:Film preservation

File:EYE Film Institute Netherlands - Nitrate film decay - 3.JPG

{{see also|Lost film}}

The great majority of films made in the silent era are now considered to be lost forever. Movies of the first half of the 20th century were filmed on an unstable, highly flammable cellulose nitrate film base, which required careful storage to slow its inevitable process of decomposition over time. Most films made on nitrate stock were not preserved; over the years, their negatives and prints crumbled into powder or dust.{{cite journal |last1= Edmondson|first1= Ray|last2= Schou|first2= Henning |title=The nitrate ultimatum |journal=The UNESCO Courier: A Window Open on the World |date=1984 |volume=XXXVII |issue=8 |pages=10–11 |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000060739 |access-date=28 April 2020}} Many of them were recycled for their silver content, or destroyed in studio or vault fires. The largest cause, however, was intentional destruction.{{cite journal |last1=Borde |first1=Raymond |title=The fragile art of film |journal=The UNESCO Courier: A Window Open on the World |date=1984 |volume=XXXVII |issue=8 |pages=4–6 |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000060739 |access-date=28 April 2020}} As film preservationist Robert A. Harris explains, "Most of the early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and the materials were expensive to house."{{cite web|last1=Hart|first1=Martin|title=Robert A. Harris Presentation on Film Preservation|url=http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/rah.htm|publisher=American WideScreen Museum|date=February 1993}} Silent films had little or no commercial value after the advent of sound films in the 1930s, and as such, they were not kept. As a result, preserving the now-rare silent films has been proposed as a high priority amongst film historians.{{cite book |last1=Pierce |first1=David |title=The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912-1929 |date=2013 |publisher=Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress |location=Washington, DC |url=https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/pub158.pdf |access-date=23 April 2020}}

Because of the fragility of film stock, proper preservation of film usually involves storing the original negatives (if they have survived) and prints in climate-controlled facilities. The vast majority of films were not stored in this manner, which resulted in the widespread decay of film stocks.

The problem of film decay is not limited to films made on cellulose nitrate. Film industry researchers and specialists have found that color films (made using processes for Technicolor and its successors) are also decaying at an increasingly rapid rate. A number of well-known films only exist as copies of original film productions or exhibition elements because the originals have decomposed beyond use. Cellulose acetate film, which was the initial replacement for nitrate, has been found to suffer from "vinegar syndrome". Polyester film base, which replaced acetate, also suffers from fading colors.

Storage at carefully controlled low temperatures and low humidity can inhibit both color fading and the onset of vinegar syndrome. However, once degradation begins to occur, the chemical reactions involved will promote further deterioration. "There is no indication that we will ever find a way to arrest decomposition once it has started. All we can do is inhibit it," says the director of the AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) board, Leo Enticknap.{{cite journal |last1=Davies |first1=Emma |title=Re-record, not fade away |journal=Chemistry World |date=28 November 2011 |url=https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/re-record-not-fade-away/3004766.article |access-date=23 April 2020}}

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDa-mmSldDg Decasia movie trailer], Icarus Films, shows decaying film}}

In 1991, filmmaker and former deputy director of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, Peter Delpeut, made the film Lyrical Nitrate, with decaying films from the Desmet Collection.{{Cite journal |last=Habib |first=André |date=2006 |title=Ruin, Archive and the Time of Cinema: Peter Delpeut's Lyrical Nitrate |journal=SubStance |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=120–139|doi=10.1353/sub.2006.0034 }}{{Citation |last=Delpeut |first=Peter |title=Lyrisch Nitraat / Lyrical Nitrate English subtitles |date=2021-03-13 |url=https://vimeo.com/523287551 |access-date=2024-01-17}}

