The Program
Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday
Screenings | Workshops | Special Regional Workshop
General Information

7:30 am - 8:30 pm
Continental Breakfast/Coffee in the Vendor Hall

7:30 am - 5:30 pm
Vendor Exhibit

8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Continuous Screening: You’ll Laugh and Cry & Austin On Film

8:00 am - 5:00 pm
MIC Archive Directory Registration

8:30 am - 10:00 am
The Basics of Hi Def - Or, Don’t Panic

Hosted By: The Digital Initiatives Committee
Chair: Ted Ryan - The Coca-Cola Company
Speakers: Ken Brady - Turner Sports
Nathie Malayang – CNN

This session will provide an overview of the coming era Hi Definition television. Emblazoned on the cover of this session are the words—Don’t Panic. We will pull in some of the pioneers of the Hi Def revolution to show both repositories with film or video holdings how to prepare for the future. This session will be divided into three basic areas. Hi Def for video will be delivered by Ken Brady, the guru of Hi Def at Turner Sports. He will present a basic primer, taught within Turner, which will give all attendees a basic understanding of what Hi Def is, how it can be created via a video camera and how it ends up on your TV screen.

The second section will deal with legacy film collections and will be taught by? (Hopefully from NFL Films or from the Library of Congress, both have been approached but have not yet committed). Archives all hold film collection which might need to be aired in Hi Def. The two basic methods now include computer enhancing the video signals or going back to the original film. Each has a cost v quality issue that will impact how archives do film transfer in the future.
The third section will be how we archive this material. Hi Def will introduce new tape formats and video players and might force all archives to dive into the digital asset arena to store the material. Nathie Malayang of CNN will discuss some of the various beginning efforts they are taking to store the material long term. Sit back, relax, and in the immortal words of the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t Panic”. We will figure this out. Maybe.

8:30 am - 10:00 am
Andy Mann: Houston’s Video Art Pioneer

Hosted By: Independent Media Interest Group
Chair: Jill Wood - Aurora Picture Show
Speaker: Andrea Grover - Aurora Picture Show

Aurora Picture Show, a Houston-based, seven year old non-profit microcinema, presents experimental and amateur film and video in a 100 seat converted 1924 church. Aurora also holds the 800-tape video collection of early video and cable access artist Andy Mann (1947-2001). Mann was active in several historic video collectives such as the Videofreex, TVTV, and Global Village, as well as a regular contributor to Radical Software. After his move from New York to Houston in 1977, Mann hosted a hybrid live video art program on Houston Cable Access. This session will highlight a regional video preservation project funded by the National Television and Video Preservation Foundation, the Warhol Foundation, and Texas Commission on the Arts, unique for its location in an experimental video center. Following a screening of transferred works, panelists will discuss the rewards and challenges of archival work within a microcinema context.

8:30 am - 10:00 pm
Metadata for Digital Audio and Video

Hosted By: Digital Initiatives Committee
Chair: Linda Tadic - ARTstor
Speakers: Chris Lacinak - Vidipax, LLC
Mike Cox - Mirador Techniques

One of the most fundamental yet complex challenges in managing, preserving, and providing access to digital objects is the proper implementation of metadata. This panel will provide an in-depth discussion of current and evolving digital audio and video metadata standards and initiatives from the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Audio Engineering Society (AES), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and other organizations. Parallels will be made between the physical and electronic domains. The panel will also describe recommended minimum required metadata fields and a brief review of case studies.

8:30 am - 10:00 am
Nitrate Interest Group Meeting

Chair: Jim Hahn - Academy Film Archive

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Nitrate Film Interest Group are invited to attend.

10:00 am - 10:30 am
Break

10:30 am - 12:00 pm
A Studio Restoration Case History: Beginning to End

Chair: Bob O’Neil - Universal Studios
Speakers: John Carlson - Monaco Labs and Video
Richard Dayton - YCM Laboratories
Tom Regal - Universal Studios/Blue Wave Audio
Simon Lund - Cineric, Inc.
Peter Schade - Universal Studios

Taking a recent DVD release of a prominent studio feature film panelists will step the audience through the restoration process. There will not only be studio people on the panel, but studio service providers who deal with specific elements of the entire restoration and distribution. Demonstrations and comparisons of various steps will be shown.

10:30 am - 12:00 pm
News Online: Implications for Journalists,
Educators, Archivists, and Internet Search Engines

Hosted By: Television Interest Group
Chair: Jane D. Johnson - Library of Congress
Speakers: Antonio Brasil - Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ)
Kim Tryka - Virginia Center for Digital History, University of Virginia
Jeff Karnes - Yahoo! Inc.

