About the Films
Bend It
Original Format: 16mm negative
Institution: Milestone Film & Video
From the famed LGBTQ artists’ only feature film, THE WORLD OF GILBERT & GEORGE (1981), this amazing clip takes Dave Dee, Dozy’s 1960s pop hit and provides it with their own bent version. Restored by Milestone Films and Gilbert & George.
Restored at Metropolis Post to 2K by Milestone and Gilbert & George.
1926 Glacier Hike
Original Format: 35mm (black & white, silent)
Institution: Alaska Film Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Filmed in 1926 by glaciologist William Osgood Field (1904-1994), these scenes show men packing supplies before hiking across a glacier and up the side of a snow-covered mountain in southeast Alaska. Field’s work from the 1920s through 1960s advanced scientific knowledge about glaciers, and contributed to current understanding about global climate change.
Original nitrate copied to safety film by filmmaker in 1970s. 4K scan by Reflex Technologies of Burbank, California, in 2016.
Everybody and the Regulations
Original Format: 35mm
Institution: Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision
A comic animation on the regulations for Museum visitors, A man carrying a young boy on his neck visits a Museum. An employee of the Museum has to point out that eating ice cream, or smoking are not allowed. That coats and bags have to be stored and that one cannot touch the paintings.
The original 35mm has been scanned in 2K DPX.
4 Kings (promo trailer) 1961
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Thailand Film Archive (Public Organisation)
A promotional trailer for the film 4 Kings, which includes the atmosphere around the cinema at the premier, with actors on stage and live music, followed by footage from the film. The song is from the promotional record, which was played along with the trailer when it was screened. The film has been lost, so this is all that remains of 4 Kings.
2K scan, color correction and sound from the record.
Curious Alice
Original Format: 35mm/32mm
Institution: National Archives and Records Administration
In Curious Alice (1971) she encounters cigarettes, liquor, and medicines, and realizes that they are all types of drugs. When she sees the “Drink Me” bottle, she understands that it contains something like a drug, yet after a half-second’s consideration, she drinks the entire bottle and enters a fantasy world. In Drug Wonderland, Alice learns about the hard stuff from her new friends the Mad Hatter (LSD), the March Hare (amphetamines), the Dormouse (barbiturates), and the King of Hearts (heroin). The events of Curious Alice play out as an expression of Alice’s drug trip. Unfortunately, the trip is kind of fun and effectively cancels out the film’s anti-drug message.
Found in an abandoned lab in Pennsylvania NARA was fortunate to uncover 35/32mm internegatives and soundtracks. Without a way to effectively time this with equipment – Preservation Specialist Charlie Joholske timed it by eye and made dazzling new preservation prints for the collection.
Pass to Tomorrow
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
A US soldier during World War II takes a tour of developing Israel, seen in color the biggest new city Tel Aviv.
From the original three 16mm reels a Pro-res file has been made.
Highlights and Shadows (1938)
Original Format: 35mm
Institution: George Eastman Museum
Made as an industrial film for the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories, James Sibley Watson’s Highlights and Shadows illuminates the complex mechanisms and inventions that produce photographic equipment and film using sharp angled lighting and multiple exposures. A superior example of avant-garde esthetics applied to corporate filmmaking.
New 35mm picture and sound negatives were created in 2016 from a nitrate composite print. Funding from NEA.
Josephine Baker visits Volendam, 1928
Fox News story C8059
Original Forma: 35mm Original Camera Negative
Institution: Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina
Josephine Baker took Europe by storm in 1925 and remained one of its most celebrated artists until the outbreak of WWII. On 24 August 1928, she visited Volendam, North Holland where she was filmed for Fox News by famed illustrator Mac-Djorski. Dancing the Charleston in clogs isn’t easy!
A new polyester-base film element has been printed from the original camera negative nitrate-base film.
Paramount News Presents: U.S. Gets Art Treasury
Original Format: 35mm Nitrate Motion Picture Film
Institution: Sherman Grinberg Film Library
The United States gets art treasury, $15,000,000.00 National Gallery of Art ready for opening to the public. The film was originally included within the Paramount Newsreel, released February 1941, Issue 53.
The original 35mm nitrate motion picture film negative was scanned on a Laser Graphics Director Film Scanner. The Paramount Intro and Outro, and narration came from a Beta SP copy originally transferred from a 35mm acetate motion picture copy of the footage.
Aliens from Outer Space
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Seattle Municipal Archives
In this animated educational film, everyone’s favorite talking fire-hydrant Big Red returns to the big screen to teach extraterrestrials fire safety when they arrive in Seattle from outer space. Written and produced by the Seattle Fire Department.
Original 16mm film from the Seattle Fire Department records housed at SMA. Digitized by Lightpress in 2017.
Behind the Scenes of “Hairspray” (c. 1988)
Original Format: 3/4″ U-Matic
Institution: Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive (MARMIA)
A Baltimore local television station’s behind-the-scenes story on John Waters’ feature film, “Hairspray”. This story was made for the station’s extremely popular entertainment magazine program, “Evening Magazine”.Fun fact: the station, WJZ-TV, originally aired “The Buddy Deane Show” in the 1950s, which is what “Hairspray”‘s “The Corny Collins Show” was based on.
The collection was given up by the creators in 2007 and the University of Baltimore in 2016–both citing not enough resources to preserve. MARMIA has become the steward, where we found this item in a series titled “Unknown” with a label that merely said “Hairspray”.
