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| Issue 47: July 2001 |
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Archival Films at the Film Festival
The Film Archive and the Film Festival celebrate the importance of film rescue
and archive work worldwide with live cinema screenings of The Diary of a
Lost Girl (Germany, 1929) starring Louise Brooks. This new restoration
of GW Pabst’s classic was an international collaboration between archives
in Paris, Brussels, Montevideo, Bologna and Wiesbaden. The print screens courtesy
of the Deutsches Filminstitut, Wiesbaden and the FW Murnau Stiftung.
From George Eastman House, Rochester comes The Shakedown (USA, 1929)
one of the only two surviving silent features by great American director, William
Wyler The film will screen with a recently discovered Buster Keaton short, The
Cook, accompanied by internationally renowned silent film pianist, Neil
Brand. Audiences will remember Neil from his Festival performances in 1997.
Described as the best director of modern westerns, Budd Boetticher directed
seven starring the legendary Randolph Scott. Seven Men From Now (1956),
with a young Lee Marvin, The Tall T (1957) and Ride Lonesome
(1959) will screen at the Festival. The Film Archive has assisted in obtaining
a restored print of Seven Men from Now from the UCLA Film & Television
Archive, Los Angeles.
Live cinema is further celebrated with screenings in Auckland and Wellington
of The New Babylon (USSR, 1929). The original Shostakovich score will
be performed by the Auckland Philharmonia and Wellington Sinfonia, conducted
by Timothy Brock.
Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) screens in Dunedin with
accompaniment by the Southern Sinfonia, also conducted by Timothy Brock.
For details and session times refer to the Film Festival brochures or
visit www.enzedff.org.nz
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Len Lye Colour Box
The Film Centre’s new exhibition, Len Lye – Colour Box, celebrates the
centenary of Len Lye’s birth in Christchurch on 5 July 1901. The opening
of the exhibition coincided with the publication of Roger Horrocks’s exciting
new biography of Lye.
The exhibition presents five of Lye’s films displayed on lightboxes:
Tusalava, Trade Tattoo, Free Radicals, Colour
Flight and Color Cry. Also on display is a selection of the tools
Lye used for his direct filmmaking on loan from the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery,
New Plymouth.
Screening programmes in the exhibition explore Lye’s influence on other
filmmakers. A selection of four films by Lye’s contemporary, Canadian animator,
Norman McLaren will screen courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada. And
a programme of recent New Zealand films inspired by Lye, Contemporary Direct,
includes direct films by Michael Brown, Tim Wyborn, Erica Russell, Richard Whyte,
Richard Lomas, Arlo Edwards and Lissa Mitchell.
Highlights in the screening programme include the newly restored All Souls’
Carnival (1957) and a special stop-frame screening of A Colour Box
(1935).
Monographs about Len Lye by John Hurrell and Sarah Davy, a series of postcards
and Len Lye videos are available at the exhibition.
Len Lye – Colour Box, The Film Centre, Wellington, May-July 2001
and Auckland, August 2001.
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Saving Tape
Part 2 - What is Videotape?
We use videos constantly but do we know what they are made
of? The second in a series by video conservator, Jamie Lean. Part
1 of this series can be found in Newsreel
Issue 46
Videotape was originally created to allow the major TV networks in the USA to
broadcast their evening news at 6pm in every time zone in the country. Ampex
and RCA developed the 2” video format so that the news could be broadcast
on the East Coast at 6pm then transmitted across the country to be recorded
on videotape and replayed 2 to 4 hours later in the various regional time zones
ending on the West Coast.
The construction of magnetic videotape varies according to type and manufacturer
but the basic videotape consists of 4 layers—a flexible polyester base;
a layer of magnetic particles held to the base by a layer of polyurethane binder
(or glue); and a lubricating top layer that helps to seal the magnetic layer
in and assist the tape to run smoothly through the video machine. These layers
usually total no more than half a millimetre thick and are tightly wound into
cassettes or onto reels.
Each of these components can cause problems but the most frequent arise from
the binder. The binder is often a secret chemical formula closely guarded by
the manufacturer and is prone to breakdown under stress (heat and humidity)
or age. It can then leak out, jamming machinery and freeing the magnetic particles
to clog up video heads. If the magnetic layer is exposed to the air it can start
rusting and this is most frequently seen along the edges of tapes. If the lubricant
layer dries out or is worn through, tapes may stick on the video heads and rollers.
