FY 2014 2015 LSTA Grant: Colorado Silent Film Collaboration Sarah Bogard Jen Fisher Teresa Wells The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Film Archive

Section D: Project Narrative The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Film Archive was founded in 1927 and began acquiring film material in 1929. It is composed of two libraries, the Academy Film Archive and the Margaret Herrick Library. As far as silent films go, the Academy Film Archive is the main institution within the United States that participates in and supports the preservation of lost or damaged motion pictures of great historical significance. The archive also holds all of the Academy Award winning films in the Best Picture category, all the Oscar winning documentaries and many Oscar nominated films in all categories. Guided by the expertise and dedication of our board of directors, the Academy Film Archive works with many other archives and film institutions across the nation to preserve our cinematic history and over the last 18 years, these collaborations have saved over 525 endangered movies of every genre. The foundation is deeply committed to educating young people about film and the need for its preservation. For this project the Academy Film Archive has teamed up with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Silent Film Festival with promotional help from the grandsons of Douglas Fairbanks, who is remembered fondly as silent film royalty as well as a Colorado native. Douglas Fairbanks can easily be considered one of the most famous silent film actors in Hollywood s history. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro but spent the early part of his career making comedies. It should also be noted that Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences themselves. After his death, the AMPAS opened the "Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study" located within the Academy Film Archives sister institution the Margaret Herrick Library. It was his love of the city of Denver and Colorado itself that led the institution and the executors of the Fairbanks estate to seek collaboration with repredable archives from within the state Colorado in the first place. Our partner, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science s Image Archives was first established in 1977. Liz Clancy became the Museum s first Image Archivist in 1985 and held this position until her

retirement in 2006 and currently Rene Payne is the Museum s Image Archivist. After implementing a new digital asset management system in 2008 the Image Archives now contains over 770,000 still and moving images in a wide variety of formats, and approximately 4,000 digital image files, which document the museum s history, collections, and disciplines. We also have sponsorship through the Denver Silent Film Festival. Though this will be the first year of partnership between the Denver Silent Film Festival and the Academy Film Archives, over the course of these years, the festival has presented a broad spectrum of silent film by programming a lively and thought provoking mix of educational and entertaining films for nearly five years now. The Denver Silent Film Festival was established in September of 2010 and specializes in introducing the public to foreign classics, as well as lesser known rare and restored films. The partnership will present screenings and premieres of all foundation funded restoration projects at the 7 th Annual Denver Silent Film Festival which will premiere in the summer of 2016. In September of 2013, a new study by the Library of Congress revealed that only fourteen percent of the silent feature films produced domestically have survived in their original release 35mm format. Of these films, five percent are incomplete while eleven percent of the films are complete as foreign versions or lower quality formats, such as 28 mm or 16 mm film. The research shows that of the more than 3,300 of surviving silent featured films, in any form, nearly 26 percent of them were found in other countries. At the moment, the Czech Republic is credited with having the largest collection of American silent films found outside the United States (Pierce 2013). Only recently, other governments like Russia have given surviving foreign version silent films copies back to the United States. There is a newly found need among the American public to locate and repatriate missing US produced movies from foreign archives. The five major American silent film archives that takes on this emerging project include our own Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. We have acquired a substantial collection of Russian translated American silent films within the period of two years spanning from 2012 to 2015. After evaluation of our new collection of russian translated silent film, we discovered several issues. Although majority of the film is in good and complete condition, they are all on highly flammable nitrate film. The unstableness of nitrate film restricts access to

these invaluable artifacts. Our facilities have the capabilities to preserve these films in their original nitrate film through freezing but recognizing the need to digitize the film to increase accessibility. The initial cost of creating digital copies of films and translating the silent film narration to english goes beyond our institution s current funding. Utilizing LSTA grant money and local colorado support through partnership, we propose purchasing the required materials to supplement our current equipment for: transferring nitrate film to digital film, minor restoration tools for original nitrate film, digital storage, and translation tools. We have initiated agreements with the Denver Museum of Natural Science (DMNS) Archive to partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in efforts of creating an accessible translated digital collection of silent films from nitrate originals. The partnership will entail in the agreement to digitize and translate ten percent of DMNS Archive silent film collection along with thirty percent of AMPAS silent film collection with a prioritization of colorado related silent films. DMNS Archive will match twenty five percent of our LSTA funding to continue our project as well as planned future collaboration in silent film accessibility and digitization efforts. We have also cultivated a second partnership with the Denver Silent Film Festival who has put us in connection with several skilled and knowledgeable silent film historian volunteers. At the end of our project, the Denver Silent Film Festival will be featuring some of the most invaluable colorado related digitized and translated films through a special screening event with the DMNS to raise awareness, support, and funding for the continuation of our digitization project. Ultimately, we plan to continue translation and digitization efforts, to make our entire american silent film collection, while prioritizing colorado related films, accessible in various foreign languages through the archive server. It has been the civil duty of this institution to collect and preserve movies and sound recordings for more than a 100 years on behalf of the American people. Many of us involved in the American silent film preservation and accessibility effort believe the most effective way to bring these gems to a wider audience is through digitizing nitrate and other us stable original formats. Though digitization, we hope to create a collection that can be used and valuable not only in colorado, but globally. We hope to not only to gain wider audience, but also provide useful researchable materials to historians, local and non local silent film

