A/V Geeks Lunch 10-14

do do do i'm skip alzheimer welcome to the av geeks lunchtime streaming show um sorry for that delay um so i uh that film was recorded at 24 frames a second but i slowed it down in obs with uh so the timing wasn't quite right so i missed my q but um welcome everybody um that was uh from the oregon archive and that was some amateur footage of uh race uh at rose tree which i'm guessing is some race track um don't know a whole lot else about it like i don't know the date um certainly don't have any other information about where rose tree is uh this collection is based in pittsburgh but i don't know if this was actually the track was in pittsburgh um so um so yesterday i missed it was ask an archivist day national ask an archivist day and um i love answering questions about uh my archive and about film archives in general and what i do and why i do it etc so feel free to ask me a question in the archive and i will try to answer it today i should also say that home movie day is coming up on saturday and i'm trying to decide how i want to celebrate it um i my wife and i just recorded uh a show with found footage festival where we talk about home video and you get to see some early home video of myself my wife and the found footage festival guys um but also uh some of the stuff that we found some of the stuff they found and of course it's skewed more towards found footage festival so it's more irreverent but that's going to be airing at five o'clock on saturday eastern standard time and it's gonna be on their channel but uh i will um link to it on different sites uh etc so found footage festival is where you should look and see um all right we got a film set up on the telecini which is which is behind me um so let's go ahead and watch it and this is uh children in japan enjoy hills nearby children from the farming districts proceed on their way to school with books and lunches packed in neat carrying cases they pass through ripening tea fields where pickers are already at work in villages along the coast other children follow a path beside the boats and nets of the fishing fleets while in the industrial cities smoking factory chimneys lined the road to school among the vast army of japanese school children artaro and yukiko yamada at the doorway of their house they put on their shoes shoes never worn inside taro wears the official school uniform sister yukiko wears the standard dress for girls while father completes the lacing of his shoes grandmother yamada attends baby brother botchan as he finishes his breakfast botchan likes the tea that is always a part of japanese meals but grandmother feels it must be cooled before he drinks it now father and children say goodbye to mother father and taro and yukiko start out together for father works not far away for a short distance they pass along a street lined with craftsman shops just ahead many people some in oriental and some in western dress have errands at the post office the yamadas have an errand here too taro goes to mail a letter while father and yukiko wait outside watching the traffic on the busy street presently as taro rejoins them they move on and station where father is the official in charge here father and children say goodbye to each other as father enters his office the tracks outside are already busy at school it is almost time for classes to begin children flocked through the gates and teachers stand ready readings are exchanged before entering the classroom all the children remove their street shoes here as at home shoes are always left at the entrance inside the classroom the children take their places and prepare for work meanwhile in cupboards near the door each pair of shoes is also in its proper place and now a reading lesson is later in the morning at the yamada home the maid buys tofu from a street vendor tofu or bean curd comes from soy beans and is tasty in soups in the main living room of the yamada home mother attends to one of the most important of japanese household tasks skillful flower arrangement and art highly honored in japan grandmother is occupied with needlework on a new kimono while both john plays with his toys mother just finishes placing flowers before the family's ancestral shrine when suddenly in the distance the whistle of the tokyo express once more father will be able to report that the train is on time for the express is almost always exactly on schedule during the brief pause in the station the engineer oils his locomotive presently father is again at his desk preparing a record of train movements he writes the japanese characters easily and quickly but in tarou's and yukiko's class in school the children are just learning how to write it is not easy when you are only beginning yukiko writes slowly and carefully taro too is still very cautious but he handles the brush well as he completes the last character of the name for japan from top to bottom it reads meaning great son's origin or as we say japan later taro wields a bat with even greater skill in the american game of baseball nearby older boys practice fencing as a part of their physical training [Music] today yukiko puts aside her school dress for a fine silk kimono she and brother taro are going to a festival this is an excursion in which the entire family joins all look forward to seeing the cherry blossoms and there will be many other attractions for young and old even as the yamadas are leaving home for the day's outing other families are already assembling at the scene of the festival cherry blossoms