Instructors: Ann Harris & Chris Lacinak
 
 

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Sept 14 Introduction to Film Formats (AH)

Assignments due before class:

• Go through all 6 animated tutorials called Shutters, Sprockets, and Tubes.  You can either do this at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, or do it online.


• Visit:
  • Section 2 (Film Specifics: Stocks and Soundtracks) of the Home Film Preservation Guide
  • Descriptions of the 4 film gauges on the homepage of http://www.littlefilm.org/
  • Explore "History of sub-35 mm Film Formats & Cameras" on Welcome to Ani-mato!, Jan-Eric Nyström, 2003-2005.
  • Chronology of MP Films, Eastman Kodak.
  • More than one hundred years of Film Sizes by Michael Rogge, 1996.
  • The Ultimate Table of Formats-- Aspect Ratios by Mark Baldock.
• Read:
  • Screen Sound Australia Film Preservation Handbook (first 5 sections: Film Construction, Base Polymers and Decomposition, Gelatin, Image Forming Materials, Damage to Film)
  • Annette Melville, ed., "Understanding Film and How It Decays", The Film Preservation Guide,San Francisco: The Film Preservation Foundation, 2004, pp 6-18.
  • Leo Enticknap, "Film" and "Cinematography and Film Formats", Moving Image Technology from Zoetrope to Digital, Walflower Press, 2004, pp 4-73.

Topics covered:

• Introduction to the physical and chemical structure of film
• History and variety of film formats
• Introduction to collection management concepts
• Risk Assessment
• Storage Issues
• Description, Documentation, Metadata
• Standards and Recommended Practices
• What artifacts exist as a result of media production? What gets saved and what gets lost? Knowing production process can aid identification. Detective work and how ancillary materials are both cultural artifacts and clues. Sources for gauges & types of moving image material.

Agenda

• Questions about class, schedule?
• Screening: CAPTAIN CELLULOID VS. THE FILM PIRATES,(excerpt) 7 min.
• Discussion of terminology
• Process of preservation
• Documentation, Metadata, Cataloging
• Risk Assessment
• Class submitted terms:
• esterified
• spectrophotometric
• imbition
• Film as a system
• What is standardization?
• Intermittent movement
• Structure of Film
• Base
• Emulsion
• Binder
• Close up look at a piece of film
• Why does a moving image archivist need to understand the structure of film?
• Film Formats
• Look at examples of film formats
• Discussion Museum of the Moving Image visit.
• First class project


• screening: The Race to Save 100 Years (if time permits)


• Important!: Friday, September 15th, MIAP Speaker Series: 1pm in room 656