enthusiast, and students studying moving images. Ideally, we hope to reach the audience who does not have any interest or awareness of silent films, inspiring them to become involved in the revival of silent film. This project has great importance for the preservation of film, Colorado, and film history. With the increase of digital preservation advancement, it is important to continue striving for success and inspire digitization nation wide. One way of accomplishing this is through local paragons; pave the road of new enterprises by example. Colorado has many silent film treasures regarding colorado history and culture. Beginning the process of addressing digitization, access, and preservation in colorado will ultimately inspire others to invest in these important materials. The Academy Film Archive has had a high volume of request since the aquiry of new silent films from 2012 2015. The increase of access puts the materials at risk. We aim to meet our patron s request for access. Digitization will allow for easily accessible materials for all patrons while preserving the original film. Silent film on nitrate film is highly unstable and can corrupt easily. This makes our silent film collection time sensitive. The longer our films are being used instead of a digital copy, our collection is put in higher risk. The overall benefit the target audience will gain is safe and easy access to previously inaccessible american silent films. This project will develop new resources supported by local institutions that will encourage target audiences to explore, learn and become involved in silent film. With the completion of this project, a larger community with local institutional support will be formed to facilitate conversation and experience of silent film and digitization. It will also allow for future generations to enjoy and access these films through preservation. The primary goal of this project is to preserve and make accessible 30% of silent films with in the AMPSA collection and 10% of silent films within the DMNS collection. Our secondary goal of this project is to build strong relationships between local institutions and people in colorado to support and engage with silent film history and digitization initiatives. The objectives we hope to accomplish through our Colorado Silent Film Collaborations are:

1. Digitize and translate a total of 100 films (30% AMPSA films and 10% DMNS films) with in a year s time 2. Host Silent Film Viewing Educational Event with co hosts Denver Film Festival and the Denver Museum of Natural Science Archive at the end of project 3. Increase local and statewide collaboration and conversation regarding silent film digitization and preservation initiatives 4. Increase access and awareness of silent films statewide Our project activities with the collaboration of our partners with be divided into two main categories: Digitization: Execute the translation and processing of nitrate film to safety film and from there to digital content. Create master copies that can then be distributed to all institutions within the collaboration. Manage the collection s storage requirements in the context which includes deposits, donations, and direct acquisition of current and future material. FIlm Event Hosting: Market and promote events including advertisements in local newspapers and radio spots with financial consideration from the Douglas Fairbanks Estate Film screening events will include the 7th Annual Denver Silent Film Festival as well as the DMNS Night at the Museum. Ticket sales for both events to help contribute to overall cost of the project. Evaluate event through audience reactions, ticket profits and interest created due to advertisement. Evaluating our two sections of activity are important for the future collaboration efforts of our project. One of our needs for the project is being able to meet the high level of request to access silent film material. After the project, we plan to take Quantitative measurement of how many people are now requesting access materials. This will allow us to see if we have met demands as well as increased interest. Qualitatively, we

will survey users requesting silent film materials about their expectations, satisfaction, and desire for future materials. During our final phase of the project at the hosted film event, we plan to quantitatively measure the number of attendees with the estimated level of attendees based on marketing efforts. We also plan to gather qualitative information from attendees of the hosted event to share their experience, knowledge, expectations and desire for future events. These evaluation measures will be costless because of our use of digital surveying tools already owned by the academy and the lack of survey compensation. Since users are participating at our event or utilizing our services, there is no need for compensation. Key team members include the Project Director Bruce Banner; the Audiovisual Preservation Specialist Anthony Stark, who has more than thirty years experience in project management, including fundraising, long range planning, and setting priorities. He developed VISION, a collection needs assessment instrument for preservation planning for audiovisual materials. Virginia Potts, with a Masters of Arts in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation from New York University, has coordinated this project from its inception, and has more than ten years of archival experience, including handling, repair and description of film, video and sound materials, and has created preservation plans for numerous mixed collections within various institutions. Many parts of this project will be contracted out; we listed the bare bones staff members necessary to make the collaboration a success: Film Assistants Archive production technicians Technical staff Digital Archivists Timeline

The partnership between the Academy Film Archive, the Denver Silent Film Festival and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was established to preserve and to make publicly accessible our nation s film heritage. The foundation s programs preserve American films that would be unlikely to survive without public support, improve film access for education and exhibition, and encourage public commitment to preserving film as an art form, historical record, and cultural resource.