Videotape is manufactured in large sheets, fed over rollers, sprayed and baked
in industrial processes. The basic tape is then sliced to the correct widths
(1/2” VHS, 8mm etc). Higher quality tape comes from the same rolls as the
lesser quality tape but from the middle of the rolls rather than the edges or
ends, where there may be some slight stretching or other easing of manufacturing
tolerances.
Next: Part 3— Why should we save tape?
Tape Tips #2: If you have a favourite video that is starting to show signs
of deterioration, such as speckle or tracking lines, the best thing to do is
dub it to a new tape. You will lose some quality but the deterioration should
be halted for the time being.
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Sponsorship Moves into Reeltime
In March, the New Zealand Film Archive and Bank of New Zealand announced a new
phase in their long-standing relationship — the Reeltime Project.
When Bank of New Zealand and the Archive embarked on the Last Film Search
in 1992, they had little idea of what lay ahead. A project which started as
a response to the urgent need to rescue nitrate film treasures was a remarkable
success, but also revealed New Zealanders’ apparently limitless passion
to see themselves on screen.
The Bank of New Zealand / Film Archive joint venture is designed to use the
original experience — screenings in cinemas; the current technology —
video tape; and the next generation of technology — the internet; to achieve
the maximum involvement of people of all ages and in all communities.
The Travelling Film Show will continue under the Reeltime banner
for at least three more years, with as many as three regional tours a year.
The first two tours attracted packed houses in the suburbs of Auckland and around
the Waikato region in May and June this year. A highlight of the Auckland programme
was a screening of Rudall Hayward’s 1922 feature, My Lady of the Cave,
at the Sky City Theatre.
Reeltime also includes a three-year project to establish a national
schools programme.
Video technology has turned every classroom in New Zealand into a potential
venue for exploring our history through the collections of the Film Archive.
Support from Bank of New Zealand will enable the Archive to produce and circulate
throughout New Zealand a lending collection of VHS video programmes, class notes
and teachers’ guides.
The final and most ambitious part of the project is the development of a greatly
expanded and enhanced Film Archive website to incorporate information from the
Archive’s database and a series of on-line exhibitions and screenings of
selected collection items
The result will be a world leader in instant, national access to a country’s
heritage and will set the agenda for the ultimate transfer of much of the Film
Archive’s work to cyberspace.
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Te Hokinga Mai o Nga Taonga Whitiaahua
Te Hokinga Mai has taken relationships between the New Zealand Film Archive
and Iwi representative groups to a new level of understanding.
Te Hokinga Mai o Nga Taonga Whitiahua is a project designed to reacquaint Iwi
Maori with taonga housed at the New Zealand Film Archive. Supported by National
Services of Te Papa, the project gives Iwi the opportunity to take an active
part in decision making processes regarding access to specific collections.
After discussions with Iwi representatives the Archive has established committed
relationships, with the outcome being a Memorandum of Understanding,
which formalises and acknowledges these partnerships. Three of the six Iwi engaged
Te Hokinga Mai o Nga Taonga Whitiahua have begun the signing process and staff
are working to finalise details with the other Iwi groups involved in the project.
Since the first frames of film were deposited with the archive for safekeeping,
it was apparent that the protection of Maori images was going to be a vital
conversation between the Archive and Iwi. Through the Te Hokinga Mai, the Archive
has invited Iwi to identify people who can give cultural guidance about the
care of the collection and appropriate clearances for the reuse of their images.
The Film Archive has been in active dialogue with six Iwi to find mutually beneficial
ways to ensure the protection of their images. This is consistent with the Film
Archive’s Kaupapa/Constitution which is based firmly on the principles
expressed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi; partnership, protection and access to taonga
as defined by Iwi.
The Archive has welcomed opportunities for Iwi to engage with their treasures.
Whanganui River tribes, Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa, Tainui, Ngati Porou and Tuhoe
have experienced Te Hokinga Mai screening tours since the mid 1990s. What is
unique about the forward movement engendered by the Memorandum of Understanding,
is that the Archive can conduct its core business to collect, protect and project
our moving image heritage with greater confidence.
In January this year at Pungarehu Marae, Archive staff, management and governance
met with representatives of Whanganui River Iwi to sign the Memorandum of Understanding.
Discussion focussed on the benefits and value taonga housed at the Archive have
for the hapu of Te Awa Tupua ko Whanganui.
Questions raised by eager participants in the Tira Hoe Waka, an annual pilgrimage
for descendants of the river which arrived on the marae the same day, showed
a continuing connection and reverence to the material held in trust by the Archive.
The screening of newly discovered footage portraying the geography and events
of Whanganui and its Maori people fired imaginations and memories.
