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How to move on? (or how does one let go of original negative and workprints from 35 years of independent filmmaking?)


Roy Cross

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I'm in the midst of downsizing. Cleaning out the vaults of equipment and negative. I have numerous 35mm Russian cameras, a handful of Bolexes,  and about 100,000 feet of 16 mm and 35 mm negative and 25 hours of work print from things I've made over the years. A lot of it is diary footage, but also a tonne of production from on-set shoots.

A lot of the work print is on small cores, 200-300 foot rolls, poorly labelled. I have a flatbed and could catalogue it and archive it and revise it onto 1500/2000 foot cores. Which would make storing it easier and maybe even finding something if I so wished.

But the thing is, do I need this? My work is marginal at best. I doubt I will be looked upon with any historical significance. I also doubt I will ever dig into this stuff. (Although, I do feel as though, I could make a dozen short "found footage" films from the pickings.) But I'm not eve sure I have the stamina for that. Feels like a retrospective way of working. I'd rather work with new images, made by the person I am now, rather than who I was.   But still, it is really difficult to let go of this stuff.

Does anyone have any insight or zen tips to help me work through this?

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one method is setting up a large box where you can throw the stuff you know you will not want to have anymore. It is not a garbage bin but a box with "I am sure I will never need this anymore" items which will either be sold or scrapped. Then when you have this special box setup you can go through your stuff and whenever you see something you don't want to have or don't need anymore, just throw it to the box!  It can be a camera or a filmcan or slides or just about anything. If it needs to go, then into the box it goes, no questions asked ?

when the box is full you will check what's in it and evaluate which items will be sold and which will be scrapped immediately (do this next to a garbage bin so that you can immediately scrap the items which cannot be sold or given to others for free. For example you can scrap the film you don't need anymore but can keep the film cans if someone still needs them.

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As for the potentially usable film material,  I would build a smaller collection out of them which are of the shots and scenes worth being scanned in 4k later when you have time and resources. Collection mostly the material which you will know you will want to have a top quality scan made of afterwards and you are sure can be used for future projects.

If there is mediocre material you don't want to invest on in the future ("regular shots" instead of "I will save money to get this scanned in best quality" material) it is pretty safe to assume that it can be scrapped. Though if you are still unsure if you dare to do it, just get the most affordable flat prores scan made out of it and THEN scrap it (then you can tell yourself that the material is saved in digital form and you will not need to have the physical version anymore laying around and taking storage space)

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Run it through the rewinds and loupe it periodically to see what you got. Make sure you loupe it at the beginning, middle and end, if you think it has spliced clips in it. Computerize the collection for searchability. Some people use bar codes. I just work with A,B,C organizing. Label the reels / cans with artist's tape and store cores in vented cans if the film is acetate. 

If you are going to trash it, consider putting it on eBay to recycle with film collectors / stock footage companies.

I've been doing the same thing myself, going through all the films in my Archive to put on the computer. So far, just under 1000 films registered. I thought I'd be done a few months ago. Maybe I'm 40% to 50% done. Don't know. Sometimes I'd pick up a 2,000 reel and it said one thing. And when digging into it I found 20 short 100 foot nudie cuties from the 1950s. They all had to be broken down.

There are some 40 foot reels and some reels with a two thousand feet. But small or large, they all have to be looked at 'enough' to give a proper reckoning in the inventory.

Too bad you are in Montreal. If you were in the USA, and you had something of interest to my Archive, I could 2K scan some of it for you for free. You can put sample screenshots from the films in each computer listing. That helps a lot to give you an idea of what is on the reels. 

https://archive.org/download/the-segregated-swimming-hole-d.-d.-teoli-jr.-a.-c.-176/The segregated swimming hole D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. (1).jpg

Screenshot from scanner output.

The cine' scanner shoots out JPEGs or TIFF's. But you got to pay for them usually. If you got a flatbed scanner you can make samples for your files. Or use your camera with a lightbox to make sample photos. 

Good luck!

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Simon Wyss, Marie Kondo of Cinematography.com ?

But joking aside, I think that's some great advice there. Remember: even art galleries have to send some unique art pieces to waste collection. There just isn't space for everything.

