Setting a shared agenda Expert Meeting in Eye Collection Centre

Throughout our research project we experienced a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to share ideas and experiences about animation artwork preservation. Now, after we consulted many different experts and visited several archives, we are looking forward to bring some of these experts and representatives of these archives together in a joint meeting at Eye. The goal of this expert meeting is to forge collaborations, formulate a shared agenda and find ways to ensure continuity in the collaborative work in animation artwork conservation and preservation.

On 12 and 13 November 2018 a group of filmmakers, archivists, restorers, academics and other specialists in the field of animation artwork preservation will gather at Eye Collection Centre. We welcome representatives of British Film Institute, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, Cinémathèque française, Cinémathèque québécoise, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), Deutsches Institut für Animationsfilm, Getty Conservation Institute, Margaret Herrick Library, Musée du Film d’Animation Annecy, Schopman Animation Supplies, The British Museum, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, University College London, University of Amsterdam, University of the Creative Arts, Kent / Surrey and Walt Disney Animation Research Library. Discussions will take place in small working groups as well as in a plenary sessions. Central issues are selection, appraisal, storage, research and registration of animation artwork.

The day will start with two keynote speakers, Marcel Jean and Carolyn Carta. Both will approach the topic from a different angle and provide insight in their daily practice in the field of animation artwork preservation. Marcel Jean is the Artistic Director of Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Executive Director of the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montréal (CQ). The CQ is the depository of a large collection of artifacts related to animation and the archivists face many challenges in their conservation mission. One such issue is the amount of artifacts of which not all can  be preserved, for obvious practical reasons. Marcel will address the fundamental question: What is the purpose of preserving animation artifacts? A question that is at the heart of the issue of acquisition, selection and deselection.  In her keynote ‘All cels are not equal: a cautionary tale for storage decisions’ Carolyn Carta will talk about the Getty Conservation Institute’s collaborative research project with the Disney Animation Research Library on the preservation and storage of animation cels.

Special guests are internationally acclaimed Dutch filmmaker Paul Driessen  and his collaborator Colin Nawrot (camera & sound). They will talk about their joint experience in animation filmmaking, and discuss the traditional cel technique and sometimes unconventional methods they used. Paul Driessen’s animation artwork forms an important part in the Eye Filmmuseum Collection.

And last but not least there is a special appearance of the legendary animation character ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ (1914) and her creator Winsor McCay. Recently a reconstruction was made of the the lost vaudeville version of the film, for which original animation drawings of McCay were used. Read Donald Crafton’s blog post about on this special collaborative project.

The expert meeting is by invitation only, but we will disseminate the results to a wider audience in due time.