Archive staff set in motion signing a Memorandum of Understanding
with the Board of Trustees for Turangawaewae Marae during this year’s Koroneihana
Hui at Ngaruawahia. The final elements to see the same occur with Te Arawa were
put in place as this issue went to press.
Anyone wanting to peruse the principles of the Memorandum of Understanding
is welcome to contact the Archive.
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Twenty Years Ago
Diane Pivac talks to Jonathan Dennis founding director of the New Zealand Film
Archive
The first call for a film archive was made by the Salvation Army in 1901.
Why, do you think, did it take 80 years until the New Zealand Film Archive was
established?
It was just never a priority to safeguard this relatively newish but terribly
fragile form of expression. Moving images were always regarded as peripheral
to ‘real’ archival material like books or documents or artefacts;
it took a long time to see them as an integral part of our cultural heritage.
Too long. Too much was already lost.
What did happen on 9 March 1981?
On the 9 March the Archive formally came into existence, registered as a charitable
trust. David Fowler (the chairman) and I were already furiously trying to drum
up support, and some money to begin work (we raised about $30,000 in the first
six months). And we always had heaps of publicity.
Can you describe the Archive’s first office?
Initially we shared offices with the NZ Federation of Film Societies and the
Film Festival – Bill Gosden had one office, I had the other, with a tiny
kitchen between. The Archive’s room was big enough only for a table to
work at, and a mighty uncomfortable chair for visitors. What little space remained
was buried under increasing piles of film-related bits and pieces, while the
kitchen area was inexorably colonised by mountains of posters, and a tea chest
full of the thousands of film stills I’d brought back from the Archive
in London. We lasted there 16 months before moving to the top floor of a building
in Wakefield Street where there was room to breathe and our own splendid exhibition
space.
What happened when collections started coming in? Where did you put them?
The more we talked about the Archive’s work the more stuff we received.
The nitrate films we inherited or were acquiring lived in the old army ammunition
bunkers at Shelly Bay; the acetate material in the vaults at the National Film
Unit, where, within a few months the Archive’s first film repairer began
work also.
Can you tell us a bit about the very first screenings?
The more we talked, the more people wanted to see what we were doing. Initially
we had so little preserved these were essentially illustrated slide shows with
a few old 16mm prints – but always demonstrating in graphic and emotive
detail the relentless destruction and decomposition. By 1983, as the Archive’s
preservation programme developed, screenings became a way of sharing and returning
the films at local, regional and iwi levels and our travelling picture shows
began to pick up speed. The response was immediate – people gathered in
great numbers and with enormous enthusiasm to see them. The first “real”
screenings took place in New Plymouth and Rotorua.
How precarious were the early days?
The Archive began with a only few thousand dollars from the Film Commission.
My first job was to raise enough to pay me and to start getting the work done.
After having worked at some of the more venerable and weighty European and North
American archives, staying small did not seem such a bad idea and our flexibility
and independence was remarkable. I was only 27 and it was an exciting time.
Starting a film archive thirty or forty years after most other developed countries
had some advantages. I could start with a pretty clear knowledge of what I didn’t
want it to be like, and then gradually shaped it into what I hoped would be
a real kaitiaki or guardian of the taonga placed in its trust.
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News Clips
International Relations
Steve Russell, Visitor programmes, has returned from a study tour of film museums
and archives in Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, the Ruhr, Munich and Berlin, sponsored
by Goethe-Institut Internationes. Film and Video Collection Manager, Julian
Millar, will be attending SEAPAAVA this July in Bangkok.
Repatriated
Four early American films, identified by Paolo Cherchi Usai while in New Zealand
at the Film and History Conference, have been preserved at the Haghefilm Laboratory,
Amsterdam, courtesy of George Eastman House. Copies have been returned to the
Film Archive and George Eastman House.
Joint Venture
The Film Archive and Te Wananga o Raukawa have established a strategic partnership
working together on initiatives such as website development and multimedia teaching
resources.
Rescued From A Beach
Videotapes found abandoned on a South Island beach by local police have been
salvaged by the Film Archive. Conservators took them apart, cleaned out the
sand and salt, dried and put them back together again. The tapes, stolen out
of a van belonging to Ho Chi Minh City TV and Education New Zealand Trust, have
been sent back to Vietnam in good working order.
Composed
Margaret Ogilvie has completed a new score for Rudall Hayward’s first feature,
My Lady of the Cave (1922) with funding from Creative New Zealand.
The score premiered in Auckland during the Travelling Film Show.
Winner
Bank of New Zealand’s Film Archive sponsorship was the overall winner of
the National Business Review Arts Sponsorship award last December.
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