While television is America’s most important information source, there is little access to yesterday’s news programming. News archives have been a difficult and expensive source of essential information and knowledge for researchers, historians, and journalists themselves. Tens of thousands of hours of television broadcast footage, along with the catalog records of many major television archives, are now available online, but search tools are still evolving, and direct Internet access to large collections is rare. This session discusses the current state of television news archives and the new search tools evolving to access them. It explores new requirements for journalism’s future and training the next generation of digital journalists, and discusses the role of digital news archives in addressing issues of ethics and credibility in television news. This session will include demonstrations of online footage and catalogs, as well as an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of different tools and services.

10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Triage Training: Tools for Assessing the Condition of
Legacy and Master Tapes

Chair/Speaker: Peter Brothers - Specs Bros, LLC

The International Standard on care and handling of magnetic tape contains a recommended, basic 7-Step Physical Inspection to identify tape that “is endangered and needs attention”. This inspection is considered “essential to prevent premature loss of materials”. The examination is designed to be able to be performed by anyone at a collection and can be performed without playback equipment. In this session, highlights from an in-depth training workshop on the Inspection will be presented to help potential users perform the inspection and analyze the results effectively. The instructor will present a step-by-step review of the Inspection procedure and each step will be accompanied by photographs of actual ‘problem’ tapes to clearly illustrate what is being looked for in each stage of the inspection. In addition, the instructor will review the reasons behind each step so that the results can be easily understood and applied to a collection’s preservation efforts.

12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Lunch in the Vendor Hall

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Small Gauge / Amateur Film Interest Group Meeting

Co-Chairs: Dwight Swanson - Appalshop
Andrew Lampert - Anthology Film Archives

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Small Gauge/Amateur Film Interest Group are invited to attend.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Development Committee Meeting

Chair: Laura Rooney - Association of Moving Image Archivists

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Development Committee are invited to attend.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Academic Archival Interest Group Meeting

Co-Chairs: Rebecca Bachman - New York University
Mike Mashon - Library of Congress

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Academic-Archival Interest Group are invited to attend.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
News and Documentary Interest Group Meeting

Co-Chairs: Helene Whitson
Dick Fauss - West Virginia Division of Culture and History
John Lynch - Vanderbilt University

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the News and Documentary Collections Interest Group are invited to attend.

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Access Committee Meeting

Chair: Cindy Keefer - Center for Visual Music at The Fischinger Archive

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Access Committee are invited to attend.

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Copyright Interest Group Meeting

Co-Chairs: Elias Savada - Motion Picture Information Service
David Pierce

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Copyright Issues Interest Group are invited to attend.

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Moving Image Collections (MIC) Education & Outreach Meeting

Chair: Andrea Leigh - UCLA Film and Television Archive

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of MIC are invited to attend.

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Publications Committee Meeting

Chair: Karen Gracy - University of Pittsburgh

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the Publications Committee are invited to attend.

2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Nitrate 101: Is This Film Dangerous To Me?

Hosted By: Nitrate Film Interest Group
Co-Chairs: Rosa Gaiarsa - UCLA Film and Television Archive
Edward E. Stratmann - George Eastman House
Speakers: Ken Weissman - Library of Congress
John H. Heyer - Eastman Kodak Company
Rick Utley - Pro-Tek Media Preservation Services
Steven Hallat - EI CTS Kodak Motion Picture Services
Jeffrey E. Moore - Eastman Kodak Company-Black
and White Film Chemicals

Due to its flammability nitrate is classified as Hazardous Material, and its storage, handling, transportation and disposal are highly regulated. This session, intended for a general archival audience will explore these regulations, underlining the importance of compliance. It will give archivists that have nitrate collections the roadmap to compliance; and it will give archivists that do not have nitrate collections the tools to make informed decisions regarding potential acquisitions. In addition, this session seeks to create awareness among workers and management within the motion picture archive industry of the variety of safety and health hazards that may be present in their workplaces and to recommend strategies for control that can enhance worker safety and reduce liability.

2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Updates from the Field…

1.How to Make an Authentic Movie: Guidelines for Creators and Other Findings of the InterPARES 2 Project

Hosted By: Digital Initiatives Committee
Chair: Yvette Hackett - Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque ot Archives Canada
Speaker: James M. Turner - Université de Montréal

This update will review InterPARES 2 case studies covering a broad spectrum of moving image productions—from animated feature films to Web-based videos—and what they reveal of current preservation practices, both best and worst. It will introduce the concept of draft guidelines to assist filmmakers using digital technology for they will increasingly be thrust into the role of de facto or interim archivist, or risk loss or damage to their work.

2. Preserving Digital Public Television

Chair: Mary Ide – WGBH-TV Media Archives
Speaker: Nan Rubin - Thirteen/NDIIPP

In a relatively rapid period of time, digital technology has radically transformed the nature of television program production — from a linear, sequential analog process, to a non-linear, random access, totally digital environment. Consequently, long standing production and preservation practices no longer apply and digitally-produced materials are at great risk of being lost. The Library of Congress, recognizing this problem, funded Preserving Digital Public Television in the fall of 2004 to plan a national repository for the long-term preservation of digitally-produced public television programs. This project is the only one of the eight initial NDIIPP grantees that is exclusively devoted to the challenge of preserving moving images. Participants on the panel will report on the progress of the Preserving Digital Public Television project activities to date, and invite feedback from the AMIA community to assist our efforts.