In 2002, filmmaker Bill Morrison produced Decasia, a film solely based on fragments of old unrestored nitrate-based films in various states of decay and disrepair, providing a somewhat eerie aesthetic to the film. The film was created to accompany a symphony of the same name, composed by Michael Gordon and performed by his orchestra. The footage used was from old newsreel and archive film and was obtained by Morrison from several sources, such as the George Eastman House, the archives of the Museum of Modern Art,{{cite news |last1=Jones |first1=Jonathan |title=Ghost world |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/sep/26/art |access-date=28 April 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=February 26, 2003}} and the Fox Movietone News film archives at the University of South Carolina.{{cite news |last1=Welch |first1=Rodney |title=USC Film Archive Turns Up Rare Historic Baseball Footage Moving Images Research Collections Hold Unseen Treasures |url=https://www.postandcourier.com/free-times/news/usc-film-archive-turns-up-rare-historic-baseball-footage/article_9e1f14fe-1ff0-57c4-bbbd-701000a8dd68.html |access-date=28 April 2020 |work=Free Times |date=April 2, 2014}}

File:PackardHumanities Institute, Santa Clarita.jpg, Santa Clarita, Nitrate film Film Vault]]

The preservation of film usually refers to physical storage of the film in a climate-controlled vault, and sometimes to the actual repair and copying of the film element. Preservation is different from restoration, as restoration is the act of returning the film to a version most faithful to its initial release to the public and often involves combining various fragments of film elements.

Film is best preserved by proper protection from external forces while in storage along with being under controlled temperatures. For most film materials, the Image Permanence Institute finds that storing film media in frozen temperatures, with relative humidity (RH) between 30% and 50%, greatly extends its useful life. These measures inhibit deterioration better than any other methods and are a cheaper solution than replicating deteriorating films.{{cite news |last1=Currò |first1=Daniela |title=Film Preservation 101: A Brief Guide to Keeping Your Films Alive Indefinitely (Part One) |url=https://www.moviemaker.com/film-preservation-101-brief-guide-keeping-film-alive-indefinitely/ |access-date=28 April 2020 |work=Movemaker |date=February 16, 2017}}{{rp|61}}

In most cases, when a film is chosen for preservation or restoration work, new prints are created from the original camera negative or from a composite restoration negative, which can be made from a combination of elements for general screening. It is therefore particularly important to keep camera negatives or digital masters under safe storage conditions.

The original camera negative is the remaining, edited, film negative that passed through the camera on the set. This original camera negative may, or may not, remain in original release form, depending upon number of subsequent re-releases after the initial release for theatrical exhibition.

Restorers sometimes create a composite negative (or composite dupe) by recombining duplicated sections of the best remaining material, sometimes on "a shot-to-shot, frame-by-frame basis" to approximate the original configuration of the original camera negative at some time in the film's release cycle.{{cite book |last1=Kroon |first1=Richard W. |title=A/V A to Z An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms |date=2010 |page=165}}

In traditional photochemical restorations, image polarity considerations must be observed when recombining surviving materials and the final, lowest generation restoration master may be either a duplicate negative or a fine grain master positive.{{cite book |last1=Enticknap |first1=L. |title=Film Restoration: The Culture and Science of Audiovisual Heritage |date=2013 |publisher=Springer |pages=94–97 |isbn=9781137328724 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SRlEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA94 |access-date=28 April 2020}}

Preservation elements, such as fine-grain master positives and duplicate printing negatives, are generated from this restoration master element to make both duplication masters and access projection prints available for future generations.

Film preservationists would prefer that the film images, whether restored through photochemical or digital processes, be eventually transferred to other film stock, because no digital media exists that has proven truly archival because of rapidly evolving and shifting data formats, while a well-developed and stored, modern film print can last upwards of 100 years.{{Cite web|last=Gorber|first=Jason|date=24 September 2012|title=Jason Gorber's Cineruminations: 70mm, 4K, and THE MASTER's Split Personality|url=http://twitchfilm.com/2012/09/jason-gorbers-cineruminations-70mm-4k-and-the-master-split-personality.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140217215841/http://twitchfilm.com/2012/09/jason-gorbers-cineruminations-70mm-4k-and-the-master-split-personality.html|archive-date=2014-02-17|access-date=2014-04-12|website=Twitch Film}}{{cite news |last1=Gan |first1=Vicky |title=Unhappy Medium: The Challenges With Archiving Digital Video |url=https://www.washingtonian.com/2014/09/10/unhappy-medium-the-challenges-with-archiving-digital-video/ |access-date=19 May 2020 |work=Washingtonian |date=September 10, 2014}}

