Film preservation is something I’ve been reluctantly involved with now for many years; I say reluctantly because my reason to be involved wasn’t through an interest as much in the field of preservation but more in the interest of making sure a bunch of things could be seen in the quality they still exist in.
So—here are some ramblings on where things are at the moment from my viewpoint at least. I’ve thought for some time there should be some sort of designated lists made to help figure out strategies in preserving, even from an observance point of view.
There are wonderful efforts being done all over, but still, there are these huge holes and lots of stuff that isn’t in the path of being preserved. Let’s call this, at least for now “The other stuff”.
It’s a huge group of films.
Funny enough, it’s now easier to point out what isn’t than what is:
• The Warner Brothers cartoons, generally, are not in ‘all the other stuff’ designation.
• Supermans, no.
• The Disney cartoons aren’t either.
• The 30s Popeyes also are not. Any more.
• Some Columbia is, some ain’t.
• Flip the Frogs are not any more. Or Willie. The Comi-Color shorts won’t be.
• UPA’s Columbia films aren’t either.
• A lot of Fleischer cartoons are leaving this category right now thanks to the current preservation efforts.
To make things either slightly less muddled (or maybe more!) there’s sort of two categories in the ‘all the other stuff’ designation in classic animation: the ‘in trouble’ and the ‘unseeable’ (in good quality).
In my own opinion, the “in trouble” category means, at this moment, in 2024, that there isn’t current effort to preserve the film from what still exists at this moment. There are two types of films that can fall in to this category:
a) Those owned by the big companies or at an archive currently
b) Those that are only in the hands of private collectors.
On big companies:
We’re lucky enough that there has been enough interest (especially in more recent times) for many of the films at the big studios to start being preserved, whether there is money to be made or not. That preservation effort really should be the way every studio is thinking, but there’s so much material and it costs a lot of money, so there they sit. You’d also think the companies would all easily see the streaming potential, but then again, there needs to be someone to tell them. While there are people in their own archives that know some things, it takes time and money to catalog materials *and* have someone be able to check their current condition. Since there isn’t a program to scan every film at every studio, it will continue to be an uphill battle, but at least that attitude now exists at some of them to scan everything. Cartoons, especially those that don’t have much current interest that are owned by the big companies, are a hard sell to put money in to. We’d like to think they’re all safe from this point forward to preserve when, at some future date, they’re finally pulled, but there’s lots of reasons they really aren’t.
I was told some years back while visiting one major studio’s archive is that the big problem they were having wasn’t nitrate deterioration as much as vinegar syndrome, especially in the films of the early 60s. They were finding a lot of the OCN materials (original camera negatives) had been stored poorly for many, many years before being stored in cold temperatures, so now they were deteriorating despite the low temperatures.
For films owned by big studios:
There can easily be misunderstanding in what they own and how to make sure it is still usable (or even there). Since the 90s, a lot of amazing mistakes have been made. Here’s a few mentions without mentioning what studios:
1) A major studio tossed all the nitrate on their early cartoons in the 90s but kept all the camera negs, not realizing that the master positives and other materials often had original titles and music that was now missing from the negatives. A huge and important loss.
2) A cosmetic company had purchased a TV animation studio. They decided all the film material took up too much space, so they did an HD transfer of all the films (in PAL format) then sent all the material to a silvery recovery lab, relegating all that material to only HD quality forever. You folks know this one I’m sure.
3) One major studio’s cartoons have many of their original titles in little rolls in the cans, and many of those original titles are deteriorating faster than the films they belong to, but, currently, no effort has been made to preserve them or any of the live action shorts that exist in a similar condition.
4) One small company has, in theory, dozens if not hundreds of shows they produced, but for many years, for one reason or another, is reluctant to allow these to even be scanned. Efforts over the years to try and make that happen haven’t led to any results just yet. They may very well be a pile of unusable film now.
For films that are only in the hands of private collectors:
I think this is a very a different battle. We’re at the beginning of a bigger tidal wave of vinegar syndrome affecting more and more film, so time is going to be of the essence in making sure certain things are at least scanned before the actual acetate material starts to deteriorate.
So, in the bigger picture, we’re in better shape than we’ve ever been in terms of what could happen, and technology has made that effort much, much more affordable. At the same time there needs to be some urgency since there’s a lot of stuff.
Would love to hear your opinions and thoughts and ideas as well.
Have a good week all!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
I realize that I cannot talk genuinely intelligently on this subject because I’m not involved in any restorations whatsoever. I’m only involved like most of us in wishing! However, what I find is a big problem are these nagging music rights issues. There are companies who have nothing to do with Film or recorded music or anything who own the right to music and really are doing nothing with it as far as I know. They are keeping so much in vaults that are just locked away and are rotting as I write this. Why they need to retain the rights is anybody’s guess, especially since doing nothing with the elements is just becoming deadweight.