3. PRESTOSPACE Magnetic Tape Preservation Project

Hosted By: Preservation Committee
Chair: Jim Lindner - Media Matters LLC
Speaker: Benoit Thiebaut – CRCDG

An update of the European Union funded research project: Standardized Practices for Audiovisual Contents in Europe (PRESTOSPACE). The methodology, the first results, and the promising development of a 3/4 Umatic magnetic tapes study will be presented. It will include sampling procedure, overall materials analysis, aging experiments and migration of findings towards other tape formats. The conclusions and methodology may be of direct interest to those in charge of preservation work, migration processes, or the handling of old magnetic tapes.

2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Strategies for the Digital Here and Now

Chair: Tom Regal - NBCUniversal
Speakers: Jeff Taylor - NBCUniversal
Robert Winder - Warner Bros.
Anthony Jackson - Dreamworks
Scott Kelly - Walt Disney Co.

Audio in the film industry has been moving steadily toward long term digital archiving, albeit with somewhat measured steps and an overall suspicion. Now that the demise of the last manufacturer of professional magnetic tape is a reality (whether temporary or permanent) this issue is moved to the forefront. Panelists will discuss how they are meeting their long term archival requirements in digital form and provide insight to the decisions made and the challenges faced when dealing with a working archive. Topics to be covered are: the ingest process; organization/cataloging; digital storage media; and quality control.

3:30 pm - 4:00 pm
Raffle Drawing! You Must be Present to Win!!

4:00 pm - 4:45 pm
AMIA Annual Meeting and Open Forum

Hosted By: AMIA Board of Directors

All conference attendees are encouraged to attend the Annual General Meeting and Open Forum to hear the annual report from the AMIA Board of Directors. The open forum will provide an opportunity for participants to raise issues and challenges not addressed elsewhere during the conference.

4:50 pm - 6:20 pm Salon C
AMIA at 14

Co-Chairs: Sarah Ziebell Mann - Theatre on Film and Tape Archive,
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Rick Prelinger - Prelinger Archives
Speakers: Lisa Carter - University of Kentucky Special Collections
and Digital Programs
Ray Edmonson - Archive Associates
…Additional speakers

Back by popular demand is “AMIA at 14,” designed to engage members in discussion on strengthening our common mission and guiding the organization. This session is intended to be spontaneous and member-driven, with discussion topics culled from a participatory process and used as the basis for moderating the conversation. Ideas include:

· Community building so that AMIA and its members work in synergy.
· Advocacy efforts related to moving image and cultural interests.
· National and international development issues.
· Leadership, mentoring, and communications within AMIA.
· Understanding resources available to individuals and organizations and ways
AMIA might work to solve inequities.

”AMIA at 14" is not a Board-sponsored session and is not intended to focus on specific issues management and governance. Rather, the session is a forum for developing consensus on direction and energy within the organization and in its relation to the world.Please join us for “AMIA at 14!”

6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Moving Image Collections (MIC) Speakers Bureau Meeting

Chair: Jane Johnston - Library of Congress

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of MIC are invited to attend.

6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
International Outreach Task Force Meeting

Co-Chairs: Sam Kula – Independent Consultant
Ray Edmonson - Archive Associates

AMIA members interested in contributing to the work of the International Outreach Task Force are invited to attend.

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm                                                                         
Austin’s Media Mecca:  Regional Filmmaking in the Heart of Texas

Hosted By:    Independent Media Interest Group 
Co-Chairs:     Stephen Parr - San Francisco Media Archive
                    Carolyn Faber - Midwest Media Archives Alliance
 
Austin’s independent film community is one of the most active, diverse and vibrant in the country. A collection of eclectic and exciting films made by independent imagemakers from Austin will be screened. These include narrative, documentary, experimental, avant garde shorts and a variety of digitally-based films from Austin’s burgeoning cinema scene. Representatives from the Motion Media Arts Center, Flicker, The Austin Film Society (founded by director Richard Linklater), award-winning film artist Luke Savisky, and others will be on hand to introduce their films and discuss grassroots filmmaking and the state of independent image making in Austin. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind event.

9:45 pm - 11:15 pm
Second Annual Moving Image Archivists Moving Image Festival

Co-Chairs: Dwight Swanson – Appalshop
Carolyn Faber - Midwest Media Archives Alliance

Aside from their work in the field of film preservation, many AMIA members are also talented filmmakers. Some are well-known artists with extensive festival resumes, while others are hobbyists making films in their spare time. Following upon the success of last year’s screening, the second annual Moving Image Archivists’ Moving Image Festival will showcase the films and videotapes made by AMIA members and AMIA conference attendees.