Moving image review (1988]-)

Practices: Film-to-Film Suddenly, it seems, there's a lot more funding around for film-tofilm preservation projects. By any standard, that's good. But it's not necessarily straightforward. In putting diat money to work, some archivists are discovering that hearing a tune and getting up to dance are two different diings. They've realized, sometimes with a stumble, that they don't know near enough about their dance partners: the film restoration labs. "NHF and a lot of odier small archives don't have die kind of experience as clients that it might be nice for us to have, to know exacdy what to ask for," says NHF Executive Director David Weiss. "You need to know what questions to ask in advance. And you need to know what is technically possible. "It would be nice to depend on die labs to assess your problems and come up widi an appropriate solution," he continues. "But diere is a certain amount of partnering, I diink, that has to be done." Because smaller archives can never give as much business to the labs, in dollar terms, as Hollywood does, die burden of building partnerships falls to die archivist. "You've got to know what die labs are good at, what they're used to doing," says Weiss. "And you've got to specify, given the limitations of technology, which diings are most important to you." There's more dian one way to do die job of film preservation, but much of die new support for our efforts mandates film-to-film copying. The practice is funded by much-publicized grants from die National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) and die National Endowment for die Arts, in its Treasures of American Film Archives millennium initiative. The growdi in film-to-film funding is impressive. Weiss estimates diat in total, NHF put between $30,000 and $40,000 into film-to-film preservation during die period 1986-1998. Just during 1999, it has dedicated closer to $50,000 to die practice, largely due to die Treasures millennium initiative. The labs have played a role in that increase, making I lit shrinkage gauge and some 35mm film. 'in Hoi. generous in-kind donations of dieir services available though die NFPF. And die labs are feeling die impact. "Four or five years ago I had die impression that 1 6mm — from our viewpoint, as far as work and projects — was essentially disappearing," says Alan Stark, Vice President of Film Technology Company, Inc., of Hollywood, one of die nation's foremost restoration labs. "And exacdy die opposite has happened. We're seeing it coming from all sorts of directions." Do Your Homework The very first question for die film archivist is whedier film-to-film is even die way to go. Because of its expense and die complexities of the archive-lab relationship, one NHF Advisor feels, film-to-film should not be viewed as a preservation panacea. Instead, it should be undertaken deliberately, as part of a comprehensive preservation plan and according to firm criteria, says William O'Farrell, Chief of Moving Image and Audio Conservation at die National Archives of Canada. If you're going for film-to-film, O'Farrell advises, know exactly why you're doing it. O'Farrell believes film-to-film is strongly warranted in just a few situations: a serious direat from deterioration, an obsolete film format, an access plan t li.n mandates screening copies. Odierwise, he says, seriously consider all preservation options. "I'm definitely saying film-to-film is worth doing," O'Farrell emphasizes. "But I'm saying, make sure you're judicious in your selections." Arguing for film-to-film are die ephemeral qualities of bodi video formats and magnetic tape itself. These are especially compelling in light of die extraordinary longevity predicted for new film diat's stored archivally. And, of course, die funder's say-so is die ultimate argument for film-to-film. Do some homework. Learn as much as you can about the physical condition of the material to be copied. For instance, O'Farrell says he's surprised at how few archives have a shrinkage gauge. "If you don't know die shrinkage of your film," he asks, "dien how can you talk to the lab about it widi any sense of what die potential options might be, and how die lab might try to handle your films specific problems?" To begin, find out which labs can do what. Film processing technology has an answer for nearly any problem. Many different film stocks are available. The wet-gate process can make copies reducing die original's scratches. Prints may be made from a contact process, which allows for die most faithful Continued on next page