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	<title>Silent Film &#8211; Film Legacy </title>
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		<title>Bill Morrison on &#8216;Decasia&#8217;</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2015/12/23/bill-morrison-on-decasia/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2015 22:13:47 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Film Festivals]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[For the past twenty years, Bill Morrison has been mining film archives, resurrecting decaying nitrate that would otherwise have been discarded and then editing it into new narratives. Released in 2002, Decasia helped Morrison reach a wide audience. Tied to &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2015/12/23/bill-morrison-on-decasia/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_324" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/main-boxer-blog1.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-324" class="size-full wp-image-324" title="main-boxer-blog" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/main-boxer-blog1.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="461" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/main-boxer-blog1.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/main-boxer-blog1-300x230.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/main-boxer-blog1-195x150.jpg 195w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-324" class="wp-caption-text">Willie Ritchie in a 1927 Fox Movietone newsreel</p></div>
<p>For the past twenty years, Bill Morrison has been mining film archives, resurrecting decaying nitrate that would otherwise have been discarded and then editing it into new narratives.</p>
<p>Released in 2002, <em>Decasia</em> helped Morrison reach a wide audience. Tied to a hypnotic score by Michael Gordon, the 67-minute feature explores many levels and meanings of decay, from the physical aspects of nitrate decomposition to the ruminations on nostalgia and memory.</p>
<p><em>Decasia</em> started out as a commission by the Europaischer Musikmonat for a symphony by composer Michael Gordon, a co-founder of Bang On A Can. Along with artistic director Bob McGrath and visual designer Laurie Olinder, Morrison was a member of Ridge Theatre, which had been staging Bang On A Can operas. The three were commissioned to create a visual component to Gordon&#8217;s score.</p>
<p>Morrison found the footage that makes up <em>Decasia</em> in various archives, among them The George Eastman House in Rochester, The Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art, and the University of South Carolina Newsfilm Library. Too deteriorated to restore, the nitrate was ready to be junked.</p>
<p>For Morrison, rescuing the films from the scrap heap, turning them from hazardous waste back into art, was one of the redeeming factors of <em>Decasia</em>. &#8220;Somehow they&#8217;ve managed to be viewed in the 21st century, whereas almost everything else from the silent era is lost,&#8221; he said in an interview.</p>
<p>The original films included dramas like <em>Truthful Tulliver</em>, a 1917 Kay-Bee Western starring William S. Hart, and <em>A Tokio Siren</em>, a 1920 melodrama from Universal. Morrison also used nonfiction pieces like <em>Ritchie Trains</em> and <em>Egyptian Dancers</em>, both Fox Movietone newsreels.</p>
<p>The clips show a full range of nitrate damage. Improperly stored, nitrate film can buckle, warp, shrink and tear. The emulsion—a layer containing the photographic image—can pull away from its backing. It can oxidize into spots, blotches, blobs. It can reverse positive and negative images, an effect something like solarization.</p>
<p>And because each frame deteriorates at a different rate, the effects of the decay change as the film is projected. It can pulse, weave or throb. If a reel was damaged in a specific area—by being stored upright on a shelf, for example—the resulting effects could take on their own rhythms, just like a scratch on a phonograph record adds a new beat to the music when it is played.</p>
<p>Morrison&#8217;s creative leap was to marshal or corral nitrate decomposition for its aesthetic impact, its sheer beauty. The whirling dervishes in <em>Egyptian Dancers</em> dissolve into abstract patterns, almost like electronic snow on television screens. A boxer in <em>Ritchie Trains</em> battles a blob that threatens to overwhelm the frame.</p>
<p>On one level <em>Decasia </em>is a celebration of decay, a sort of time-lapse look at deterioration, enhanced by Gordon&#8217;s austerely minimalist score.</p>
<p>But <em>Decasia </em>is more than an account of physical effects. Morrison&#8217;s choice of material—his use of montage and <em>mise-en-scène</em>—adds narrative layers to the footage.</p>