are everywhere framing bridges and here a castle of old japan among the places visited by many of those who have gathered for the festival is a small shrine one of thousands of such religious structures to be found in japan on their arrival the yamadas stopped to worship first taro pulls the bell cord then offerings are tossed into a box by all members of the family they do not enter the shrine interior but remain at the entrance clapping their hands as a sign of their presence they bow in reverent silence before leaving now to enjoy the cherry blossoms so be loved by the people of japan as with so many japanese fathers hobby is photography he is anxious to get pictures of the delicate blossoms which last for only a few days each year another popular feature of so the day passes with enjoyable activities for all but for taro and yukiko and mother too the outing is not complete without seafoam candy back home after their day at the festival the yamadas have keen appetites dinner includes meat raw fish a variety of cooked vegetables and steamed rice in individual bowls all eaten with chopsticks the rice bowls are usually refilled at least once and perhaps often er especially when everyone is hungry in the kitchen the maid keeps a careful watch on the rice steamer in case more should be needed but now she remembers another duty she must attend to it is time to put more coal on the fire it is already burning in a heating chamber directly beneath the household bath the hot bath is a daily habit with the japanese tonight taro will bathe first but everyone will have a turn far from being afraid of soap he lathers himself long and vigorously next he dips water from the tub for a thorough rinsing washing and rinsing are done outside the tub which is designed for the final restful soaking in the living room mother and the maid make up beds on the spotless floor while father dressed in a comfortable kimono quietly reads the evening paper it is getting late and already in another part of the house the children are asleep both chan still clutching his toy dog taro perhaps reliving the day at the festival yukiko resting before tomorrow's return to school the yamada home and garden lose their outlines in the darkness of night someone ran out of leader uh so somebody commented that uh uh rick traylinger perlinger archives has a longer version of this film uh with the credits and all that and uh coincidentally this uh came from ultimately the prelinger archive um through somebody else i just uh found this batch that was donated to me um and i do a lot of work with the prolinger archive i've uploaded uh most of the stuff that's on archive.org for them um and rick is a mentor of mine so uh but so uh as i mentioned uh today is or yesterday was ask an archivist day uh as this is international archivist month um and um somebody asked rick i believe kay asked what got me started um so i got started by accident i was collecting old audio visual equipment for this co-op uh of artists and noise people called wifflefist back in raleigh in the early 90s and i um got a 16mm projector and started picking up films at a nearby flea market and then we got 500 films for 50 dollars and my brain started percolating and i started realizing wow this is really fascinating stuff it's hilarious um because i was you know weaned on mystery science theater but then i realized wow these films are actually kind of interesting and important um beyond the laughs and so i just kept collecting more and more and more so there you go um so somebody said skip generally speaking are the camera originals negatives for these film vaulted um sometimes um sometimes they uh like for example i talked with people at encyclopedia britannica and they said they had a bunch of stuff in iron mountain which is uh i think a former coal mine in pennsylvania um cornet no um they are actually either in warehouses in st louis or they are in a storage space at my um in raleigh uh and um so no they're not and a lot of these films are not um used to be uh film labs would hold on to these things but film labs are disappearing um zisaman said iron mountain is in up in michigan actually there's multiple iron mountains across the country and i know that theirs is in pittsburgh is in pennsylvania somewhere um but anyways uh there are [Music] uh where was i going i can't remember what i was saying that's what i get for reading comments without fully answering a question um so film labs a lot of them uh people retired and they went out of business um or they couldn't afford to maintain their real estate and dissolved uh sometimes they were actually um reached out to the filmmakers to say hey here's these are for you um and here's the films but they also said like oh by the way you owe us these storage fees and some of the filmmakers have died so there's this whole orphaned film lab materials um that it might be hard to track down a short film um so that's problematic one of the things we noticed with the uh phoenix coronet films is there were uh films in their negatives from other film companies which they don't have the rights to that the film labs just sent them there was like oh educational films here and so um there's some stuff from learning corporation of america which is owned by fox which is owned by disney um and so there's a vast majority of it's a mess now it used to be a little bit neater than it is but now it's a mess um let's watch another film and then i'll answer some more of your questions about archives and being an archivist this