-
The Need For Film Preservation
-
16mm film, Appalshop Archive
For over a century, motion picture film has been the world's leading artistic and entertainment medium. Yet the number of films considered "lost" today due to destruction, neglect and decay are staggering. Fifty percent of all films produced before 1950 and 80 to 90 percent made before 1920 have disappeared forever. Acutely aware of these poor statistics, film archivists are in a race to prevent further loss of our film heritage.
As acetate-based motion picture film ages it invariably goes through a degradation process. In the case of color film, fading can be a significant problem, often leading to washed out or magenta-colored images. Another problem is called Vinegar Syndrome because of the smell of the acetic acid that the film's base off-gasses as it deteriorates. Yet a third problem is mold growth, which can cause the emulsion layer to dissolve from the film base.
How a reel of film is stored over time, particularly whether located in a low temperature and humidity environment, will greatly influence a film's susceptibility to these types of problems. A cool and dry storage space can potentially extend the life span of a reel of film by hundreds of years. When a film is identified with a problem, the original reel can be used to generate new copies on modern polyester film stocks. Again, if stored properly, these new prints can potentially last for generations. While film-to-film preservation is the best archival method to extend the life of a film, it is also a time consuming and expensive process.
Preservation of Buffalo Creek Flood and Buffalo Creek Revisited
The newly preserved versions of Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man and Buffalo Creek Revisited on this DVD are the result of a lengthy and painstaking preservation effort. In order to create the new prints used for video transfer, Appalshop's archivists went back to the films' original negatives and original soundtracks. By using the original sources it is possible to produce new prints that look as good as those made 20 or 30 years ago, or even better in some cases, because of improvements in optical technology over the last few decades.
Because film preservation is such an expensive process, often costing hundreds of dollars per minute of film, Appalshop must rely largely on grants from outside sources to fund the work. The preservation of Buffalo Creek Flood was funded by the New York Women in Film and Television's Women's Film Preservation Fund, and preservation of Buffalo Creek Revisited was sponsored by a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Laboratory work on both films was completed by Cineric, Inc., a motion picture laboratory in New York City specializing in the preservation of archival film.
Diana Little, Preservation Specialist at Cineric, Inc.
Copyright © Appalshop | Contact Mimi Pickering