I don’t know what the answer to this is, And again I want to emphasize that this is only my opinion. Those of you who might know more can elaborate if you wish. They’re always seems to be a need for a neutral party to get the job done. That neutral party should almost have financial Backing that is bottomless and I realize that such backing is just another great wish. as the years go by, there are piles and piles and piles of recorded material that is only getting larger as the years go on. Any of us writing our comments, here could make a list of films that we knew of growing up that are now in danger of wasting away forever! Such a shame. I know I for one would love to see so many of the cartoons created at the Paul Terry Studios. that’s only one example; I could probably write paragraphs upon paragraphs of other examples of this. Regarding companies with large acquisitions, those companies often don’t want a third-party involved for fear that relinquishing the “rights“ to something means that the other company is going to make the money that they could be making. OK; so why isn’t the bigger company doing the job they should be doing? Well, this is because they have, current films and music that definitely need their attention because the audience is seemingly greater.
You can see what kind of a corner we’re all being backed into here. Like our politics, if we don’t come to some sort of agreement, it’s all going to fall apart! All I can do is keep hoping that the agreement will be seen sooner than later. Good luck to us all!
At the Academy Awards ceremony in 1981, President Ronald Reagan delivered a pre-recorded speech titled “Film is Forever”, in which he referred to film as “the oldest, and most enduring, of the arts.” Nobody bothered to question or contradict him on that point, as he had just survived an assassination attempt and his views on the medium were not of paramount importance at the moment. But Reagan was wrong, and film is most emphatically not forever. Extinction is.
As someone who supports film preservation efforts but is not personally involved with them, I can only encourage those who are to keep fighting the good fight, and I hope that those companies and collectors whose films are currently inaccessible will ultimately have a change of heart.
That still with the singing laundry hanging on the clothesline — what cartoon is that from?
Seriously, what cartoon is it from? Is it one of the Screen Songs?
It’s a scene from a Cartoon Films, Ltd theatrical advertising short for Rinso from 1939. Via Geo. Willeman at the Library of Congress.
Thank you, Jerry!
Is that Yogi picture recent?
Shhhhh! 🤫 Very recent!
LOOOOOL
And 35mm as well.
Coming soon to theaters this summer?
I think there are some missing Screen Songs (one in color) that haven’t been seen in years!
Major studio = Disney (I remember reading they junked material with original titles)
A cosmetic company = L’Oreal and Filmation (but wasn’t it Hallmark?)
One major studio = since live-action shorts are mentioned i think Paramount, Sony also has original titles in the film cans but as far as i know this is only on the cartoons
One small company = WildBrain (DiC)?
l’oreal was the company that acquired (and closed down) filmation in 1989. in ’93 is when l’oreal sells the filmation library and trademark to hallmark. hallmark were the ones responsible for getting rid of the 16mm prints if i recall.
because all of these shows were transfered onto videotape in PAL format, stuff like he-man and other filmation shows had to go through a mastering process which involved taking these tapes and converting them into NTSC. which resulted in some pretty bad ghosting and interlacing, i hope the film prints get found one day so a proper restoration can be done.
I was thinking the small company was Classic Media since several old Total Television productions shows have episodes that were not included on DVD due to the fact their audio tracks were missing
I’m still praying for a full Sullivan Felix restoration.
Another possible factor: With the earliest sound films finally edging into public domain, copyright owners are looking at a shrinking window for monetizing preservation and restoration on what’s already a niche product. Yes, characters can still have substantial value and can be protected as trademarks, but actual shorts from the 20s-30s now have looming expiration dates on their copyrights.
I would like to see Milton the Monster and Batfink in HD some day, but stereotyping issues aside… gosh knows what the condition on the 16mm and 35mm materials are now.
I am in awe of all the Fleischer material being revitalized from the camera negatives. They pop off the screen and enhance the Fleischer studios reputation. The only TV animation I have a desire to see is Quick Draw McGraw. I thought it was the most genuinely funny of the Hanna Barbera shows. I know the music rights problem, but you can’t even see a complete Quick Draw cartoon on YouTube. I don’t know if they’re included in the current MeToo TV animation packages. It doesn’t matter. YouTube TV doesn’t get the channel.
Archive.org
The story about scanning film in 1080p 25fps does not sound too bad. At least it’s HD, some of the best movies today were MADE in 1080p, and 4K freaks will have to accept that one day. And some cool shows do not have good looking SD copes available to watch even, either blurry 480p, or WORSE.
Being scanned as 1080p PAL is one of the better things to happen to a film reel.
From the looks of the transfers, the Filmation stuff was transferred from 16mm prints (not negatives) in standard PAL, with the inherent 4% speedup in the process. Then for Region 1 DVD releases they transferred THAT to NTSC, resulting in all kinds of field smearing and interlacing shenanegans….and retaining the speedup.
I’ve been able to convert that back to 24p and with the speed corrected for my own viewing. If MeTV Toons ever gets this material I hope it is put through a similar procedure.