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Hi Charles,

Thank you for the offer. All the fiction stuff (a lot) has actors on camera, I don't feel it keeps in the spirit with which they were made to give it away for some other use. There is a fair amount of  home movie stuff that I shot with my sons. That stuff I need to decide if it is worth digitizing. The rest of the footage is diary type stuff, stuff shot while travelling, or landscape images.

As it stands, I am throwing it out. I'll figure out what to do with the footage of my sons and their mom. They grew up in a videotape/digital world, so there is ample coverage of birthdays and first days of school, etc in a video format.

It has been an interesting experiment/experience. A bit of sadness and grief, but also relief and even a little joy.

 

Edited by Roy Cross
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38 minutes ago, Roy Cross said:

 

As it stands, I am throwing it out. I'll figure out what to do with the footage of my sons and their mom. They grew up in a videotape/digital world, so there is ample coverage of birthdays and first days of school, etc in a video format.

I recommend keeping home movies. Having recently digitized 8mm material that has footage of my father as a teenager in the 1970s, footage like that can be a treasure later. Even if there is video.

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3 hours ago, Heikki Repo said:

I recommend keeping home movies. Having recently digitized 8mm material that has footage of my father as a teenager in the 1970s, footage like that can be a treasure later. Even if there is video.

Agreed. I also recently digitized some 16mm and Super8 from the early 70s that my dad shot and was in. Extremely grateful that he was still in possession of it and not just a poor DIY scan.

Edited by Charles Cadkin
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I couldn't throw away my own material, but then I have under 1000' of Super-8, not 200,000' of the wide stuff.

Maybe you could bin the negative if you have the show print or workprint from it- I've been on a couple of archive shows and no-one has ever gone back as far as neg, admittedly because they didn't have it though.

But don't listen to me, I bought a Steenbeck just to look at one roll of workprint from film school. It's come in handy since, however.

There's a decluttering technique (sounds a bit like Aapo's) where you put stuff you're not sure of in a box and seal it for six months, then if you haven't needed to look for any of it (and you never do) you throw it away. But you'd ned a big box. Your, shall we call it archive, must weigh most of half a tonne.

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I have the terrible habit of not chucking stuff out. Trouble is 16mm and 35mm film does take up enormous space. Old workprints surely are the least vital to keep. But then one has the question of somebody else using your work in a not good way possibly, so you'd have to destroy them all first?   As for camera original footage, I couldn't get rid of any except obvious rubbish etc.  I guess that task will go to my kids. Or maybe by then they'll just get their robot to do it ? 

As you say, it's a difficult one when the footage itself is not likely to be of any historical interest for future generations.  However, I have some old 1930s amateur drama film,  amusing and quite well-acted with good sets such as a gypsy caravan,  and somehow it opens up the character and perseverance of that unknown film-maker to me, also those who were persuaded to take part.  So maybe even drama film that you consider as not important,  may enable others in the future to know you as a person.

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23 minutes ago, Doug Palmer said:

Old workprints surely are the least vital to keep.

I'm not so sure about this. Scanning can get a very great deal from these now.

Last year a client came to me with the cut workprint of a 1996 BBC show from the archive at Perivale. Why not the transmission print, you ask? Because they'd binned it by accident rather than the workprint.

The ideal might be to put them away where they won't deteriorate and for somebody else to wait 50 years- your 30s stuff could well be of interest to an archive show, and being that old it's beyond any concerns about clearance or qualms about living individuals. But if Roy's downsizing he hasn't the space for what is a small roomful of material. As Tyler says, anything but disposal (maybe even disposal) involves a ton(ne) of money. Money that could go on a new show.

I don't know how I'd get into the zone where I could dispose of originals. I can't even junk other peoples'. Sorry, OP.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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Yes the 1930s stuff I myself am fascinated with so others would be too I'm sure.  That period of peace when 16mm film-makers felt able to do some very interesting stuff.  Coming back to Roy's problem, I wonder if he may feel differently about his work in say 10 years time, maybe not "marginal" but something greater. And he may also have different thoughts of putting it in future films, who knows.