is circus people [Music] circuses travel by train from one city to another in the early hours of the morning the train brings the circus into the city most people are still asleep when it arrives but the circus people must be up very early to unload and set up the circus it is a great deal of work to move a circus the circus people plan each part of the work so that it can be done quickly and easily as soon as the train comes to a stop the unloading begins the biggest job the circus people have to do is to set up the tents the wagon carrying the tent poles is unloaded first so the circus tents can be put up immediately then the other wagons are unloaded it is easy to roll them off the flat cars caged wild animals ride in some wagons hey look out there may be a lion in there as soon as the wagons come off the train they are taken to the circus grounds while part of the workmen put up the tent poles others begin to stretch out the big tents many men help with this job each man knows what he must do by working together they put up the tents quickly some of these workmen travel with the circus others are hired when the circus comes to town teams of men carry the big heavy center poles from the wagon to the place where the tent is being put up other workmen place the huge center poles in position to be raised when all the center poles are ready they are raised one at a time this machine drives tent stakes into the ground workmen drive some of the stakes several men work in a team they hit the stakes with heavy sledgehammers each blow must be delivered at the right time the edges of the tent are propped up first before the center is lifted short poles are used to hold up the edges of the tent when the men have finished propping up the edges the center of the tent is pulled up onto the great giant center poles watch the buildings disappear as the tent goes up the largest tent is called the big top because the tent is very heavy many men are needed to pull it up pull pull pull now the big tent is up the biggest job is finished sometimes boys help with the tent ropes and earn a ticket to the circus circus people are always on guard against fire they have their own fire truck the truck carries a large tank of water one man starts the water pump while the other man unrolls the long hose these men test their equipment every day to be sure it is working the city fire department sends a truck to the circus the fire inspector tells the circus people the safest way to place the tents and wagons the owners of the circus provide three meals a day for the circus people meat and eggs are being unloaded and put into the refrigerator wagon a great deal of food is brought to the circus grounds every day this man is bringing pies for dessert the circus kitchen is set up in a tent it is kept very clean these cooks travel with the circus they spend all of their time preparing food for the other circus people this circus wagon belongs to the dining department in it are huge kettles for cooking soups vegetables and stews the cooks need large kettles to prepare enough food for all the people who work for the circus the dining tables are set up in the circus people have been working hard all morning and are ready for a good meal milk is passed around in large pictures everyone can drink as much as he wants this woman is washing some tights for her husband he is an aerial performer circus people spend much time keeping their costumes and clothes clean the clothes line is fastened to the trailer wagon where this woman lives some of the circus performers carry their costumes in wardrobe trunks jane rides a beautiful horse in the big show she brushes her riding clothes before each performance this is otto otto is a very funny clown he's putting on his makeup for the afternoon show otto travels with the circus he is one of the star performers otto puts on fresh makeup before each show as soon as the afternoon show is over he cleans the makeup off his face after supper he puts his makeup on again for the evening show now otto is ready to put on his clown costume he covers his hair with a white skull cap his sparkling clown hat is made of sequins otto is sometimes called the white clown because of his white face and white costume otto enjoys wearing his clown costume and making children laugh he is so good-natured and so much fun that all the children like him otto's friend mike is a clown too he does a juggling act in the circus he practices juggling before the big show starts several other clowns travel with the circus too in some towns and cities the circus hires extra clowns to work for a few days these clowns are trying out a new act tom will you please help me with this tony is another clown in the circus look at the duck on his shoulder it never flies away do you think it's a live duck the afternoon performance is about to begin the clowns are waiting outside the big tent for their turn to go in this is our friend otto hello otto many people are buying tickets to the circus they're eager to see the show because the circus has not been in town for nearly a year all the children want balloons they want peanuts and popcorn and candy too hurry hurry hurry the big show is ready to start fathers and mothers boys and girls young and old are all going to see the circus now the afternoon show is beginning elephants lead the parade rosalie is fond of the elephants she directs the stunts they do in the big ring other elephants in colorful circus blankets follow in the parade the camels come next carrying a