- State: published
Digital Initiatives
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In our five year strategic plan, one of the main areas for growth is in the realm of digital initiatives. To remain relevant in the vast milieu of streaming media content on the web, iotaCenter has laid out a series of goals for the next five years dealing with digital content and access.
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Scanning of Study Center Materials iotaCenter has been scanning materials in our William Moritz Collection for years, including all the text from the archived 1997 Absolut Panushka website that included articles on many techniques used in experimental animation. But there is so much more to digitize and make available! iota has many of the papers, catalogs and other material from the Creative Film Society collection, as well as many out of print books and ephemera like historic exhibition catalogs, program notes and film stills. Our goal is to eventually integrate all of these materials into our Online Public Access Catalog (see the section below), so that our community can see, for example, an article about a particular filmmaker right next to a listing of which films BY that filmmaker we have available in our film or video collection. |
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Digitization of Films for Research and Distribution The Research and Study Center already contains thousands of films that we've either purchased, acquired through donation, transferred or digitized over the years as we've built up the collection. The most expensive part of this collection development is the digitization of films in our film collection (housed at the Academy Film Archive) This is a crucial part of access - to make reference copies of the films so that there is no further wear and tear on the film prints themselves. In addition, digitally transferring selected films will allow us to make future DVD releases available in our Kinetica Video Library, so that schools, libraries and private collectors can view these films any time they want. In order to make these digital transfers, we must first inspect the print for quality and make sure it is clean before we do the transfer. Each time we transfer a film, we have to pay by the hour at a post production facility, which can cost hundreds of dollars per session. Luckily, because many of our films are very short, we can usually schedule several films in a given hour. A fantastic way to "sponsor" the transfer of several films would be to pay for one hour of digital transfer time. Your contribution will not only be tax deductible, but will ensure that all the other members of our community can view the films as well. Contact us to learn more! |
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Website Upgrades and Online Resources For over ten years, iotaCenter has been collecting films as well as information about these films and the various genres that splinter off from them - history, literature, links, film stills, and more. We are very excited to explore new methods of disseminating this information online, so that our community can expand into other countries and reach those who aren't able to visit our Research and Study Center in Los Angeles. We call the central database where we collate all of this information our History Database, which is currently displayed online in the Artist Profiles, Articles, Techniques and Offsite Resources areas of our website. But there is SO much more to add to these areas - not only in content, but in the areas of end user design, interface and functionality. There are many exciting, open source solutions that we are exploring to get to our end goal of having an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) which combines the list of our holdings with the information contained in the History Database. How will this function once it is implemented? Here is a potential scenario: 1) An ethnomusicology student would like to know more about the historic intersections of jazz and experimental film. All she knows when she starts out is that Harry Smith is one of the most well-known artists to have frequently integrated aspects of jazz rhythms in his film work. She finds iotaCenter's website and does a search for Harry Smith. 2) On our OPAC listing for Harry Smith, the student reads about Smith, sees that iotaCenter has several Smith films available for viewing and also notes that the Harry Smith Archives is another valuable resource for research on Smith. She also sees a subject heading for Jazz, which leads her to a page listing many other artists who incorporated jazz in their film work. 3) In browsing these listings, the student comes across Hy Hirsh and begins to read articles about the friendship and collaboration between Smith and Hirsh, as well as exhibition catalogs and program notes indicating that both artists were often programmed together in the same exhibitions. 4) The student is now curious to see both artists' work for a close viewing. She clicks on the links for the iotaCenter holdings, sends in a request online to view the films, and one of our staff members sets up an appointment for her to come in an view films. 5) Once the student arrives, she is treated to not only the films she requested, but the works of Axel Bruel, an early Danish animator who used improvisational jazz in his films as early as 1952. She is also shown several books and taped lectures on the use of jazz in abstract film. 6) The student leaves with her notes and newly fulfilled knowledge and writes a fabulous paper on the subject. There are thousands of other research scenarios and connections that can be made, ranging from simply getting a list of experimental films using a particular technique, to discovering complex relationships between artists across the globe who never came into contact with each other. To get to a point of realization with this project, we need to devote some time and resources to merging our current information into a content management system that will allow us to synthesize it. To do this, we are collaborating with a developer at CollectiveAccess, an open source system of managing information exactly like ours. |
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Online Streaming Content and Digital Storage In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technology Council published a report entitled The Digital Dilemma. In this report was an examination of the some of the major problems facing any entity (personal or private) that stores digital content. The amorphous nature of the technology behind digital video is a daunting problem for everyone, but especially media archives. Selecting a particular codec or compression scheme can lead to playback issues over time, as those codecs and schemes become outdated. Over the course of the five year plan, iotaCenter plans to keep abreast of these changing technologies, and investigate the most appropriate workflow and hardware for the storage of digital content. Our goal is to actually begin implementing this workflow and storage towards the end of the five year plan, so that we can start to manage our existing digital material as well as start actively collecting new works by artists working in a digital medium. Another goal in this area is to stream as much digital content for which we can obtain the artist's permission. To do this, we will need to expand our servers and our bandwidth, and perfect the means of delivery to ensure the best viewing experience while also preventing piracy. |
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Light is the artist's sole medium of expression. He must mold it by optical
means, almost as a sculptor models clay. He must add colour, and finally motion
to his creation. Motion, the time dimension, demands that he must be a
choreographer in space.
-Thomas Wilfred |
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