Section F: Budget Narrative All costs listed in the budget are based on 100 films to be digitized. The greatest effort has been taken to overestimate so that we might not be surprised later during the digitization and preservation processes. In this initiation of our project 75 films will be out of our own collection, and 25 will be out of the DMNS collection. As the DMNS films comprise 25% of the sum project, they will be matching 25% of the grant, in return, we will be providing the time and labor. A team of experienced volunteers will do the digitization and readying of the silent films for translation and transfer, or labor. These volunteers come to us from local film schools and the Denver Silent Film Society. Our staff will be working under the jurisdiction of their jobs and as such the salaries of those staff will be provided by the film archives and not be connected to this grant. For this initial batch, the archives plans to contract the film transfer to safety film. In the current market, the film to film transfer of nitrate to safety film costs $400 for a base of 1500 feet of film plus.25 for each additional foot on average. We have approximately 14060 feet of silent movie film for an approximate cost of $3200 for film transfer. Additionally translation services from Russian to English run at an average of $32/hour. This project involves the translation of subtitles and as such is relatively simple compared to a vocal translation. This leads us to estimate one and a half times the length of the film for translation. Based on this and about 1.5 hours of film time per film that's 225 hours of translating for a liberal estimate $7200. Once the film is transferred to safety film, the originals will be returned to protected storage and we will scan the safety film using four Nikon Coolscan 4000 slide scanners. These scanners sell used on ebay for $495 with film scanning accessories like the strip adapter. Four scanners would enable us to spread the work out among our volunteers for a streamlined process and would cost $2000. To accompany each scanner we will purchase four performance desktop pcs with the specs necessary to process and reproduce 150 hours of digitized silent films. These computers can be purchased from stores like Best Buy for $500 or less, so we are estimating $2000. We will also need a license for Adobe Premiere Pro for each computer, as this software will be necessary to update the subtitles on the films with the translations and ready our films for commercial reproduction. The non profit licenses are $180 each, so this would lead to a combined cost of $720. The films are being preserved two ways, digitally and as safety film, however to

increase accessibility the silent films will be produced as DVDs. Both archives own the copyrights to the films in their relative possessions, but only our archive is willing to use the commercial sale of those films to promote and finance further digital preservation methods. The hope is for the sale of these first 75 films will pay for the next 75 to be digitized, transferred, and translated as well, and that each step in this project will pay it forward to the next. The digitized copies of the films will be stored on a server with 12TB of storage. This server costs $430 and the hard drives are $90 each, and will cost a total of $790.

Original+Proposal+Budget Budget+Summary The,original,approved,and,awarded,budget,amounts,should,be,included, on,this,side. Local+++++ In6Kind+ Match LSTA+ Money+ Spent Actual+Project+Expenditures The,current,budget,expenditures,to,date, should,be,recorded,on,this,side. Local++++++ In6Kind+ Spent Category Grant+ Award Local+Cash+ Match Total+ Local+Cash+ Match Total Personnel Salaries $,, 30,000 $,,, 30,000, Fringe,Benefits,, Contract,Services $,,,,, 7,875 $,,,,, 2,625 $,,, 10,500, Operating Advertising,,, Telephone/Data Supplies,, Photocopying,&,Printing,, Postage,&,Shipping Travel Food xxx, xxx, Rent xxx, xxx, Project,Evaluation, Technology Computer,Equipment $,,,,, 1,500 $,,,,,,,,, 500 $,,,,, 2,000 Computer,Accessories $,,,,,,,,, 593 $,,,,,,,,, 127 $,,,,,,,,, 720 Other,Equipment $,,,,, 1,500 $,,,,,,,,, 500 $,,,,, 2,000 Software $,,,,,,,,, 540 $,,,,,,,,, 180 $,,,,,,,,, 720 Capital+Expenditures Furniture $,,,, 1,000 $,,,,, 1,000 Books, Other,, $,,,,,,,, 500 $,,,,,,,,, 500 Total+ $+++ 12,008 $+++++ 3,932 $++ 31,500 $+++ 47,440 $+++++++++ 6 $+++++++++ 6 $+++++++++ 6 $+++++++++ 6

Source page Pierce, D. (2013). The survival of american silent feature films: 1912 1929. Library of Congress. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/files/2013silent_films_rpt.pdf!

Group Member Documentation Teresa Wells: Project Leader Tasks completed Title Page i. Summary of the project Problem The Solution and Partnership Target audience The Need The Benefits Goal and Outcomes SMART Objectives Presentation Visual Presentation guide for presenters Group Member Documentation Editing Jen Fisher: Tasks completed: Outline i. Summary of the project Organization ii. The plan Timeline Staff Activities and Evaluation and Outcomes Partnership Statement SMART Objectives Presentation Visual Editing Sarah Bogard: Tasks completed: ii. The Plan Budget narrative Budget Form Appendix A, B, E