beautiful girl who will dance in the show riders on high spirited horses will perform in the ring now the little circus ponies bring on a brightly colored float all the children will know the old woman in the show what fun it is to see the fine show the circus people have planned [Music] oh there's my alarm um so we got some more questions uh like i i said earlier um yesterday was ask an archivist day and i missed it because i was caught up doing other stuff um but uh please feel free to ask us questions or ask me questions in the comments and i will answer them i've got a couple built up here rick k asks what's your personal best or favorite find of archive footage boy that varies from day to day but if you watch um the found footage festival uh thing on friday on saturday at 5 p.m i will show you uh one of the amazing discoveries um that we found uh that was found on film um and i've shown around here i believe it's uh if you haven't seen it it's ohio power company vet party um it was in a box of stuff i got on ebay and i didn't know what was in the box except i knew that it was all electric themed like it was like power company themed and this one i'm like huh what is this and i was pretty floored so that's five o'clock eastern standard time on the found footage festival um youtube page and i probably will try to link to it on the av geeks facebook page um let's see nathan jones asks so flea markets are gateway into vintage motion picture film collecting yes uh yard sales are as well um stuff shows up and you're like what is this oh this is a can uh that um mr cash film that uh i showed the other day this week uh was just raw footage 35 millimeter negative footage of a mr cash commercial um was found at a uh actually it was found in a thrift store so thrift stores are another good place to find stuff um have a ham writes how many other film archivists do you know personally um i don't know more than a hundred probably um when when we go to uh conferences uh i know a lot of people it's um it's kind of great some of them are very good friends uh and some of them are just acquaintances that we know each other and we wave at each other in the hall at these conferences uh and some of those people actually watch the show which makes me very happy that um the people who are i would consider my peers are uh watching what we're doing um ms cynthia writes do you have a librarian on staff i do not um and i at one point was entertaining the idea of going to library school but i'm not the best student i i get um kinda i don't i'm not good at homework i rush it and so i decided that i would spend my energies uh exploiting my collection and my money uh buying things like the telecity that's behind me uh or by um just giving access and advocacy to librarians and to other folks i certainly have talked to quite a few librarians they are my favorite people even from being a child librarians very much shaped who i was and why i am um so i like librarians but at this point we don't have i have a mostly full-time employee kayshawn who you've met and you heard inadvertently yesterday and he does a lot of scanning work for me and cataloging and then i have um some other people who come in and sometimes back pre-covet i had students from nc state and from unc from other places in north carolina uh interning for me and they would do cataloging and digitizing things like that so give a lot of hands-on experience here uh all right uh let's see what do we got next um um jonno's story let's learn about jono enjoy i heard you uh joined the writing club mary i did is it just for girls no it's for boys and girls hey robin hi robin hi how long have you been what's the book i don't know yet i just got it from the school counselor it's supposed to be all about high school what do you want that for well i just wanted to see what kind of courses i could take in high school i'm not sure if i want to learn trade or get ready for college or maybe both how about you jenna what are you gonna do i don't know either i haven't much thought about it i know what i'm gonna be i'm gonna be a brain surgeon that way i get to start at the top [Music] well jono's at the window and he's looking out at the great white world wondering what it's all about well says jenna time to find out and he did nosy kid a good-looking car with shiny chrome wings count out my change and know how it feels and each and every day have my three square meals not enough jano not enough [Music] and then someday i'd want a house on a lot warm when it's cold and cold when it's hot with the wife and some kids to share what i've got that's the line johno that's the line these things don't come easy as everyone knows the car the house and a nice set of clothes there's not much for free as the price tag shows gotta buy shadow gotta buy [Music] there are jobs and there are jobs some better some worse a man with a torch a policeman a nurse but no matter which one you pick you have to rehearse gotta learn jono before you earn gotta learn that's the secret but the question is what tough to think about school when the weather is hot hey there's a man with the answers jono almost forgot just drop in john or just drop in so jono saw the man and they had a little chat and jono soon knew this is where the answer's at a world of opportunity unfolded as he sat listen well jono listened well [Music] your first taste of formal education began for you in kindergarten remember jono and now you're ready for high school and the big question is what high school and what to