I have the best job. For the past five years, I’ve worked as a film archivist for a number of institutions – George Eastman House, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, the Royal Private Film and Photography archive in Bangkok, Thailand, and most recently at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington, New Zealand on behalf of the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF). I’ve been able to take advantage of my background as a film historian as well as draw heavily on the archiving skills I gained at George Eastman House’s L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation– all while working on nitrate film and keeping a toe or two in the academic world. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better situation when I started in the field.

One of my most recent projects involves The White Shadow (1924), a 6-reel British feature film directed by Graham Cutts that includes some of the earliest on-screen work by Alfred Hitchcock. The film was recovered as part of an international collaboration between the New Zealand Film Archive and the five major nitrate-holding U.S. archives – George Eastman House, The Museum of Modern Art, The Library of Congress, the Academy Film Archive and the UCLA Film and Television Archive – to return, preserve and make available U.S.-produced films that no longer exist in US archives. The project was initiated and is coordinated by the National Film Preservation Foundation, a grant-giving organization which has provided funding to institutions in all 50 states and Puerto Rico to preserve rare films in their collections.

 The condition of the print (seen above) was shrunken, brittle and showing signs of advanced decomposition.

Through the project we’ve identified and repatriated films such as:

• Maytime (with an early performance by “It Girl” Clara Bow)
• Won in a Cupboard (the earliest known film directed by comedienne Mabel Norman)
• The Sergeant (the first known fictional film shot in Yosemite)
• Upstream (directed by John Ford)
• The Love Charm (a previously unknown early Technicolor short) and
• Pathe News: Virginian Types (featuring stencil-colored images of the residents of Old Rag Mountain, soon after it was announced that they would be evicted from their land to make way for the creation of Shenandoah National Park, and 10 years before being photographed by Arthur Rothstein as the forced-relocation was finally taking place.)

These two last films will become part of the George Eastman House nitrate collection and be preserved with funding from the NFPF. Click here to see videos of some of the newly-preserved films and a partial list of titles returning to the U.S.

So how did THE WHITE SHADOW, a British production, end up becoming part of this U.S.-film focused project? One of the goals of the project has been to inspect and identify when possible all of the items in the American section of the archive’s international nitrate collection. Given that intertitles in the film bear the name of Selznick (an American distribution company who also apparently handled the international distribution) and that the film stars Betty Compson, a famous American actress, the film had been classified (not unreasonably) as likely being an American production. Thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the NFPF was able to provide the man-power to inspect films in more detail and provide concrete identifications where possible.

Missing its opening credits (not unusual with films of this year), The White Shadow was originally inventoried as “Twin Sisters” (a placeholder title taken from the cans the films arrived in), I was able to identify the first two reels of the film based on the distributor, cast – the film stars not only Compson, but also British actor Clive Brook – information gleaned from the film stock itself (such as the date of the stock’s production that is printed on the film’s edges), and piecing together the story, then using internet resources and the archive’s reference library to confirm the film’s true identity. A week later I inspected a reel titled only “Unidentified American Drama,” and by matching the cast, sets and storyline, identified it as the title’s third reel.

With support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Academy Film Archive, the film has been preserved by the New Zealand Film Archive and Park Road Post-Production in Wellington. Given the condition of the print – shrunken, brittle and showing signs of advanced decomposition – the work proved difficult. Now printed on 35mm polyester film stock, new prints and duplicate negatives will be housed at the Academy Film Archive and the NZFA. The BFI will also receive a print to supplement their on-going Hitchcock preservation project. The preserved film now includes new opening credits and a coda that summarizes the missing reels, taken from a synopsis filed with the Library of Congress as part of the title’s copyright entry.

The $64,000 question is of course where are those three missing reels? There are a number of possibilities: We are 99.9% certain that the reels are not in the NZFA’s nitrate vault – though there are other as-yet unidentified reels from the same depositor in the collection, none match The White Shadow. The other three reels could have been lost or misplaced before the collector (New Zealand projectionist Jack Murtagh) acquired the film, the reels – printed on nitrate stock, which is particularly prone to decomposing when stored in warm or humid conditions – could have broken down sometime in the last 88 years, or perhaps they are, right now, sitting in another collector’s attic or basement, waiting to be discovered and reunited with the reels know to currently exist – it’s impossible to know.

The now-familiar gasp from the audience as the existing footage suddenly ends at what is possibly the film’s most dramatic scene never fails to drive home the need for conserving and preserving what titles we do have – be it ones with a famous name attached (which does make that constant problem of funding a bit easier to overcome), or equally culturally significant but long-forgotten documentaries or works by small production companies orphaned after the studio closed – and re-energizes my drive to keep looking for cinema’s lost history.

As I said, I have (what is for me) the best job in the world – after all, who knows what else is out there, just waiting to return to the screen?

By Mark Allen, Guest Blogger and Clickworker General Manager.

As a photo junky, I’m always interested in the works of the masters. The Ansel Adams and Jacob Riis’ of the world. That’s why I’m excited that Clickworker has the opportunity to take on the George Eastman House collection as our biggest pro bono project ever. Not only does George Eastman House hold collections from some of the most important photographers in the U.S., but also has become a go-to for international, historical, and documentary images from all over the world since the beginning of photography.

Nickolas Muray, Marilyn Monroe, 1952

Lewis Hine, Empire State Building Construction Worker Touching The Top Of The Chrysler Building, 1930

Though the extent of my own photographic experience has yet to go beyond vacation and cute dog photos, I can appreciate the scope, quality and documentation that the greats bring to the canon of photography. In short – photo museums are awesome. And what’s even better with this project is as our crowd of 120,000 clickworkers tag the more than 400,000 images, they become even more searchable and available online for researchers, enthusiasts, students – anyone! It is truly a perfect partnership to showcase our international services and, as a result, the world will have a more accessible visual library.