While some in the archival community feel that conversion from film to a digital image results in a loss of quality that can make it more difficult to create a high-quality print based upon the digital image, digital imaging technology has become increasingly advanced to the point where 8K scanners can capture the full resolution of images filmed at as high as 65 mm.{{cite news |last1=Bunish |first1=Christine |title=Sound & Picture Restoration |work=Post Magazine |date=November 1, 2012 |url=http://www.postmagazine.com/Publications/Post-Magazine/2012/November-1-2012/Sound-Picture-Restoration.aspx |access-date=19 May 2020}}

70 mm IMAX film has a theoretical resolution of 18K, the highest possible resolution given the sensor.{{cite book |last1=Inouye |first1=Kevin |title=The Screen Combat Handbook A Practical Guide for Filmmakers |date=2020 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781351027403 |page=256 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=01raDwAAQBAJ&dq=imax+%2218k%22+upper++limit+for+film+capture+in+full+resolution&pg=PT256 |access-date=19 May 2020}}{{cite news |last1=McGowan |first1=Chris |title=Next-Generation Cinema Breaks Out |url=https://www.vfxvoice.com/next-generation-cinema-breaks-out/ |access-date=19 May 2020 |work=VFXV |date=May 30, 2019}}{{cite web |last1=Wilson |first1=Mark |title=How Regular Movies Become "IMAX" Films |url=https://gizmodo.com/how-regular-movies-become-imax-films-5250780 |website=Gizmodo |access-date=19 May 2020|date=May 29, 2009}}{{cite news |last1=O'Falt |first1=Chris |title='Dunkirk' and the 70mm Experience: Why The Unlikely Comeback of the Big-Screen Format Has Hollywood's Attention |url=https://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/dunkirk-70mm-projection-imax-christopher-nolan-1201857599/ |access-date=19 May 2020 |work=IndieWire |date=July 20, 2017}}

Of course, having an intermediate digital stage, followed by forming a new film master by lasering the digital results onto new film stock does represent an extra generation. So would an intermediate film master that was restored frame-by-frame by hand. The choice of film vs. digital restoration will be driven by the amount, if any, of restoration required, the taste and skill set of the restorer, and the economics of film restoration vs. digital restoration.

{{as of|2014}}, digital scanners can capture images as large as 65 mm in full resolution. That is the typical image size on a traditional (as opposed to the IMAX process) 70 mm film which used a portion of the film surface for its multitrack magnetic sound stripe. The cost of a 70 mm print of a two and a half hour film {{as of|2012|lc=y}} ran upwards of $170,000; while a hard disk capable of storing such a movie typically cost a few hundred dollars, with an archival optical disk even less. The problem of having to transfer the data as new generations of equipment come along will continue, however, until true archival standards are put in place.

In the context of film preservation, the term "digital preservation" highlights the use of digital technology for the transfer of films from 8 mm to 70 mm in size to digital carriers, as well as all practices for ensuring the longevity and access to digitized or digitally born film materials. On purely technical and practical terms, digital film preservation stands for a domain specific subset of digital curation practices.{{cite book |last1=Dowlatshahi |first1=Shahed |title=The Current State of Photochemical Film Preservation: A Closer Look at Motion-Picture Film Stocks and Film Laboratories (thesis) |date=2019 |publisher=Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, Department of Cinema Studies, New York University |url=https://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/program/student_work/2018spring/18s_thesis_Dowlatshahi_deposit_copy.pdf |access-date=23 April 2020}}{{cite book |title=THE DIGITAL DILEMMA STRATEGIC ISSUES IN ARCHIVING AND ACCESSING DIGITAL MOTION PICTURE MATERIALS |date=2008 |publisher=SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCILOF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES |url=http://www.theodoropoulos.info/attachments/076_pdf-stc_digital_dilemma.pdf |access-date=19 May 2020}}{{cite journal |last1=Conrad |first1=Suzanna |title=Analog, the Sequel: An Analysis of Current Film Archiving Practice and Hesitance to Embrace Digital Preservation |journal=Archival Issues |date=2012 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=27–43 |jstor=41756160 }}