study well what would you like to be there are all sorts of jobs many requiring specific skills or special training [Music] you like to write stories do you like to draw do you like to tinker with mechanical things it's important to know what you like to do and the things that you do well we have methods to discover your particular abilities and you may find that you're interested in vocational or technical training if you do we have some of the best schools in the country let's start with seneca vocational high school seneca has some mighty fine courses courses such as operation and maintenance of direct current or alternating current motors and machinery you even get the chance to run things yourself [Music] maybe you're interested in air conditioning and refrigeration [Music] or you might prefer radio and tv repair you'll find them all at seneca vocational high school plus one of the finest gyms in the area it isn't all work at seneca there's time for play too you see there's quite a bit to learn at seneca and that's only one of the schools now let's take a look at emerson vocational high school at emerson you can learn to be a first class baker [Music] or acquire the skills to be a chef or caterer [Music] so so [Music] at emerson you can also learn to build fine furniture [Music] trained to be a machinist or a tool and die maker and at emerson you can learn all about welding two down four to go now let's take a look at foster mastin location high school fosdich mastin is a girl's vocational high school channel but some of the girls in your class might be interested and you can tell them about fosdic masten or suggest they get more information from the school counselor hosnick mastin trains girls for beauty culture the school provides courses in clothing work including alterations and remodeling and fosdic mastin prepares students for careers in practical nursing quite a bit to think about isn't there jono [Music] business and distributive education are important job areas for boys and girls today and courses in typewriting shorthand office practice bookkeeping and salesmanship are given in all of the buffalo academic high schools in addition to academic courses leading to college now this is mckinley high school at mckinley you can learn the printing trade [Music] and there are courses for girls as well as boys at mckinley [Music] courses such as advertising and fine arts which include design [Music] and photography [Music] mckinley also has an outstanding plumbing course [Music] the sheet metal classes cover all aspects of the trade [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and mckinley's horticulture course has a long-standing reputation for excellence [Music] do [Music] you can learn carpentry and build a real house at mckinley [Music] and for recreation you can take a dip in the beautiful pool [Music] like to see that again okay everybody out of the pool [Music] well geno selected the courses you'd like to take yet keep in mind that our vocational and technical high schools really are comprehensive high schools where in addition to occupational training you study mathematics science language arts social studies and english and you may plan your program to meet college entrance requirements [Music] now let's visit hutchinson technical high school at hutch tech you can specialize in chemical technology where you may check such things as the acidity or alkalinity of liquids and the radioactivity of voluminous watch dial [Music] hutch tech also has a great electrical technology course most programs at hutch tech combine technical training with college entrance courses such as social studies more than 75 percent of hutch tech's graduates go on to college or some form of higher education hutch tech also offers science course where you can learn to program and solve some of the more pressing problems of the day a student developed this prize-winning battleship game which required processing about 1 500 punch cards a lot of work but great experience [Music] as you can see even computers have a light side not so easy is it jono to decide what you want to do that's why it's smart to get all the help you can from your parents teachers and school counselor we have one more school to visit jono we think you'll find it very interesting this is burguard vocational high school burguard specializes in aviation mechanics [Music] and the school has extensive up-to-date facilities for the study of automobile mechanics [Music] and small engine repair [Music] recognize these kids jono they're all young people like yourself who probably haven't made up their minds either about what they want to do maybe it will help if we let you see what's happened to some of the other young men and women who've attended the schools we've just seen well at seneca vocational high school in the class of 1964 there was larry mayer today mr mayor is a tool and die maker [Music] hutchinson technical high school class of 47 robert traynham kohl's mr cole's now a successful architect heads up his own firm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] emerson vocational high school class of 65 edward kutas mr kutas now is a head chef [Music] fosdich mastin vocational high school class of 60 doris crockett now mrs doris davis and a licensed practical nurse [Music] mckinley high school class of 54 roger foser mr foser now is vice president of the hodge display company [Music] and burguard vocational high school class of 43 jack pryor well-known pilot and president of his own aviation company [Music] the day we visited mr pryor he was flying former buffalo bills football stars jack kemp and edward koski to an appearance at a children's picnic [Music] six schools six alumni and there are thousands more equally successful stopping in to see the school counselor was a very wise first step jono in planning your future and we may try to stay with the very latest craze [Music] but the judge of your success for the rest of your days be you john or will be you will be you jello will be you [Music] across this great big land from the east to the west [Music] the struggle goes on and all must face the test [Music] of planning our lives so we wind up with the best do it wisely john will do it well do it wisely jono do it well [Music] boys and girls i'm dr joseph mench buffalo superintendent of schools and this is michael shabarazzi who played the part of jono in our story you did a fine job michael thank you very much dr michael knows pretty well what he wants to do in life but not everyone is that fortunate we made this film the jono story for two very important reasons first to show the wide range of vocational and technical training available in the buffalo public high schools and secondly to stress the importance of getting the proper educational guidance early in life michael played his part well we want you to play your parts in life equally as well our schools and teachers are here to help you the opportunities and facilities have never been better use them wisely use them well your future depends on it [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow [Music] the future farmers of our country are shown a typical cornfield as part of their training here in a field of mixed dwarf and regular corn they learn that more sunlight reaches all the corn plants by growing a mixture of taller and shorter stalks young men such as these perhaps members of 4-h clubs or university students studying the scientific approach to farming frequently visit a great many different farms to learn about the care of different crops today even the farmer is an expert who may specialize in growing a few particular crops the husking of corn by hand may be old-fashioned when machines do it so much more rapidly but the best way to learn how is from the ground up and now the husking glove with the built-in knife blade that cuts the ear from the stalk is used by an old hand in the days before machine husking a good man picked about 100 bushels a day today a machine does that in half an hour but it is still a pleasure to watch a man whose skill at husking was developed almost to a fine art years ago cornhusking contests were a big part of state fairs and though it's getting to be a lost skill as more and more machines take over it still reminds us of the grand old days of square dancing and the hoedown [Music] the machine husker is only one of many tractor-driven harvesting tools this gulping monster with mechanical gullet chews up a cornfield and spits out the corneas in no time at all the future farmer must know a great deal about these machines their upkeep and repair did you know that corn also called maize is really a grass and that it was grown by american indians long before columbus voyaged here it is one of the major foods for livestock as well as boys in england corn means wheat while in scotland and ireland the word corn means oats but in this country it is still that wonderful field of stocks waving high in a corn field until the gulfing corn husking machine chops it down just think that this machine in one day does the work of 50 men the shelling of corn now takes place right in the field this machine removes every kernel from the corn cob the cob is usually ground up for fertilizer while the kernels are dried and prepared for storage to be used as food for livestock or for processing to make corn starch sugar and other food products and chemicals the dryer replaces natural sunlight before this machine was developed kernels might dry in the sun for six weeks before the corn could be stored now this machine does the same work in three hours it removes almost 30 percent of the water in each kernel and can handle 375 bushel loads a day tomorrow's farmers certainly will have to be expert mechanics to handle all of these tools here the corn moves into the hopper through a moving chute the worm gear is only one of many machines that help reduce labor although these future farmers riding their mechanical steed must learn a great deal about machinery they may never realize what back-breaking work farming used to be even today's farmer gets up at the crack of dawn and goes to bed dog tired but only the old hand looking over his fields at the end of the day knows what hard work farming used to be tomorrow's farmers are lucky they are living in the miraculous age of machines [Music] leader there um so what happens is when it loses tension and uh goes over the sound head it goes like really quite like a zipper almost um wow you got some great questions here so i just wanted to say uh so that was probably a short that was shown on television um and it's definitely about future farmers of america i saw those blue corduroy jackets that my high school had a bunch of members of that because i was in a rural north carolina school and then i'm shocked to find out that jono's name wasn't really jono i've never heard the name jono before and the fact that the kid's name is michael in real life i was like why not call it michael's story um yeah um anyways uh so you guys asked some good questions