, Greytak Productions, New York, United States Siqiao Ao
PhD Student, Department of Communication, University of Maryland, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2021 Special Focus—The Data Galaxy: The Un-Making of Typographic Man?
KEYWORDS
FILM PRESERVATION, INDEPENDENT FILM, DIGITAL PRESERVATION, FILM ARCHIVE, CINEMA