Edited by Doug Palmer
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19 minutes ago, Doug Palmer said:

I wonder if he may feel differently about his work in say 10 years time

He may. But as of now, he has to do something with it, at the lowest cost and effort. it's only going to survive if it's cheaper and easier to keep it than to take it to the tip. Sorry recycling centre.

If it was in the UK I'd try to find space in my garage. The Cinema Museum in Lambeth might take a look as well.

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On 6/4/2022 at 11:47 AM, Heikki Repo said:

Simon Wyss, Marie Kondo of Cinematography.com ?

But joking aside, I think that's some great advice there. Remember: even art galleries have to send some unique art pieces to waste collection. There just isn't space for everything.

 

Film Archives supposedly trash films if they get dupes that are better. You would think they would sell them or donate to collectors, but I've been told they don't. In the past, some films have been put together from surviving clips sourced from collections from around the world. The Cameraman was one such film pieced together from various sources. So even clips can be important.

 

bHg7GXIm4DdWuNA87w1M09RqwlrmmY_original.

The Camerman 1928

Generally, film should be recycled though sales or donation. I only trash very bad warped films, with emulsion flaking off that can't be scanned and are somewhat common films that could be found again. Even then, I have one such film that can't be scanned, but I will take sample photos of the frames from throughout the reel to give a sampling of what it was about. This is because it is an old stag 16mm that I never have seen, so it may be the last extant copy of the film...dunno. So I do a little work on it. I tried everything with it, chemical treatments and all. But it is a goner.

Art Galley's trashing art? They are money hungry, they won't trash art. If it is of any worth they would auction it off.

Even art ephemera is worth $$.

Untitled%20Original%20Artwork.%20H.%20C.

W.C. Westermann envelope to a friend...$2,500.00

It just depends. Special Collection libraires and art museums routinely have trashed my hand-printed artist's books I've sent them on spec as donations. It just depends on the curators. If you donate to institutions and don't want it trashed, put restrictions in the Deed of Gift.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Doug Palmer said:

Yes the 1930s stuff I myself am fascinated with so others would be too I'm sure.  That period of peace when 16mm film-makers felt able to do some very interesting stuff.  Coming back to Roy's problem, I wonder if he may feel differently about his work in say 10 years time, maybe not "marginal" but something greater. And he may also have different thoughts of putting it in future films, who knows.

Hi Doug,

Lot has happened here on this thread since I last checked in!

I guess there is always a possibility that in 10 years I may want to use the film. But I have carried some of this negative since the late 1980s, and dragged it across 4000 kilometres as I moved east. Always with the thought, "well, I might want to do something with this some day..." That some day has never come. I have ample resources to transfer footage, yet I have never gone back. Except once. I shot and edited a short film around the time I left my ex-partner in 2009. The editing was a mess and rushed and, well, it's not that great. So, in 2016, I pulled out the negative and had it scanned at 2K planning to re-edit the film. Well, it's still waiting on a hard drive somewhere for that "redux" to begin.

I know that I have footage, particularly of Montreal, that does not exist anymore. But nothing overly unique, I don't think. I also don't feel responsible to the future or anyone in it with regard to my work. 

I found all the elements (A&B rolls, optical track, final magnetic mix) from my early 16 mm films, so should I ever want to pull new prints that is possible. I also have all the 35 mm elements from my two other films. As it stands, I don't even have HD scans of the analog films.  Now that I say that, I think I will get scans of the 16 mm films, and the 35 mm feature and have that for occasional viewing. If I were to ever go back, I would re-mix the soundtrack on two of the 16 mm films.

If I really wanted to, I could keep these boxes in my bedroom, stacked against a wall. But I don't want to look at them. Be reminded that they are waiting around for me to "do something" with them. That feels like a burden. Furthermore, that footage is a reflection of who I was then (as are the completed films). I'm not sure if I need to go back and revisit thirty-year old me and the images I made.

It's not an entirely joyful process, there is some sadness and maybe even a bit of mourning throughout the process. And I like the idea that my sons don't have to dig through all that and wonder what to keep after I am dead. I'll keep a few rolls of home movie stuff for them to marvel at.

But I was thinking that maybe now I have the green light to go and make some more images!

Thank you to everyone who weighed in!!!

 

 

 

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