To get involved please register as a clickworker here.

The other day I received an invitation to an exhibition opening, which isn’t unusual, except the envelope was wearing a Baby Brownie stamp. As a fancier of all things photographic, I was much more interested in the stamp than in going to the out-of-town shindig. A couple of research clicks later I discovered that back on June 29th of this year, the USPS issued a set of twelve commemorative stamps honoring Pioneers of American Industrial Design. Among those honored is Walter Dorwin Teague, considered the dean of American design, who styled a number of Kodak products.

My cancelled Baby Brownie stamp

I’ve always been curious how this arrangement began. A little research brought me to transcripts in the GEH library of a 1970s interview between Reese Jenkins (now professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University) and Kodak retiree Adolph Stuber. Stuber’s father, William G. Stuber, was hired by George Eastman in the early company days; he went on to be the company CEO after Eastman retired in 1925. Adolph grew up with Kodak and also had a distinguished career in the company himself, becoming manager of the Camera Works in the mid-1920s, then ending up as a company vice president in the sales and advertising department after WWII. It was Adolph Stuber who interviewed and hired Teague, then a fledgling New York City artist, to do facelifts on some of the cameras, as the old designs had become a bit dated. Teague became a design consultant for Kodak for the next thirty years or so. Many of the milestone Eastman Kodak Company products, such as the Baby Brownie (the first injected-molded camera made by Kodak), the Super Kodak Six-20 (the first auto-exposure camera), and the Bantam Special (the first Kodak camera with the f/2 Ektar lens) were Teague designs.

Super Kodak Six-20

Bantam Special

The success of the plastic Baby Brownie would prompt the company to produce more cameras of this type. Most Baby Boomers’ photographic experience began with descendants of the Baby Brownie, such as the Brownie Tourist, the Brownie Holiday, and of course the various Brownie Star models. One of the last cameras Teague was involved with was the Brownie Starflash of 1957; it was the first Kodak camera featuring a built-in flash holder. It was also my first camera.

When Director Anthony Bannon welcomes The Photographic Historical Society’s PhotoHistory XV symposium to the Dryden Theater this October 22, it will be the 15^th time we have shared resources with George Eastman House in the 41 years since the first PhotoHistory. It is a valuable partnership for all concerned.  For our Society, it provides an association with the premier photographic historical facility in the world. For Rochester and GEH it brings an unmatched degree of attention created by the attendance of the world’s leading photo historians who will be in attendance here this October.  We are extremely pleased that our long relationship continues with respect and affection.

We anticipate that PhotoHistory XV will bring some 150 visitor-historians drawn here by a rich selection of original papers that will cover old photographic processes, the development of the photo industry, the history of color photography and much more. Our speakers join us from five countries for the talks, which are a major component of the symposium. Registrants also participate in a Trade Show and Swap meet on the following day.

At previous symposia have heard from such notables as Beaumont Newhall, photographic historian and Director of Eastman House; Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera; and Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera.

The Photographic Historical Society, founded in 1966, is the first organized society devoted to photographic history and the preservation of photo antiques. This year, in a bid to attract younger historians, we are offering students free admission to the symposium. The 15^th PhotoHistory changes from a triennial event to one held every two years by popular request. As president of The Photographic Historical Society and general chairman of PhotoHistory XV,  I invite you to check our web site at www.tphs.org and to join us to meet historians, collectors, photo experts, and dealers from around the world.

Like many of you, I was closely watching our Live Benefit Auction at the Metropolitan Pavillion in NYC Monday night…seeing months and months of work by my colleagues unfold into an incredible event. Also like many of you, I wasn’t there ‘live’…and am still on the hunt for amazing photography.  Luckily our Online Auction is still on!

Not too surprisingly, yes, I am in a New York State of Mind… and as much as I could not put the Auction Catalog down, I now find myself regularly browsing igavel. I’ve been spending alot of time in particular with works that hold the monuments, mood and memory of my former city. The hardest problem will be deciding which one:

 Cori Pepelnjak, JoJo, Untitled (Off Duty Cab), 2009

Except for the blond hair and all the pink this could be me!…(ok, maybe a few years ago)

Helen K. Garber, Flat Iron Building, 1997
Pigment print mounted onto a wood panel and coated with beeswax(!) Yes, I own the New York ‘Then and Now’ book from that series, and love how Garber’s image transforms 1997 into ‘Old New York’ again. Which of course gets me all nostalgic when I stumble upon J.S. Johnston’s, ‘Four New York City Views’, 1893-1897 (two scenes below)  

and IRT Subway Construction, Union Square, 1902 by an unknown photographer.

I go from the Bronx…

Charles Johnstone, St. Mary\’s Playground East, Bronx, NY, 2008

…to ‘Yonkeros’ in Queens:

Jaime Permuth, Untitled, 2010

Four views of two icons. First from Suzanne Vlamis…

View From Liberty’s Crown, 1984

Twin Towers Aerial #1, 1979

…forever linked with that still-unimaginable day:

Pictometry, Statue of Liberty, Sept 11, 2001

Pictometry, We will never forget, 2001

Neal Slavin, Times Square Boogie Woogie, 2009

Have tripped on these steps (and they weren’t even wet)…  thought I had seen just about every kind of interesting view of Times Square before stumbling upon this wonderful photograph.

Ahron Foster, Out of the Gates, East Drive at 61st 2/26/05, 4:00 pm, 2005

A few days before they took them down, I was in town for a meeting at the Museum of Modern Art. Right around 4:00 pm, facing rush-hour and already late for a flight out of JFK, I still remember RUNNING over to Central Park just to walk under the gates one more time.