here i got a bunch of them uh let's see [Music] um all right uh rick k asks last question i promise what is your white whale the one piece of film that you've been looking for um gesundheit that's my assistant sneezing um what's a white whale the one piece of film you've looked for but haven't found uh i would love to find a copy of uh return of count spyro keep which is a vd film i think made for the navy uh and it's animated um uh that's one thing i would love uh to find the last time it came up on ebay it went for more than 200 which was my kind of upper limit uh i have paid more for films but really next time i if i see it again but i i will definitely throw a lot of money at it because that's what i've been looking for uh let's see and there's others of course um like i really want to find a complete copy of the days that the numbers disappeared which is the one with the puppet the magic puppet that uh takes all the numbers away the copy i have is missing the beginning and is missing the end so i don't know what the kid did to deserve having the numbers taken away and then i don't know if he ever gets the numbers back um let's see um oh somebody posted a copy of a video copy of uh return of accounts pyrokeep but i wanna film um and anyways uh old radios who collects uh projectors and films asks uh are bell and howl slot load projectors as bad as they say they are and which models have bad worn worm gears i don't know specifically uh worm gears or the internal gear ratio thing that kind of it's you have your little electric motor and then you have this gear and those were made of a plastic and a lot of those crack and then um can't be repaired anymore there was a time that someone locally i knew repaired them but he retired and might have passed away uh because it was more than 15 years ago um i stay away from bell house in general the autoloaders totally stay away from uh the slot loads i ran into a problem with tension like it was uneven tension and it was just basically i was running one i think it was a 1585 and it was just going [Music] i'm like all right we're done with that um thomas asks uh have you ever had to turn any classified films in um not that i know of um i do have some films that are ethically sketchy that i have decided not to share [Music] just because they involve patients or uh who probably weren't um you know i don't know if they granted authority to have their images shown um so i've i've been kind of pulling back on some of those um but none of them came up as like this is classified and you shouldn't have this um miss cynthia asks what type of cataloging system are you using the software i use is filemaker but i also use a bunch of spreadsheets for other things like logging what i've shown here uh jeremy who chimes in here on youtube he's been helping me go through that list and making sure that what i show is actually what i said i showed and helped me figure out that i was way off on my episode numbering um but i cataloging wise at least in the back i had things arranged by size by real size and then by letter so like all the a's that were 400 foot reels would be in one room on shares but i wouldn't alphabetize within because that meant i would be spending all my time alphabetizing uh and i did that to kind of maximize shelving um since then it's been more when i get something like all the same all the films from one batch that i got all end up together and then i get cataloged accordingly um let's see jeremy asks are there grants available for preserving old film art grants general preservation yes there are unfortunately a boar i hate paperwork so i'm not really into writing grants and also i'm not a non-profit so i found a lot of non-profits get these grants but what's great about that is we're a vendor we have films scanners and video scanners and so we get grant money to digitize other people's stuff uh and that money goes into in that that equipment is what we use to scan our stuff and make it available so um yeah havaham asks has any of your education help you excel at film archiving uh yeah i don't know um you know i was in well okay i was in computer science for a couple couple years at nc state and then i transferred over to the school of design and so both of those it was computer training i learned how to use photoshop i learned how to do databases so and i also became very very comfortable with uh computers and i think that helped me more than than anything um let's see uh uh what is your most treasured film that's hard simon that's a hard question um yeah i don't know yeah if i that's so hard i'm sorry um there's certain films that i have that might have high ebay values but i yeah it's i can't just that's a hard one um nathan asks what is the most interesting ways you found out about or acquired a film uh sometimes films just show up on my porch and i'm like huh where did this come from and then i have to kind of guess uh so yeah i'm not sure um i find out sometimes people email me and say hey uh there's films at this uh goodwill and i've had that happen with like it's a goodwill in san diego and i'm like i can't i'm not i can't go out to san diego um but uh people sometimes i get these these emails are texts that say hey uh we're getting rid of our films are you interested um we have to get rid of them by the end of the month and then we make arrangements uh for that um let's see i've got some more questions here how do you manage the temp and humidity in the archive i have normal hvac although i do have extra fans that vent