[KineJapan] Benshi Bonanza

[quentin turnour]

 Wonderful tale!
Just checked the UCLA Film and TV Archives's page on the LA Benshi-o-rama screenings here: Off-site: A Page of Madness + short films | UCLA Film & Television Archive. They list the source as a NFAJ DCP. 


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Off-site: A Page of Madness + short films | UCLA Film & Television Archive


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UCLA Film and TV Archive catalogue makes no mention of the film, nor of any Japanese silents, which means they shipped it to the NFC. Still a little odd though. Repatriation of these sort of things amongst FIAF member archives has long been standard, especially as the fate of many Japanese pre-Pacific War films to end up in Russian, US, or German archives has been discussed in this listserv before. But the deal is normally that the finder archive gets a copy, if they are FIAF. It's just that most don't follow-up. 

AV archiving now has little romance. If I've got it right and you once walked out of the UCLA vault with a nitrate print that probably wouldn't happen now - and is illegal in most jurisdictions. Even if your name is David Shepherd. Most AV archivists will tell you - and a little time spent over at the AMIA listserve will confirm - that most of their work these days is with digits. Entering metadata, moving big data around (and fighting with IT guys about it), scanning media in, out and about. 

I just signed off on the restoration of an early Peter Weir co-directed feature, and barely saw the original film in the workflow. Been a long time since I had my loupe out; set to macro, the camera on my mobile gets more detail.

Video preservation is maybe a bigger headache than film, and actually sometimes more exciting (especially if you are a millennial) - a point I'm making conscious of the fact that the state of Japanese analogue video preservation should be more of a topic than it is. Even Kodak film (as it still exists now) has computer-readable only edge codes. 

Quentin Turnour.,National Archives of Australia



    On Monday, 29 April 2024 at 05:45:03 pm AEST, Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:  
 
 Quick followup. 
Back in grad school, I toyed with the possibility of going into archive work and film restoration. My professor for silent cinema at USC was David Shepard, and he graciously gave me a tutorial on the subject. I spent a lot of time at his lab/office/"archive," which was filled to the gills with all sorts of cool stuff. I vividly recall his teaching me how to read the film codes at the edges of prints with a small loupe. As an aside, he said, "You know, I got that from Flaherty. He cut Aran with that." Whoa. Anyway, as part of the independent study I was to attempt to work on a film. I found the unrestored, nitrate print of a Japanese film at the UCLA archive. Confirmed that the National Film Archive of Japan didn't have it. And UCLA let me extract the print to attempt a restoration. Thing is, it's expensive and try as I might I couldn't find any support for doing it. In the end, I returned the print to UCLA. And the Film Center was happy to learn of its existence. That was Sanji Goto, and I noticed the Yanai Initiative included it in their program. I wonder if it's the UCLA print????
Markus



--- 
Markus NornesProfessor of Asian Cinema

Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design



 



Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/
Department of Film, Television and Media
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