The aesthetic and ethical implications of the use of digital technology for film preservation are major subjects of debate. For instance, the senior curator of George Eastman House Paolo Cherchi Usai has decried the shift from analogue to digital preservation of film as ethically unacceptable, arguing, on philosophical terms, that the medium of film is an essential ontological precondition for the existence of cinema.{{cite book |last1=Usai |first1=Paolo Cherchi |title=The death of cinema: history, cultural memory and the digital dark age |date=2001 |publisher=British Film Institute}} In 2009, the senior curator of EYE Film Institute Netherlands Giovanna Fossati has discussed the use of digital technologies for the restoration and preservation of film in a more optimistic way as a form of remediation of the cinematic medium, and has positively reflected on digital technologies' ability to broaden restoration possibilities, improve quality, and reduce costs.{{cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f0XRBAajCkMC&q=%22Separation+masters+%22&pg=PT286

|title=From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition

|series=Framing Film

|volume=1

|author=Giovanna Fossati

|publisher=Amsterdam University Press

|location=Amsterdam, Netherlands

|isbn=9789089641397

|year=2010

|access-date=25 August 2012

}} According to the cinema scholar Leo Enticknap, the views held by Usai and Fossati could be seen as representative of the two poles of the digital debate in film preservation.{{cite journal |last1=Hughes |first1=Kit |last2=Heckman |first2=Heather |title=Dossier: Materiality and the Archive |journal=The Velvet Light Trap |date=2012 |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=59 |doi=10.1353/vlt.2012.0021 |s2cid=191325127 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/483358 |access-date=19 May 2020}} It should be kept in mind, however, that both Usai and Fossati's arguments are highly complex and nuanced, and likewise, the debate about the utility of digital technologies in film preservation is complex and continually evolving.

In 1935, New York's Museum of Modern Art began one of the earliest institutional attempts to collect and preserve motion pictures, obtaining original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies and the world's largest collection of D. W. Griffith films.{{cite web|title=MoMA.org {{!}} The Collection {{!}} Film and Media |url=http://www.moma.org/collection/depts/film_media/ |work=The Museum of Modern Art |access-date=23 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060207232551/http://www.moma.org/collection/depts/film_media/ |archive-date=February 7, 2006 |url-status=unfit }} The following year, Henri Langlois founded the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, which would become the world's largest international film collection.{{Cite web |url=http://www.cinematheque.fr/data/document/expositionpermanente.pdf |title=Passion Cinéma |access-date=2006-05-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627162200/http://www.cinematheque.fr/data/document/expositionpermanente.pdf |archive-date=2006-06-27 |url-status=dead }}

For thousands of early silent films stored in the Library of Congress, mostly between 1894 and 1912, the only existing copies were printed on rolls of paper submitted as copyright registrations.{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/earlymps.html |title=Early Motion Pictures Free of Copyright Restrictions in the Library of Congress |publisher=Library of Congress |date=31 August 2010|access-date=14 April 2011}}

For these, an optical printer was used to copy these images onto safety film stock, a project that began in 1947 and continues today.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

The Library hosts the National Film Preservation Board, whose National Film Registry annually selects 25 U.S. films "showcasing the range and diversity of American film heritage".[https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/about-this-program Library of Congress-LOC Film preservation]

The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film was chartered in 1947 to collect, preserve and present the history of photography and film, and in 1996 opened the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center, one of only four film conservation centers in the United States.{{cite web|url=http://www.eastmanhouse.org/inc/the_museum/history.php |title=Museum History · George Eastman House |publisher=Eastmanhouse.org |access-date=14 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006120017/http://eastmanhouse.org/inc/the_museum/history.php |archive-date=October 6, 2008 }} The American Film Institute was founded in 1967 to train the next generation of filmmakers and preserve the American film heritage.{{cite web|author=American Film Institute|url=http://www.afi.com/about/history.aspx|title=History of AFI|publisher=Afi.com|access-date=14 April 2011}} Its collection now includes over 27,500 titles.