vinegar stink from the front of the archive um is miss cynthia asks is this your full-time job or do you have another job that helps pay the bills i quit my computer job back in 2001 and i've been doing this full-time so um i have made basically i make money doing a couple of different things initially it was digitizing for other people so i did a lot of work for internet archive and i got paid for that for universities for private individuals we do home movies and home video digitizing and more recently well dvds for a while were published dvds were making money and now it is almost entirely stock footage but we still do scanning work for other people um so that's one that's how we make pay the bills do i ever find any lost media such as movies from the silent era potentially um i know people who are interested in the silent films um since i don't normally have features and i don't collect 35 um you know that's where a lot of that lost media is is 35 millimeter nitrate films um and i don't have a lot of nitrate i have very little and 16 doesn't it wasn't nitrate so um let's see [Music] um jim asks have you ever acquired any news film yes um i have a real compilation reel of car accidents from the late 50s and early 60s from a local uh tv station newsroom footage unfortunately like the local a lot of the local tv stations just jumped it like they dumped it to video um or made highlight reels and then the rest of that got rid of which is quite unfortunate because newsroom news film footage is you know that documents so much what was going on in an area and a lot of that's disappearing uh do i enjoy being an archivist yes very much i love what i realize is i love sharing this material and this is what this streaming show is all about is sharing um because what i realized is i'm often the last the place that films end up last before they're in the trash uh and i've certainly rescued things from trash and dumpsters and such and um that's part of what i do but really and then providing a safe place for it but the bigger part of it is if it's just sitting on a shelf it's not really doing what it was supposed to do so this is why i share and why i'm doing these shows um and so uh you know that's why i do what i do it's it's very important for me to give access to the materials that i have um not every archive is set up that way a lot of archives they preserve the materials and they keep them safe but they the access is limited either by the rights or uh they don't have the equipment to share it and i always advocate for sharing whenever possible in the easiest way possible and i've done presentations about these types of shows um let's see do i have an experience shooting 16 myself i had a bolex camera but i never shot film on it like when i was in college i did a little bit but it was really horrible stuff so um jim palmer asked have you acquired any films that exhibit with vinegar syndrome and do you have any remedies to fix it vinegar syndrome of course is uh the acetate film breaking down and it creates acetic acid and if it doesn't vent it stinks stinks thing stinks uh and it just breaks it down and creates where is it is uh this super curly unmanageable film um yes i have lots and lots of films with vinegar syndrome um and we're probably gonna go through a purge where we're gonna pull films here's an example of a film and open it up and you can look at it and you can see like how the film coming off the reel how problematic it is it's very it's curled which is hard to deal with when you try to project it or oh look at that that's called um what do they call some people call it fluting or it's basically you see it's it's curled so bad that it's impossible for that lie flat like i could try to make it lie flat but it'll break um and you see there's a kind of a glisten like a crystal that's vinegar um so we're gonna go through and find a bunch of these films and make a judgment on whether or not we can scan them uh and this we're not gonna be able to scan this part of it we might be able to pull off some of it and get into it and do some scanning now is there a recipe to fix it um unfortunately it's it's really hard and it's it requires uh you have to hydrate it and then you have to run it back and forth like i can see a title on here but yeah it's it's it's very time-consuming and for some films it's not worth it it's like there's other copies out there that are not vinegar so um yes so anyways what we're going to do is go through a bunch of films and purge ones that are just lost causes and a lot of them were lost causes when i got them they were already vinegared and i just was like well maybe i'll figure out a way to fix it and we were determining that it's not and it's actually making it um problematic maybe for other films and there's metal cans that are corroding because of the vinegar uh fumes so anyways uh let's see do you make your own 16 millimeter films no um and that's it i think um i think that's it for i mean obviously in the future i'll answer questions that you have because i like talking um but thank you today for tuning in uh you can buy us a coffee at buymeacoffee.comavgeeks you can go to avgeeks.com and see other things we put online and buy dvds and you know please hit like or subscribe or you know all those things that say hey um these folks are doing something interesting so everybody have a great rest of your day and we'll be back again tomorrow uh which is a friday um please rewind and love each other and we will see you tomorrow take care oh uh so i