Instructors: Howard Besser & Ann Harris
 
 

Assignments due before class:

• Look closely at Weblinks for Professional Organizations
• Bring an audio or video recording device, if you own one, and a tape that can be recorded upon.
• Read:
• Johnson, Jane. Overview: Preservation "Lay of the Land"
• Johnson, Jane. Overview: Cataloging "Lay of the Land"

Agenda

• What is this class about? (15 min)
  
• Explanation of the MIAP program
• Review of Syllabus
• Discuss site visits
  
• Clips  (60 min)
  
• -Nobody's Business 1996 (VHS)
  
• -Arms of Strangers-Kindertransport 2000 (DVD)
• -JFK 1991 (DVD)
• -Zelig 1983 (DVD)
• -Capturing the Friedmans 2003 (DVD)
• -Out Foxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism 2004 (DVD)
• -Lost Horizon 1937 (DVD)
• -Metropolis 1927 (DVD)
• -Big Sleep 1946 (DVD)
• -Tribulation 99 1992 (video)

• Review of Readings  (15 min)
• What is moving image archiving and preservation?  Functions of identification, selection, appraisal, etc.
• Cataloging issues
• Professional organizations
• Materiality and deterioration of Film and Video  (30 min)
• Recording Devices  (40 min)
• Discussion questions  (20 min)
• Why is conservation and preservation important?
• Who has taken on the responsibility for moving image and sound preservation?

• What are the issues involved in making visual materials persist over time? How do we decide which materials should persist over time?

• What are some of the organizations that hold moving image and sound material? (Film Studios, TV stations, large public film & television archives, media preservation depts. w/i larger collecting institutions, small non-profits preserving their own media, ...)
• What are some of the Professional Organizations that Moving Image Archivists belong to? And at what conferences can one learn about professional issues? (AMIA, FIAF, FIAT, AIC, AAM, MCN, SMPTE, ALA, Orphans, SCS)
• What are basic functions? (identification, selection [of both "content" and equipment], appraisal, ...)
• What are the various professional practices that moving image archiving and preservation professionals draw from? (cataloging, reference, exhibition, fundraising, budgeting, management, ...)
• What are the various roles or tasks we are responsible for?
• What are the structures like of film and other moving image works?

• Background of faculty and students  (20 min)

• Current Events  (20 min)
• Some of Howard's recent trips
• FIAF in Slovenia -- images and literature
• Society of American Archivists (New Orleans, Aug 16-20, 2005) -- images and literature
• including Home Movie Day, San Francisco, Aug 13, 2005
  
• Recent important news articles
• SSA Cares: Archivists and Archives Affected by Huricane Katrina, Society of Southwest Archivists, Sept 2005
  
• which version do you save?  Kanye West Rips Bush at Hurricane Aid Show, SF Chronicle, Sep 4, 2005
• "Looting" or "Finding"?  Bloggers are outraged over the different captions on photos of blacks and whites in New Orleans, Salon.com News & Politics, Sep 1, 2005
  
• A Heightened Demand for Online Video, NY Times, Sep 5, 2005
• Red, White, Blue and Kodachrome, NY Times, Sep 5, 2005
  
• For Victims, News About Home Can Come From Strangers Online, NY Times, Sep 5, 2005
• Book Says Alan Lomax Neglected Black Scholars, NY Times, Aug 29, 2005
• Bilingual Material in Libraries Draws Some Criticism, NY Times, Sep 5, 2005
  
  
• Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941, at the bottom of DVD review article Classic DVD Sets Star Lugosi and Garbo, NY Times, Sep 2, 2005
• Hartford Libraries Watch as U.S. Makes Demands, NY Times, Sep 2, 2005
• A different way of selling clothes: Gap's animated online stripper latest viral ad to get attention as firms seek new ways to reach buyers, SF Chronicle, Aug 27, 2005
• Online copyright raises question over browser; Program unfairly favors Microsoft's Explorer, critics say, Washington Post/SF Chronicle, Aug 26, 2005

• Assignments for next week
• Listed at the beginning of next week's date in the main syllabus
• NOTE: next week's class will meet at 6:10 PM in Filmmaker Alan Berliner's Tribecca studio (13 Vestry St, about a block west of Canal and 6th Ave)