In 1978, Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada, a construction excavation inadvertently found a forgotten collection of more than 500 discarded films from the early 20th century that were buried in and preserved in the permafrost.Kula, S. (1979). Rescued from the Permafrost: The Dawson Collection of Motion Pictures. Archivaria, No. 8, Summer 1979. This fortunate discovery was shared and moved to the United States' Library of CongressShepard, R. (1990, Sept. 3). Expanding Archives: Library of Congress Is Not Just Books. The New York Times. and Library and Archives Canada for transfer to safety stock and archiving.{{Cite web|date=3 May 2019|title=Preservation|url=https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/about-us/preservation/Pages/preservation.aspx|access-date=22 August 2020|website=Library and Archives Canada}} However, to move such highly flammable material such a distance ultimately required assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces to make the delivery to Ottawa.{{cite book|last1=Morrison|first1=Bill|title=Dawson City: Frozen Time|date=2016|publisher=KinoLorber|page=1:53:45}} The story of this discovery as well as excerpts of these films can be seen in the 2016 documentary film, Dawson City: Frozen Time.

Another high-profile restoration by staff at the British Film Institute's National Film and Television Archive is the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, which consists almost entirely of actuality films commissioned by traveling fairground operators for showing at local fairgrounds or other venues across the UK in the early part of the twentieth century. The collection was stored for many decades in two large barrels following the winding-up of the firm, and was discovered in Blackburn in the early 1990s. The restored films now offer a unique social record of early 20th-century British life.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120619195529/http://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections/about-bfi-national-archive About the BFI National Archive] at British Film Institute official web site

Individual preservationists who have contributed to the cause include Robert A. Harris and James Katz (Lawrence of Arabia, My Fair Lady, and several Alfred Hitchcock films), Michael Thau (Superman), and Kevin Brownlow (Intolerance and Napoleon). Other organizations, such as the UCLA Film and Television Archive, have also preserved and restored films; a major part of UCLA's work includes such projects as Becky Sharp and select Paramount/Famous Studios and Warner Bros. cartoons whose credits were once altered due to rights taken over by different entities.

File:Filmmuseum Berlin - Frame By Frame - Archive Simulation.jpg

In 1926 Will Hays asked for film studios to preserve their films by storing them at 40 degrees{{clarify|date=December 2023}} at low humidity in an Eastman Kodak process, so that "schoolboys in the year 3,000 and 4,000 A.D. may learn about us".{{cite news|last1=Johnston|first1=Alva| author-link = Alva Johnston|title=Films Put on Ice for Fans yet Unborn|newspaper=The New York Times|date=24 October 1926|quote=Will Hays has sent a call to the motion-picture companies to search their vaults for ancient films of all kinds and for news reels of possible historic interest. The most important of these are to be treated by a process developed in the Eastman laboratories for making films immortal.}}

Beginning in the 1970s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, aware that the original negatives to many of its Golden Age films had been destroyed in a fire, began a preservation program to restore and preserve all of its films by using whatever negatives survived, or, in many cases, the next best available elements (whether it be a fine-grain master positive or mint archival print). From the onset, it was determined that if some films had to be preserved, then it would have to be all of them. In 1986, when Ted Turner acquired MGM's library (which by then had included Warner Bros.' pre-1950,{{cite book|last1=Schickel|first1=Richard|author-link=Richard Schickel|title=You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story|year=2008|publisher=Running Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-0762434183|author2=Perry, George|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/youmustremembert0000schi}}Warner Bros. retained a pair of features from 1949 that they merely distributed, and all short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948, in addition to all cartoons released in August 1948. MGM's pre-May 1986, and a majority of the RKO Radio Pictures catalogs), he vowed to continue the preservation work MGM had started. Warner Bros. Discovery, the current owner of Turner Entertainment, continues this work today.

