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Renew:03/28/07
Searching the Traces: Archival Study of Short-lived Film Formats
Opening
Keynote Lecture
Session 1: Film in Variety
Session 2: Made in Japan
Session 3: Artifacts or Facts of Art
Session 3: Artifacts or Facts of Art
Sunday, April 8, 14:10-17:30
Chaired by
Errki Huhtamo (University of California Los Angeles)
14:10 – 14:30
Laurent Mannoni (Cinémathèque Française, Paris)
PRE-CINEMA ARTIFACTS: HOW WE SHOULD PRESERVE THEM
La Cinémathèque Française preserve a collection of 4,000 archaic and modern equipments which date from the 18th century to today. We preserve not only the equipments but also images produced by these machines (pre-cinematic and cinematic).
However, some of these images are now difficult to read, interpret and show. The presentation will concern the means of preserving, showing and presenting the techniques of the past.
14:30 – 14:50
Donata Pesenti Campagnoni (Museo Nazionale del Cinema/Fondazione Maria Adriana Prolo, Torino)
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FORMATS
The research will focus on a brief historical excursion about the format images before the birth of cinema:
- fixed images (anamorphoses, optical views, magic lantern slides, panoramas, dioramas, cycloramas, polyorama panoptiques);
- 3D images (perspective views, stereoscopic views); - dynamized images (mainly mechanical magic lantern slides);
- moving images (short sequences of fixed images which were used in philosophical toys such as phenakistiscopes, zoetropes; short sequences of fixed images on film for cinematographic magic lantern toys and théâtre optique).
Shown inside a device or projected on a screen, all these images have a specific aspect ratio which in some cases can recall the mythical golden section. Moreover, the definition of different formats seems in some ways connected to the images perception procedures which in the archaeology of cinema require in some cases the fixed stare, in others the movement of the eye, in some others the rotation of the neck till a complete movement of the body.
The link between the XVIIth century catoptrical anamorphoses and the applications made in the field of cinema technology is very well known, while for the other images from the archaeology of cinema the investigation are still open to research.
The goal is to identify similarity or difference between the aspect ratio of the archaeological images with the ones of cinema in order to define if some kind of formats belonging to the archaeological period were inherited by the cinema.
The study will privilege the images concerning the Italian production but, in the mean time, will highlight the features of the images realized in other countries (France, Great Britain, Germany).
The research will also stress the connection between the images used for public show and those for domestic use: Does the image produced to be shown to an audience keep the same aspect ratio when it becomes a domestic toy? Does the format of the image produced for amateur use turn to be a submultiple of the professional one?
14:50 – 15:20
Rosario López de Prado (Filmoteca Espanõla, Madrid)
CATALOGUING NON-FILM COLLECTIONS, PROCESSES AND PROBLEMS, AND THEIR RELATION TO FILM COLLECTIONS
In order to preserve film heritage, archives cannot limit themselves to collecting only the primary cinematic object, but must also concern themselves with non-film collections: all the ancillary materials that document a film's production, exhibition, critical reception, and history.
These might include books, periodicals, museum artifacts, posters, photographs, press books, production records, and other types of documentation. Although each of these physical formats has some specific preservation, storage, and cataloging needs, they also share common features which can facilitate cross-collection access.
This talk will describe general cataloging processes for such materials, including database structures, cataloging rules and authority control, and how these processes are often addressed in film archives.
It will also describe the different access needs of different types of users, and how to meet these needs. It will conclude by discussing the new models being developed in the digital world, and how metadata standardization, shared authority control, and database mapping will help us share information and even create virtual archives via the Internet.
15:20 – 15:35 Break
15:35 – 16:05
Nikolaus Wostry (Filmarchiv Austria, Wien)
A STUDY OF EARLY NITRATE MATERIAL AND HISTORICAL PROJECTION
35mm is not just the essential and longest-lived format of cinematography. It is “the” format in which film projection started and will die when fully displaced by digital techniques. But what shouldn’t be overlooked is that the 35mm film developed slowly and was prior to the big standardization congresses of the 1920s in fact not even 35mm in width.
Film till then was available in a variety of individual widths and perforation shapes so we may even speak of different formats. The projection techniques of the period between 1908 and 1914 fitted especially well to this diversity of stock then on the market.