Loading Cattle Thru the Surf circa 1950
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: ‘Ulu‘ulu Moving Image Archive, University of Hawai‘i West O‘ahu
Recorded by an unknown filmmaker who documented a trip from California to Hawaii, the footage reveals the malihini (newcomer) experience of ranching in post-WWII Hawaii Island. An invaluable cultural and historical document, this film offers modern viewers an experiential view into an era that is slowly slipping beyond recollection.
16mm film discovered at an estate sale in Santa Clara, California and digitized by the MediaPreserve for ‘Ulu‘ulu in 2017.
New Orleans Street Parade – 1968
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Smithsonian Institution Archives
This film depicts the Onward Brass Band parading through the French Quarter of New Orleans and picking up second liners along the way. The parade and film were organized by the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum for an exhibition on jazz that ran from December 1, 1968 to January 15, 1969.
Preservation work was performed through a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
All-American News [August 1942]
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Library of Congress
All-American News was the first newsreel produced for an African-American audience. Made in the 1940s and 1950s, they were originally intended to encourage African-Americans to participate in and support the war effort, and to reflect an African-American perspective on world and national events.
16mm print was scanned in HD by the Packard Campus Film Laboratory in 2014.
Perjetesi (Eternity)
Original Format: 35mm
Institution: The Albanian National Film Archives (AQSHF) in collaboration with The Albanian Cinema Project (ACP)
Perjetesi (Eternity) directed by Dhimiter Anagnosti, 1973. Can heartbeats be “reactionary”? Yes, if they are the only sonic element of a montage-heavy documentary about the war dead. Made just before Enver Hoxha’s cultural purges in 1974, Dhimitër Anagnosti’s formalist, wonderfully edited affair was banned immediately on completion. It finally premiere in a restored version in 2016. Preserved by the Hungarian Film Lab, preservation work was directed by Gabor Pinter.
The original 35mm negative was restored and scanned at 2K by the Hungarian Film Lab.
What’s Uptown? A View From The Streets
Original Format: 3/4″ U-matic
Institution: Media Burn Archive
What’s Uptown? was produced in the mid-1970s by Marcie Telander and Terry Moyemont in the emerging style of portable video journalism. It documents the diverse Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, with a focus on its music.
Shown on public TV in 1981, languished. The first U-matic was in terrible condition but a second copy looked gorgeous.
Transitions by Iletha Clifton
Original Format: Super 8 Kodachrome
Institution: Preserving The Past, LLC
Shot in 1978 on Super 8 Kodachrome film, “Transitions” views a woman’s cycle of life. Using shadow, light and drama the film poignantly chronicles anticipation of new life arriving, the passage of time—ending one life, ushering in another, making room for the cycle of life to start over again.
Stored 36 years Rochester, NY. Scanned in 2014 on a Spirit DataCine 2K, DaVinci Color-Correction, output to Apple ProRes
Universal Pictures Restoration Reel
Original Format: various
Institution: Universal Pictures
Since committing to its film restoration program in 2012, Universal Pictures has restored 100 classic titles including All Quiet on the Western Front, The Birds, Dracula (1931), Frankenstein, Jaws, Out of Africa, The Man Who Laughs, and Scarface (1932). This reel highlights the restoration process and some of the notable restoration work that has been completed.
The reel includes before and after clips from several restored Universal Pictures titles.
The Lighter Side of IN THE LIFE
Original Format: Broadcast video masters (various formats –1”, BetaSP, DigiBeta, etc.)
Institution: UCLA Film & Television Archive
For twenty years, the landmark PBS series In The Life delivered enlightened journalism and advocacy for LGBT people at a time when the queer community was often invisible in mainstream mass media. The show also often used humor and parodies to goose its audience, as evident in this clip selection.
Broadcast and b-roll video masters (various formats – 1”, BetaSP, DigiBeta, DVCam, etc.) were digitized for preservation and access at the Archive’s Digital Media Lab.
C
laudia (ca. 1965)
Original Format: 16mm original color reversal and optical track negative
Institution: Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Claudia, Version One, is an experimental film by Argentine-American filmmaker Jorge Prelorán, best known for his ethnobiographical documentaries. Using documentary footage, animation, sound effects, and music to portray childhood play, the film has four versions, each with a different musical score to show how the child’s character changes according to the music. Music by Jose Luis Castañeira, animation by Sergio Barbieri.
National Film Preservation Foundation funded photochemical preservation carried out by BB Optics.
Bout-de-Zan et le crocodile
FR, Louis Feuillade, 1913, Gaumont
Original Format: 35mm Nitrate
Institution: Eye Filmmuseum
Comedy starring the child actor René Poyen as the naughty Bout-de-Zan. In this adventure, Bout-de-Zan gets revenge on a man in the park. He steals his dog, dresses him in a crocodile costume and lets him go back to his owner. The man is shocked to be chased by a crocodile!
Arrived to Eye in 2005, the nitrate was in active decomposition. Duplicated in 2010, the film was first restored on digital intermediate and then written back to 35mm print. The nitrate had to be disposed of in 2018, due to serious decay.
Kreisler Bandstand Starring Cab Calloway and his Orchestra
Original Format: 16mm
Institution: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
Get ready to blow your wigs watching this hummer of a kinescope, the only-known copy of a March 21, 1951 broadcast sponsored by Jacques Kreisler Watches. Killer-diller hep-cat Cab Calloway hypes some hard jive and performs with his orchestra. Everything will be kopasetic!
Gift of Cabella Calloway Langsam. 16mm black and white polyester-base photochemical film preserved in 2017 by NMAAHC and Colorlab.
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