The cause for film preservation came to the forefront in the 1980s and early 1990s when such famous and influential film directors as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese contributed to the cause. Spielberg became interested in film preservation when he went to view the master of his film Jaws, only to find that it had badly decomposed and deteriorated—a mere fifteen years after it had been filmed. Scorsese drew attention to the film industry's use of color-fading film stock through his use of black-and-white film stock in his 1980 film Raging Bull.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}} His film, Hugo included a key scene in which many of film pioneer Georges Méliès' silent films are melted down and the raw material recycled as shoes; this was seen by many movie critics as "a passionate brief for film preservation wrapped in a fanciful tale of childhood intrigue and adventure".{{cite web|last1=McCarthy|first1=Todd| author-link =Todd McCarthy|title=Hugo: Film Review |url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/hugo/review/263209|work=The Hollywood Reporter|access-date=23 June 2013|date=17 November 2013}}

Scorsese's concern about the need to save motion pictures of the past led him to create The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, in 1990. He was joined in this effort by fellow film makers who served on the foundation's board of directors—Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg. In 2006, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Curtis Hanson, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, and Alexander Payne were added to the board of directors of The Film Foundation, which is aligned with the Directors Guild of America.{{citation needed|date=June 2013}}

By working in partnership with the leading film archives and studios, The Film Foundation has saved nearly 600 films, often restoring them to pristine condition. In many cases, original footage that had been excised—or censored by the Production Code in the U.S.—from the original negative, has been reinstated. In addition to the preservation, restoration, and presentation of classic cinema, the foundation teaches young people about film language and history through The Story of Movies, an educational program claimed to be "used by over 100,000 educators nationwide".[http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/aboutFoundation.cfm?clientID=11041 About the Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150723191750/http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/aboutFoundation.cfm?clientID=11041 |date=2015-07-23 }} at storyofmovies.org

In the age of digital television, high-definition television and DVD, film preservation and restoration has taken on commercial as well as historical importance, since audiences demand the highest possible picture quality from digital formats. Meanwhile, the dominance of home video and ever-present need for television broadcasting content, especially on specialty channels, has meant that films have proven a source of long-term revenue to a degree that the original artists and studio management before the rise of these media never imagined. Thus media companies have a strong financial incentive to carefully archive and preserve their complete library of films.

The process of restoration is expensive due to physical damage incurred on older films, and restoration efforts often require multiple copies or fragments which contain better-quality versions of certain scenes or soundtracks. As of 2020, Martin Scorsese's non-profit The Film Foundation, dedicated to film preservation, estimates the average cost of photochemical restoration of a color feature with sound to be $80,000 to $450,000, with digital 2K or 4K restoration being "several hundred thousand dollars".{{Cite web|title=Staff/FAQ|url=http://www.film-foundation.org/faq|access-date=22 August 2020|website=The Film Foundation}}

The practice of film preservation is more craft than science. Until the early 1990s there were no dedicated academic programs in film preservation. Practitioners had often entered the field through related education (e.g. library or archival science), related technical experience (e.g. film lab work), or driven by sheer passion for working with film.Lukow, Gregory. [http://www.amianet.org/sites/all/files/ed_training_careers.pdf "Education Training and Careers in Moving Image Preservation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150723182609/http://www.amianet.org/sites/all/files/ed_training_careers.pdf |date=2015-07-23 }}. (AMIA, 2000)

In the last two decades universities globally began offering graduate degrees in film preservation and film archiving, which are often taught conjointly (the latter focusing more on skills related to the description, cataloguing, indexing and broadly speaking management of film and media collections).

The recent years rapid incursion of digital technologies in the field has somewhat redefined the vocational scope of film preservation. In response, the majority of graduate programs in film preservation have begun offering courses on digital film preservation and digital film and media collection management.