<p>Take the boxer in <em>Ritchie Trains</em>. &#8220;That boxer, the image of him fighting an amorphic blob, a great unknown—on the one hand he&#8217;s heroic, on the other hand he&#8217;s comical. He&#8217;s valiantly fighting, but it&#8217;s also sort of ironic because you can&#8217;t fight forever. Eventually he&#8217;s going to be consumed by that blob.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison can get as darkly existential as you want: &#8220;There&#8217;s this comic element, none of this amounts to anything because the base on which the emulsion is fighting its battle is giving out, it&#8217;s all being done on quicksand.</p>
<p>&#8220;We do manage to get things done, but we get them done by being blind to the fact that we&#8217;re mortal or finite. We have a very limited time to get anything done at all. And the greatest things are done with the idea that the work is going to continue somehow, that it&#8217;s going to be carried on.&#8221;</p>
<p>But every second, every frame of <em>Decasia</em> reminds us that loss is imminent, inevitable. In a way the movie is a battle between survival and decay.</p>
<p>&#8220;It seemed like the images to choose were ones where the protagonists were somehow engaged in activities where they&#8217;re overstepping mortal bounds. That they&#8217;re engaged in either religious rapture or love or athletic greatness. Love, rapture, inebriation, some sort of going beyond the normal confines of the everyday experience. And in this reaching beyond, the rug&#8217;s being pulled out from under them at the same time.&#8221;</p>
<div id="attachment_325" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/012tokiosiren.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-325" class="size-full wp-image-325" title="012tokiosiren" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/012tokiosiren.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="406" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/012tokiosiren.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/012tokiosiren-300x203.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/012tokiosiren-221x150.jpg 221w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-325" class="wp-caption-text">Tokio Siren</p></div>
<p>&#8220;In <em>A Tokio Siren</em>, there&#8217;s a shot of a kimono made from a print material. That print motif becomes repeated in the decay, you almost see the same shapes that are on the kimono on the surface of the film. The film is sort of rhyming between the formal disintegration and the content.&#8221;</p>
<div id="attachment_326" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/020tokiosiren.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-326" class="size-full wp-image-326" title="020tokiosiren" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/020tokiosiren.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="406" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/020tokiosiren.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/020tokiosiren-300x203.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/020tokiosiren-221x150.jpg 221w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-326" class="wp-caption-text">Tokio Siren</p></div>
<p>Sometimes Morrison lucked across footage, like a shot of nuns watching students parade across a courtyard, a newsreel outtake.</p>
<p>&#8220;I found that in a box on the first day, I said, &#8216;Well, there&#8217;s something here, I&#8217;m finding this for a reason. There&#8217;s a theme that can be teased out here.&#8217; The original soundtrack on it was pulsating, it also had decay. It was super annoying, just dogs barking and bells ringing.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison also had to consider the larger narrative formed by the juxtaposition of clips.</p>
<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t tell an archivist that these themes are what you&#8217;re looking for, but you can say, &#8216;Let&#8217;s see images of that place, or let&#8217;s break it down into a subset of films that we know are showing some sort of deterioration.&#8221; But simple decay wasn&#8217;t enough: Morrison was looking for decomposition that related to the image. The boxer fighting decay, the kimono transformed into a nitrate design.</p>
<p>&#8220;I would put things into different bins, according to the decay they had, according to the cycle, and in doing that I discovered that a theme of cruelty to women kept emerging, or defining space through pillars and colonnades. That became synonymous with filmmaking.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison now works with digital files, but &#8220;back in the <em>Decasia</em> days we were making new negatives photochemically&#8221; from the decaying footage.</p>
<p>&#8220;Certain labs would take the trouble to soak a reel and rewash it, and then I worked with an optical house to rephotograph it frame by frame, adjusting for shrinkage,&#8221; he says. &#8220;That&#8217;s the same thing we do now, except we scan it digitally.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison tried to keep the original footage intact. &#8220;There are such long, sweeping movements that it&#8217;s really distracting if you cut away,&#8221; he said. He also resisted adjusting the speed of the clips, how many frames per second are shown.</p>
<p>&#8220;Digitally it&#8217;s so easy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You can tell a software program to &#8216;slow down 59%&#8217; or 81% or whatever, and it will do it automatically. Photochemically sometimes you have to repeat frames, go two-to-one or three-to-one. But the image starts to lose its cinematic quality, it becomes too much like a slide show.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison cut <em>Decasia</em> to Michael Gordon&#8217;s score, &#8220;which is almost exclusively how I work. It was difficult because the takes are so long, and that would sometimes dictate whether I put a shot here or there.&#8221;</p>
<p>Gordon and Morrison received their commissions at the same time. Morrison showed the composer some of the footage he wanted to work with, while Gordon played part of his score at one point.</p>
<p>&#8220;He had very little to say about what I put where, as I had very little to say about what he wrote,&#8221; was how the director characterized their collaboration. &#8220;When I was editing, I only had a MIDI track. It sounded like a Casio computer rendering of the score, which was very difficult to edit to. I had a full head of hair when I started,&#8221; he jokes.</p>
<p>The director used to work on a Steenbeck, a flatbed editing table, a tool he doesn&#8217;t miss.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a very organized guy. With Final Cut and digital drives, you have a built-in organizational principle. Nothing can get done unless you set up folders and files. And that helps me enormously, because otherwise there would be little rolls of taped-up film all over my house. In fact, that&#8217;s how I lived up until this century.&#8221;</p>
<p>Despite working so intently with nitrate, Morrison isn&#8217;t a romantic about film. But since digital standards are still in flux, he believes that 35mm is still the &#8220;Rosetta Stone&#8221; for archivists. &#8220;There will probably be more nitrate images that are legible in the next century than there are digital ones. It&#8217;s a concern, but I also think that what I&#8217;m doing can be preserved during my lifetime.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison admits that he can see a difference between 35mm and digital. &#8220;I&#8217;m having to accept it [digital],&#8221; he says. &#8220;And I&#8217;m a lot more productive in the digital world. Scanning the nitrate means that I&#8217;m saving this spectacular imagery on some level. If somebody wants me to output a 35mm print I can do it through a digital intermediary.&#8221;</p>
<p>Starting in 2014, he started offering his films on DCPs, Digital Cinema Packages.</p>
<p>&#8220;I changed from film because my projects were being funded by performing arts venues that didn&#8217;t have 35 or 16mm projectors, they had video projectors,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;<em>Decasia</em>&#8216;s out on commercial Blu-ray commercially, and I&#8217;ve made Blu-rays of most things I send to festivals. But who knows? Maybe in a few years, DCPs will be passé.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison visits the Library of Congress three or four times a year to deliver talks and to look over footage.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have a unique relationship with a manager there,&#8221; he laughs. &#8220;George [George R. Willeman, Nitrate Film Vault Manager] sometimes says he&#8217;s my enabler. His job description is to get rid of decaying nitrate that might to spread throughout the collection. Or make shelf space, basically. I&#8217;m like the worms in mulch.&#8221;</p>
<p>Willeman sets aside material that will be de-accessioned on a shelf in a holding vault labeled with Morrison&#8217;s name on a Post-It.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s going through stuff, and some of it he&#8217;s just going to throw away,&#8221; Morrison says. &#8220;He&#8217;s not going to re-can it, he&#8217;s not going to put it back on the shelf. But there&#8217;s still something there. And he <em>knows</em> that the only person in the world who would still be interested in that is me.&#8221;</p>
<p>Willeman and Mike Mashon (head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress) have even come up with a term for decomposing footage. &#8220;They use my name as an adjective, like, &#8216;Oh, that&#8217;s gone all Bill Morrison,'&#8221; he laughs.</p>
<div id="attachment_327" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mission-blog.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-327" class="size-full wp-image-327" title="mission-blog" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mission-blog.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="462" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mission-blog.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mission-blog-300x231.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mission-blog-194x150.jpg 194w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-327" class="wp-caption-text">Fox Movietone outtake</p></div>
<p>&#8220;Back when the nitrate vaults were in Dayton, Ohio, George found this print of a 1926 film called <em>The Bells</em> by James Young which was redundant. It was a pristine print they were throwing away, but he gave me three rolls that were really spectacular. I ended making <em>Light Is Calling </em>[2004] and <em>The Mesmerist</em> [2003] from those same rolls.&#8221;</p>
<p>Much of the material for both <em>Decasia</em> and <em>The Great Flood</em>, a 2013 work that explores Mississippi during the Depression, came from Fox Movietone outtakes stored at the University of South Carolina. Morrison has recently started working with the EYE Institute in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m like a de facto reclamation team,&#8221; Morrison jokes. &#8220;That stuff just sits there until somebody says, &#8216;I want to see that reel on that shelf.&#8217; Then they will bring it out and scan it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison&#8217;s point is that there is usually no policy to digitize the entirety of an archive&#8217;s nitrate holdings.</p>
<p>&#8220;I give a presentation about a trove of silent nitrate footage that was found in Dawson City. It was discovered in 1978, restored in 1979, and then it just sat on a shelf.</p>
<p>&#8220;Who <em>is</em> looking at this stuff? Who is really taking the time? One reason why I have a relationship with George and Mike is that I&#8217;m one of the few people who walk through the door asking, &#8216;What do you have?&#8217; There simply isn&#8217;t much interest in looking through restored footage on a shelf. I think people would much rather search YouTube.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morrison&#8217;s filmography includes <em>The Great Flood</em>, <em>Outerborough</em> (2005), <em>Spark of Being</em> (2010), <em>The Miners&#8217; Hymns</em> (2011), and <em>Beyond Zero: 1914–1918</em> (2014). They are available in a 5-disc box set from Icarus and a 3-disc Blu-ray box set from the British Film Institute.</p>
<p>Morrison is a Guggenheim fellow and has received the Alpert Award for the Arts, an NEA Creativity Grant, Creative Capital, and a fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. His theatrical projection design has been recognized with two Bessie awards and an Obie Award.</p>
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		<title>Celebrating Animation from Its Beginnings</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2015/04/22/celebrating-animation-from-its-beginnings/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2015 02:26:51 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Animation]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[For the next five weeks the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be spotlighting animation in a series that stretches from the form&#8217;s early beginnings to one of this summer&#8217;s most eagerly awaited releases. An Animation Showcase: From &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2015/04/22/celebrating-animation-from-its-beginnings/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_224" style="width: 680px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-224" class="size-large wp-image-224" title="Inside Out image" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image-1024x466.png" alt="" width="670" height="304" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image-1024x466.png 1024w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image-300x136.png 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image-250x113.png 250w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Inside-Out-image.png 1187w" sizes="(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-224" class="wp-caption-text">Courtesy Disney-Pixar</p></div>
<p>For the next five weeks the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be spotlighting animation in a series that stretches from the form&#8217;s early beginnings to one of this summer&#8217;s most eagerly awaited releases.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/animation-showcase-celluloid-cgi?">An Animation Showcase: From Celluloid to CGI</a> will take viewers from trick films made at the turn of the twentieth century by J. Stuart Blackton to a sneak-peek screening of <em>Inside Out</em>.</p>
<p>&#8220;This celebration of animation is really just the beginning of what I hope will be an ongoing series on filmmaking crafts,&#8221; according to Patrick Harrison, the Academy’s Director of New York Programs and Membership. &#8220;The Academy gives out awards in 24 categories of filmmaking. We have an opportunity to educate both the audience and filmmakers about these crafts, and animation felt like the right place to begin.&#8221;</p>
<p>When he met with Academy experts about what to include in the series, Harrison at first felt overwhelmed. &#8220;We could easily spend a year on animation, how it&#8217;s used not just in film but in television, advertising, the Internet, video games. And animators come from so many different backgrounds and disciplines. So we decided to focus on three main areas: drawing by hand, stop-motion, and CGI.&#8221;</p>
<div id="attachment_227" style="width: 280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Coraline.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-227" class="size-medium wp-image-227" title="Coraline" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Coraline-270x300.png" alt="" width="270" height="300" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Coraline-270x300.png 270w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Coraline-135x150.png 135w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Coraline.png 775w" sizes="(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-227" class="wp-caption-text">Courtesy LAIKA, Inc.</p></div>
<p>Three of the biggest animation studios are contributing to the series: LAIKA, Blue Sky, and Disney/Pixar. &#8220;The LAIKA people are experts in stop motion, with <em>Coraline</em>, <em>ParaNorman</em>, last year&#8217;s <em>The Boxtrolls</em>. Who are these guys? They&#8217;re not Hollywood, they&#8217;re up in Oregon. Who makes movies in Oregon?&#8221; Harrison jokes.</p>
<p>Blue Sky&#8217;s releases include the <em>Ice Age</em> and <em>Rio</em> series. &#8220;They are our New York animation studio,&#8221; Harrison says. &#8220;You can&#8217;t have a New York event at the Academy without having Blue Sky.&#8221;</p>
<p>Pixar&#8217;s successes start with the <em>Toy Story</em> franchise and include such beloved hits as <em>Finding Nemo</em> and <em>Monsters Inc.</em> After <a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/sneak-peek-disney-pixars-inside-out">the <em>Inside Out</em> sneak peek</a> on May 29, director Pete Docter (<em>Up</em>) and producer Jonas Rivera will share behind-the-scenes details about the movie.</p>
<p>But Harrison points out that the series has a deeper purpose than to publicize current releases.</p>
<p>&#8220;We wanted all three studios to understand that the conversation here may be a little more technical than what you normally get in a typical Q&amp;A session. We&#8217;re trying to educate the audience. And me! One of my favorite scenes in <em>Up</em> is when the house is lifted by balloons. The shadows, the reflection of the sun on the balloons and the building, all the movement, it was an incredible scene. So how do you do that? What exactly is involved?&#8221;</p>
<p>The series opens April 24 with <a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/nuts-and-bolts-stop-motion-artistry-and-ingenuity-laika">The Nuts and Bolts of Stop Motion: Artistry and Ingenuity of LAIKA</a>. Attending will be Creative Supervisor of Puppet Fabrication Georgina Hayns, Director of Rapid Prototype Brian McLean, and VFX supervisor Steve Emerson.</p>
<div id="attachment_229" style="width: 206px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-229" class="size-medium wp-image-229" title="Pinocchio Poster" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1-196x300.jpg" alt="" width="196" height="300" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1-196x300.jpg 196w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1-670x1024.jpg 670w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1-98x150.jpg 98w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Pinocchio-Poster1.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-229" class="wp-caption-text">Courtesy Disney.</p></div>
<p>On May 9, the Academy celebrates the <a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/75th-anniversary-screening-pinocchio">75th anniversary of <em>Pinocchio</em></a> with a screening of what remains one of Walt Disney&#8217;s finest features. Somewhat overlooked relative to <em>Fantasia </em>(which was released the same year), <em>Pinocchio</em> includes some of the studio&#8217;s most memorable characters and animated sequences. The score Leigh Harline and Ned Washington gave Disney his unofficial theme song, &#8220;When You Wish Upon a Star.&#8221; Film historian J.B. Kaufman, author of <em>Pinocchio: The Making of the Disney Epic</em>, will introduce the screening.</p>
<p>May 12 is devoted to explaining CGI through the work of Blue Sky. <a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/anatomy-animation-studio-evening-blue-sky">Anatomy of an Animation Studio</a> will include directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, producer John Donkin, and art director Tom Cardone. Using clips and storyboards, they will show how movies like <em>Robots</em> evolve from concept to screen.</p>
<p>On May 19, film historian Tom Stathes will introduce <a href="http://www.oscars.org/events/history-silent-and-early-sound-new-york-animation">The History of Silent and Early Sound New York Animation</a>, an overview of the cartoon industry before Hollywood. Along with familiar names like the Fleischer brothers, Walter Lantz, and Paul Terry, Stathes will screen work by animation pioneers Winsor McCay and J.R. Bray.</p>
<div id="attachment_230" style="width: 680px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-230" class="size-large wp-image-230" title="Fitting Gift still" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still-1024x762.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="498" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still-1024x762.jpg 1024w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still-300x223.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still-201x150.jpg 201w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fitting-Gift-still.jpg 1809w" sizes="(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-230" class="wp-caption-text">From A Fitting Gift. Courtesy the Stathes Collection.</p></div>
<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t cover the entire art form in a month,&#8221; Harrison notes. &#8220;But I hope you will come away from this series with a good overview, a sense of the history of animation — where we stand, where we&#8217;re headed. We want the Academy to be a part of that conversation.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences schedules membership screenings, and recently concluded this year&#8217;s &#8220;Monday Nights with Oscar&#8221; program, which showcases prints from the Academy Film Archive and Q&amp;A sessions with filmmakers. That series will continue in the fall.</p>
<p>Most screenings will take place at The Academy Theater, 111 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022. Tickets — $5 general public/$3 for members — are available on <a href="http://www.oscars.org">Oscars.org</a> or at the box office 30 minutes before show begins.</p>
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		<title>Accidentally Preserved: Ben Model Helps Save Rare Films</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2013/04/18/accidentally-preserved-ben-model-helps-save-rare-films/</link>
					<comments>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2013/04/18/accidentally-preserved-ben-model-helps-save-rare-films/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:46:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Silent Film]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/?p=92</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Pianist Ben Model has been accompanying silent films for almost thirty years, including a few of my National Film Registry screenings. Along with film historian Bruce Lawton, he launched the Silent Clowns Film Series in 1997, which this spring will &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2013/04/18/accidentally-preserved-ben-model-helps-save-rare-films/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_96" style="width: 560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/weddingslips-collins_550w.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-96" class="size-full wp-image-96" title="weddingslips-collins_550w" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/weddingslips-collins_550w.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="412" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/weddingslips-collins_550w.jpg 550w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/weddingslips-collins_550w-300x224.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/weddingslips-collins_550w-200x150.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-96" class="wp-caption-text">From Wedding Slips (1928) with Monte Collins</p></div>
<p>Pianist <a href="http://silentfilmmusic.com/">Ben Model</a> has been accompanying silent films for almost thirty years, including a few of my National Film Registry screenings. Along with film historian Bruce Lawton, he launched the <a href="http://silentclowns.com/">Silent Clowns Film Series</a> in 1997, which this spring will focus on features and shorts by Harold Lloyd in screenings at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at New York&#8217;s <a href="http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa">Library for the Performing Arts</a>.</p>
<p>Model has helped bring back to the public several long-neglected comedians. He&#8217;s also uncovered films so obscure that no one even knew they were lost.</p>
<p>In a new DVD, <a href="http://www.accidentallypreserved.com/" target="_blank"><em>Accidentally Preserved</em></a>, Model is making some of these films available again.</p>
<p>Here are the titles:</p>
<p><strong>The Water Plug</strong> with Billy Franey (1920)<br />
<strong>Cheer Up</strong> with Cliff Bowes (1924)<br />
<strong>The House of Wonders</strong>—Elgin Watch Company (1931)<br />
<strong>Loose Change</strong> with Jack Duffy (1928)<br />
<strong>Mechanical Doll/The Dresden Doll</strong>—Fleischer cartoon (1922)<br />
<strong>The Misfit</strong> with Clyde Cook (1924)<br />
<strong>Shoot Straight</strong> with Paul [James] Parrott (1923)<br />
<strong>Wedding Slips</strong> with Monte Collins (1928)<br />
<strong>The Lost Laugh</strong> with Wallace Lupino (1928)</p>
<p>We spoke recently about the DVD and his other plans.</p>
<p><strong>How can readers get the DVD?</strong></p>
<p>The <em>Accidentally Preserved</em> DVD will be available from <a href="http://Amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a>, probably in May. They are DVD-R discs, made on-demand using Amazon&#8217;s CreateSpace service for books, CDs and DVDs. CreateSpace is geared to be used by individual producers, but studios like Warner Home Archive use it for their releases. Sony&#8217;s DVD of Charley Chase Columbia shorts used this service as well.</p>