They reached a balance between aesthetical appearance and functional perfection. Cinema machinery of that time can still be used best, when screening early nitrate materials in an original technical entity, with all their defects as a result of their age.
This balance in favor of a multitude of different materials will be no longer needed with the standardization of stock and the appearance of automatic developing procedures. Film production will switch from positive editing to negative editing.
Film prints will therefore be no longer individual artifacts, fragile with their hundreds of splices, but ready-made industrial products. Tints will get lost in this process as an obstacle to mechanized production- methods.
Projection equipment from then on could rely on less fragile prints. Accordingly gate tensions and gate dimensions could be enhanced. Together with intensified light of the newly adopted mirror arc lamp the screen dimensions will constantly grow.
It may have added to the art of presentation but it was already part of a time with a different format: standard 35mm. A look to the earlier period will prove that the strategies of early projection equipment disturb interpreting the technical history from a mere teleological point of view.
16:05 – 16:25
Egbert Koppe (Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin)
TREASURE CHEST OF SOUND FILM
As is well known, the history of sound in films is also characterized by variety. And, of course, what are concerned here are largely short-lived formats, which did not, and do not, always guarantee that retention of the information in original format.
The treasure chest of film sound contains such rarities as the 42mm Tri-Ergon film, soundtracks with so-called optical mixes, or ‘tonal signatures’ (Tönende Handschriften): soundtracks composed of graphic elements such as triangles and semi-circles, drawn manually to a large scale and photographed on film.
16:35 – 16:50
Erkki Huhtamo (University of California Los Angeles)
THE URBAN SPIROGRAPH, OR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF A LOSER
This paper will excavate the largely unknown history of the Spirograph, an ingenious moving picture machine originally conceived by Theodore Brown around 1905 and later developed by Henry W.
Joy for Charles Urban. The Spirograph used motion picture "records" that contained micro-photographed moving pictures in spiral form. Urban expected the device to revolutionize the non-theatrical film culture, in particular visual education.
The Spirograph was promoted as a modern Panacea that would serve many different purposes from homes to offices, 'mobile' sales promotion and the identification of criminals. In spite of high hopes, the device proved to be a failure and disappeared almost without a trace.
Today only a handful of Spirograph machines and picture records exist. This paper clarifies the history of the Spirograph and provides explanations for its failure. As part of the lecture, a rare surviving Spirograph (serial no.3) from the collection of the JCII Camera Museum, Tokyo, will be demonstrated.
16:50 – 17:15 Discussion
Chaired by Erkki Huhtamo.
17:15 – 17:30 Conclusion
A panel by Jean-Pierre Verscheure, Patrick Loughney, Yoshiro Irie and Erkki Huhtamo, moderated by Hisashi Okajima
CLOSING
17:30 – 17:35
Closing Address by Etsuko Takano
(Honorary Director, National Film Center, Tokyo)
4K digital projection system for the symposium is coordinated and operated by Sony Corporation and Sony Marketing (Japan) Inc.
As the first attempt in the history of FIAF Congresses, this symposium will be BROADCAST VIA INTERNET (the speakers’ appearances and voices ) with their consent.
3-D Special Presentation: Talk and Show
[Saturday, April 7, 21:00-22:30 and Monday, April 9, 21:00-22:30 at Cinema 2, NFC]
Presented by Stefan Drössler
(Filmmuseum im Münchner Stadmuseum, München)
In relation to the symposium, this special presentation will introduce the history of different 3-D systems, especially focusing on 1-strip systems which are completely outdated today.
The clips planned to show will include the very first (and even to film experts totally unknown) 3-D films by Méliès and Lumière as examples of the traditional 2-strip system with two projectors, samples of the German 1-strip Zeiss Ikon system of the 1930s and 1950s, an excerpt from the 1947 first feature-length 3-D film from Russia, Robinzon Kruzo, using another very strange 1-strip system, and examples of the 1-strip Stereovision systems which were used in late 60s up to early 80s.
3-D projection system coordinated by Nac Image Technology, Inc. in cooperation with Visual Communications Inc., Christie Digital Systems USA, Inc. Japan Branch, Kikuchi Science Laboratory Inc. and U-Link Co., Ltd.
Searching the Traces: Archival Study of Short-lived Film Formats
Opening
Keynote Lecture
Session 1: Film in Variety
Session 2: Made in Japan
Session 3: Artifacts or Facts of Art
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