Some established graduate programs in the field are:

• [http://www.uea.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught-degree/detail/ma-film-studies MA in Film Archiving, University of East Anglia] no longer available
• [https://www.eastman.org/certificate-film-preservation Film Preservation Certificate, Selznick School of Film Preservation]
• [https://www.eastman.org/masters-film-media-preservation MA in Film and Media Preservation, Selznick School of Film Preservation] offered jointly with the University of Rochester
• [http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/ MA in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts]
• [https://gsh.uva.nl/content/dual-masters/preservation-and-presentation-of-the-moving-image-heritage-studies/study-programme/study-programme.html?1567030819106=&cb MA in Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image, University of Amsterdam]
• [http://www.csu.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/audiovisual_archiving_gc/course-overview Graduate Certificate in Audiovisual Archiving, Charles Sturt University, Australia]
• [https://is.gseis.ucla.edu/moving-image-archive-studies/ MA in Moving Image Archive Studies, UCLA]
• [https://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/film-photography-preservation-collections-management/ MA in Film Preservation, Ryerson University, Canada] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707073630/https://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/film-photography-preservation-collections-management/ |date=2020-07-07 }} offered since 2013 as specialization in the graduate program of Film + Photography Preservation and Collection Management

• 3D LUT
• ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project
• Academy Film Archive
• Conservation and restoration of film
• Digital cinematography
• Digital intermediate
• Film recorder
• Film-out
• Inpainting
• List of film formats
• List of national archives
• Media Preservation Foundation
• Museum of the Moving Image (New York City)
• National Archives and Records Administration - US
• Orphan film
• Post-production
• Preservation (library and archive)
• Preservation of magnetic audiotape
• Separation masters
• Virtual telecine

{{reflist|group=nb}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109612 Audiovisual archives : a practical reader / edited and compiled by Helen P. Harrison for the General Information Programme and UNISIST. - Paris: UNESCO, 1997.]
• Cave, D. (2008). "Born digital" – Raised an orphan?: Acquiring digital media through an analog paradigm. The Moving Image. 8(1), 1–13.
• [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_moving_image/summary/v008/8.2.crofts.html Crofts, C (2008) Digital Decay. The Moving Image. 8 (2), xiii-35].
• Gracy, K. F. (2007). Film preservation: Competing definitions of value, use, and practice. Chicago: The Society of American Archivists.
• Karr, Lawrence. Edited by Barbara Cohen- Stratyner.: Film Preservation at Preserving America's Performing Arts. Papers from the conference on Preservation Management for Performing Arts Collection. April 28-May 1, 1982, Washington, D.C. Theater Library Association.
• Kula, Sam. Appraising Moving Images. Assessing the Archival and Monetary Value of Film and Video Records. Scarecrow Press, 2003.
• McGreevey, Tom: Our Movie Heritage. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
• Paul Read and Mark-Paul Meyer (Editors:): Restoration of motion picture film. Oxford, 2000. {{ISBN|0-7506-2793-X}}
• Slide, Anthony: Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United States, McFarland and Company, 1992.
• Walsh, D. (2008). How to preserve your films forever. The Moving Image. 8(1), 38–41.

• [https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/ National Film Preservation Board]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130723103115/http://www.historical-filmvideo-preservation-society.com.au/ Historical Film & Video Preservation Society, Australia]
• [https://www.film-foundation.org/ The Film Foundation] (Martin Scorsese, President)
• [https://www.filmpreservation.org/ National Film Preservation Foundation]
• [https://www.folkstreams.net/vafp Video Aids to Film Preservation (VAFP)]
• [https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/resources/public-research-centers-and-archives/ Public Moving Image Archives and Research Centers]
• [https://amianet.org/ Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)]
• [https://www.fiafnet.org/ International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)]
• [https://cool.culturalheritage.org/bytopic/motion-pictures/ Conservation Online: Motion Picture Film Preservation]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110820232604/http://diamant.joanneum.at/film%5Frestoration/ Collection of film restoration issues], collected by Joanneum Research
• [https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation The National Film and Sound Archive on Preservation]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130909105935/http://www.fiafnet.org/uk/publications/fep_journal.html The Journal of Film Preservation, published by FIAF]
• [https://www.upress.umn.edu/journal-division/journals/the-moving-image The Moving Image, journal published by AMIA.]
• [https://www.iasa-web.org/ The International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives]
• [http://www.filmforever.org Film Forever: The Home Film Preservation Guide]

{{Cultural Conservation-Restoration |state=expanded}}

Category:Film and video technology

Category:Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage