After decades of research by museums and archives, it has been determined by scientific study that the optimum storage conditions for rare artifacts are in outer space.

As a result, George Eastman House announced today it will be the first museum in the world to store a portion of its extensive archives — which totals 4 million artifacts related to photography and motion pictures — in outer space, via a module on the International Space Station.

To reflect the “out of this world” vision, the museum has officially changed its name to George Eastman House Intergalactic Museum of Photography and Film.

“Our global reach is being vastly extended,” said Dr. Anthony Bannon, the museum’s Ron and Donna Fielding Director, who has been training with the space program at Cape Canaveral for the last four months. Bannon will accompany the first collection launched into space.

The Right Stuff: Official space-program training portrait of Eastman House’s Dr. Anthony Bannon.

Jeff Hayzlett, Kodak’s chief marketing officer, is joining Bannon on the space journey. He also has begun training at Cape Canaveral, under the guidance of appointed astronauts Majors Tony Nelson and Roger Healy.

Kodak has been involved with space missions since the beginning of the space program.

“Kodak is happy to put our full might of our intellectual imaging science prowess behind this endeavor to ensure image permanence,” Hayzlett said.

Official space-program training portrait of Kodak’s Jeff Hayzlett.

Staff of the Intergalactic Museum have chosen several Oscar®-winning science fiction films to be among the first collections stored in space.

“George Eastman House, now the Intergalactic Museum, has long been at the forefront of photograph conservation and film preservation, and this museum and its expert staff continue to break new ground in all frontiers,” said Kaplan Jameskirk, chief operations officer of the Enterprise Museum Association.

The scientific studies, conducted over the past eight years at the Jabbahut Institute in conjunction with Eastman House, revealed that zero gravity aligned with the ideal climate conditions of outer space will preserve museum artifacts for thousands of years, possibly light years, beyond what archivists previously thought possible.

As the Intergalactic Museum prepares to go where no man has gone before, we wish you a Happy April Fool’s Day from George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film … where we will continue to proudly preserve the world’s treasures of photography and motion pictures, here on the ground.

But rest assured, if our research at Eastman House were to show space offers the optimum conditions for archival storage, we’d be at the forefront of such an initiative.

May the force be with you.

Starting tomorrow, the Syracuse Cinephile Society is hosting its 30^th Cinefest in Liverpool, NY and at the Capitol Theatre in Rome, NY. Each year, Cinefest consists of four straight days of watching rare, hard-to-find, and hard-to-believe classic-era films. George Eastman House has been involved from the beginning. Not only do we provide films to fill out the program, but some of our preservations even get their premiere at this festival. This year, we are sending 10 films to the event, including 35mm preservations of ROARING RAILS and THE GRASP OF GREED, as well as the 16mm preservation of FLY-LOW JACK AND THE GAME.

ROARING RAILS [above] is a 2009 preservation funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation. This 1924 film stars Harry Carey as a disgraced train engineer whose adopted son’s blindness prompts him to help a murderer that may be able to help his son find a cure. This preservation, done at Haghefilm Conservation in the Netherlands, restores the tinting to the original black-and-white film, and all the intertitles were newly created for this preservation, using the existing Dutch titles as a template.

THE GRASP OF GREED is an early Lon Chaney melodrama about an authoress shipwrecked on a desert isle with her skinflint ex-publisher. Haghefilm also restored the tinting to this 1915 film, and again the titles were re-created for this preservation from Dutch references. The Film Foundation provided the funding for this 2006 preservation.

FLY-LOW JACK AND THE GAME [above] was shot right here in Rochester, NY. It is one of the first fiction films shot on 16mm film, by Marion Gleason, the wife of George Eastman’s personal organist. Testing out the viability of the 16mm camera and reversal film in 1927, Gleason said that “they wanted someone who knew absolutely nothing about movies so that they could be sure that anyone at all could load the camera.” This 2009 preservation was funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation, and the work was done at The Cinema Lab in Englewood, Colorado, from the reversal originals held here at George Eastman House.

Among the other films we’re sending to Cinefest:

LIFE’S HARMONY (1916), directed by Frank Borzage, is about an aging church organist who feels threatened by the new musician in town. In THE GIRL WITHOUT A SOUL (1917), Viola Dana plays twin sisters who try to thwart a conman who is after the church organ funds.

In LITTLE CHURCH AROUND THE CORNER (1923), [above] Hobart Bosworth and Claire Windsor are a mine-owner and his daughter who are trapped in the mine, and saved by minister Kenneth Harlan.

WHITE DESERT (1925) [above] is another Claire Windsor film, this time stranded due to an avalanche caused by blasting for a railroad tunnel.

THE VALIANT (1929) [above] stars Paul Muni in the title role, facing execution for a murder without damaging his family’s name.

A HOLY TERROR stars George O’Brien as a man searching for a murderer, and his father’s secret past, in Wyoming.

In the musical CHEER UP! (1937), [above] Stanley Lupino (Ida Lupino’s father) poses as a millionaire to get his stage show financed.

Most of the Motion Picture Department staff will be spending at least some time at Cinefest, mixing with industry professionals as well as film collectors and fans. We are really looking forward to this event— and to the next 30!  Look for a wrap-up blog from us after the fest…

When we send film material to the lab to create new copies, it is important to create a faithful representation of the original. Each scene in a movie is different, and there can be many lighting changes. In order to produce an acceptable print, different scenes must be adjusted for different light exposures. How do we know when these changes need to happen? They are cued right on the film.  There are many ways to cue a film for printing. One of the oldest methods is Lawley clips.

In Restoration of Motion Picture Film by Paul Read and Mark-Paul Meyer, Lawley clips are described as “small metallic clips inserted between two perforations of the negative.  The disadvantages of this method were that there was a risk of perforation damage in the original and also there was a lot of intensive preparation work.  This method has not been used for many years.  Many archives and film collections have negatives with these clips and to ensure the safety of the film and also of another printer they have to be removed before the film can be printed.  Removing Lawley clips can be a tedious and risky exercise as the film can be damaged around the perforations during the removal.”

How true this is.  Part of our nitrate inspection is to identify and remove these little pieces of silver-nickel metal wrapped around the perforations of these films.  These clips— once helpful in making new prints— are now obsolete in modern printing and should be removed before causing damage to the film.

Using a pen knife, we can gently separate the metal clips from the film.  Each reel of film can have dozens of these metal clips attached, and it takes several hours to remove.

Removed Lawley clips

Once the work is completed, we have a film that fits better in the can, and free from any physical damage caused by these clips.  Each step we take helps prolong the life of our amazing collection!

Working in a facility that stores over 24,000 reels of nitrate film can sound daunting, but actually…I love it.  Everyday is a new adventure, as I wind through reels of film discovering new information.  One of the most frequent questions I am asked is: How do I know that I am looking at nitrate?

Well, first off, nitrate motion picture film was manufactured circa 1893 until 1951.  If a film was made after 1951 it is most likely not nitrate. In 1951 companies such as Kodak began the manufacturing of film stock to a newer compound called acetate (commonly referred to as ‘safety’.) Original nitrate stock was highly flammable… unlike acetate, which does not burn. One of the most common and simple ways to see which stock you have is to look at the edges of the film!

For example, Kodak printed clearly in black letters on the edge of the film indicating the stock.

As you can tell it is pretty simple and straightforward.

Now, if you see this information printed with WHITE LETTERS ON A BLACK BACKGROUND you are looking at print-through, or information coming from a previous generation of the source.  Always look for the clear black writing! In this photo, you can see the words ‘Agfa’ printed clearly in black and the words ‘nitrate film’ are in white.

This white lettering does not mean your film was manufactured on this stock.   It is print through!

The physical material is a story of its own, regardless of the images and sound printed on the film.  This is what we look for to help us identify when the film was made: if it is an original, a censored, foreign, or altered film.  This is what helps us preserve the images for tomorrow.

Oh, and if you are unsure of what materials you have in your home, here’s a reassuring hint: 8mm, super-8mm, and 16mm film stock were never manufactured on nitrate, regardless of the maker.  So if you have these around the house, don’t worry… they are safe!

Tune into future blog entries for more tips on how to identify your home movies…

Spring must be on its way!  When I arrived at work this morning the snow had melted to reveal a carpet of sweet Winter aconites!  Thanks to the Museum Photographer for recording the first sign of spring 2010 at George Eastman House.