<p><strong>How were they digitized? </strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Accidentally_Preserved_550w2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-106" title="Accidentally_Preserved_550w" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Accidentally_Preserved_550w2-300x170.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="170" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Accidentally_Preserved_550w2-300x170.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Accidentally_Preserved_550w2-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Accidentally_Preserved_550w2.jpg 550w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>The films have been transferred in HD at 1080p with the Sniper-16 HD Telecine. Higher resolution would&#8217;ve been prohibitively expensive, and probably unnecessary for this project. I wasn&#8217;t looking to spend hours and hours digitally restoring the films, but I did want them to look as good as possible on a budget. My goal was to be make them available for viewing in high-quality and affordable (for me) transfers with a proper musical score.</p>
<p><strong>Where did you find these films?</strong></p>
<p>Five of them came from eBay. They were items no one was interested in bidding on. The Wallace Lupino film was completely mis-labeled, but I recognized Lupino from frame grabs. The Fleischer cartoon was in a collection that I sort of inherited 16 years ago from a distant uncle. The other three came from a collector who was impressed with a YouTube series of these rarities I did last summer. He boxed up films from his collection and sent them to me.</p>
<p><strong>In some cases are these the only existing prints?</strong></p>
<p>Yes! The prints I have of WEDDING SLIPS, THE LOST LAUGH and THE HOUSE OF WONDERS are the only ones in existence, as far as I know. Some of the others, like CHEER UP, SHOOT STRAIGHT, and MECHANICAL DOLL, may be around somewhere, either in originals or dupes, but they&#8217;re not really available in the sense that you can see them.</p>
<p><strong>Why haven&#8217;t they been preserved by a museum or archive?</strong></p>
<p>I haven&#8217;t approached an archive about the one-of-a-kind prints as yet, although my plan is to donate them to the Library of Congress when the <em>Accidentally Preserved</em> project is done. The remaining rare titles may or may not be of interest to an archive for preservation work. There are thousands of films in need of preservation in every archive; between funding, staffing and now availability of film stock it&#8217;s impossible for any archive to keep up with the films they already own. One thing I&#8217;m trying to show with this project is that collectors as well as archives can preserve and exhibit vintage 16mm and 35mm prints.</p>
<div id="attachment_107" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Houseofwonders-550w1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-107" class="size-medium wp-image-107" title="Houseofwonders-550w" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Houseofwonders-550w1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Houseofwonders-550w1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Houseofwonders-550w1-199x150.jpg 199w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Houseofwonders-550w1.jpg 550w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-107" class="wp-caption-text">A sponsored film made for the Elgin Watch Company.</p></div>
<p>My goal here was accessibility. There are thousands of films that have been preserved than no one can see. I wanted to use the digital and VOD tools as a sort of 21st-century version of having people over to your house and showing them prints from your film collection. Fans of classic and silent film are interested in these rare films—you can see that by the success of my YouTube series, and the fact that my Kickstarter project for <em>Accidentally Preserved</em> went over its funding goal. In a way I&#8217;m taking the same approach Louis C.K. has. With Kickstarter and CreateSpace, I can get this content to fans who want it without working through a distributor.</p>
<p><strong>Are there many more films like this out there?</strong></p>
<p>Hundreds. I’ve got maybe 15 or so, but there are dozens of collectors whose private archives include rare or one-of-a-kind 16mm prints from the 1930s and 1940s. Films also turn up piecemeal at flea markets or estate sales, and sometimes you&#8217;ll hear from the widow of someone whose late husband had shelves of the stuff in their basement.</p>
<p>I will show film as long as I can. I hope <em>Accidentally Preserved</em> helps shine a light on titles that have survived because prints were made decades ago on 16mm safety stock. Incidentally, 16mm safety celebrates its 90th birthday this year.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Ben will have more to say about his collection as its release date approaches in May. Also, check the <em>Accidentally Preserved</em> website at: http://www.accidentallypreserved.com/</p>
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