This is not accurate. No technology since the invention of the first computer has ever been lost. Not one. And even if a particular piece of equipment disappears the knowledge of how to make it does not. And given a sufficient incentive, it can be re-created. Any format can be recovered, any media can be read. Nothing has disappeared. And I'm pretty sure nothing ever will.
Academy warns that movies shot or finished digitally face short lifespan
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This is not accurate. No technology since the invention of the first computer has ever been lost. Not one. And even if a particular piece of equipment disappears the knowledge of how to make it does not. And given a sufficient incentive, it can be re-created. Any format can be recovered, any media can be read. Nothing has disappeared. And I'm pretty sure nothing ever will.
Just out of interest I don't know how many here have seen the Mitchell and Kenyon collection dating from the end of the 19th Century to the early 20th Century. Drums of several hundreds of rolls of film were discovered in 1994 and later fully restored. They now form the largest collection of old actuality films in the world. They also shot staged films, and started filming only a few years after the Lumière brothers first film was shown. Incredibly they would often show their films within 4 hours of shooting them. By coincidence my local camera shop is next door to where they were discovered just down the road from where I live. I thought it was just a bit of useful background to the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_and_Kenyon
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/mk/about.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/jan/07/1
Quite a few of the BFI's collection can be found on YouTube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_and_Kenyon
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/mk/about.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/jan/07/1
Quite a few of the BFI's collection can be found on YouTube.
j
Veteran
"Up to 20% of the information carefully collected on Jet Propulsion Laboratory computers during NASA's 1976 Viking mission to Mars has been lost..."
http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1998/b3574124.arc.htm
How wildly optimistic you are! I'm glad to know that replacement parts will always be available, tech specs and operating manuals will never disappear, software that has been corrupted will always be able to be restored by someone who still knows a language that hasn't been used in decades, etc. etc. The more advanced our technologies become, the more vulnerable certain things are. For instance, consider antique automobile restoration: right now, it isn't incredibly difficult to restore a 100-year-old automobile; but I wonder if it will be possible at all to restore a 2012 automobile in the year 2112, because of all of the computerization of its components.
HDkilledFILM.
Burnin' down the House
It comes down to spreading the word so that young motion picture makers UNDERSTAND this is an issue. When you make a project (On film, tape or digitally) it's not SAFE anywhere. You need to have a storage plan which includes backing it up to as many sources as you can or KNOW, not suspect, that Murphy's law, IT WILL BE LOST. And yes, you can recover MOST things, BUT... Even that can be VERY, VERY expensive. I lost a 250 gig HD three years ago... It was 3,000 USD to recover and even then not everything made it. Just keep this in mind, it might not be a bad idea to shoot a projection of your digital or tape based project on film (to avoid the cost of a real transfer if you can't, like me afford it) so at least you have that if all else fails, pun intended.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
And, as common sense as this sounds, store your backup copies at a different physical location. Like another part of town, city or state. Natural disaster can cause you to lose everything and all copies. This happened to a friend of mine with audio work during Katrina.
And a hundred years from now, in a similar discussion someone will point out; it isn't difficult to restore a 2012 Toyota when all they had was simple computers. What about in 2212 when they want to restore our mind machine interfaces.... etc. etc.
Digital content has been lost and more of it will be lost in the future. But that is not because it has to. We can keep data forever if we manage it, keep multiple copies in multiple locations etc. It can be done. But it isn't free. And in a lot of cases - because of the cost - it just isn't done.
Technology, however, does not disappear. So chances are if you have your masterpiece in multiple copies on old 8" floppies, kept in sveral different climate controlled locations, we will be able to read them and be able to put together a usable copy even a hundred or two hundred years from now.
On the other hand, if you kept all of those floppies in your desk drawer, and your house burned to the ground, chances are your masterpiece will be gone forever.
But I agree on the need to educate filmmakers about this. Proper archiving is important.
Vincent Pereira
Member
Actually the exact opposite is often the case. The movies that are most popular tend to be the ones that have the most wear and tear on the original elements and need to be given extensive restorations (see THE GODFATHER films for an example, or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or any number of others).
Another thing to remember is that "major" movies that are shot digitally all have 35mm film-outs, so they do exist in a physical, analog state that you can hold up to a light and see. Same goes for movies that go through the DI process. For the indies and micro-budget artists, it's another story perhaps...
Vincent
I have backed up digital data to tape and lost miserably! The SCSI tape drives I used are not existing anymore and the last one I have is dead....
Also the tapes can go bad themselves. I had a large stock of old 2" and 1/4" tapes that were salvaged to digital by baking the tapes one last time before the final digital transfer.
Now the digital tapes are unreadable....
I think its a good thing that data gets lost
The music thats worth remembering is written on paper, the stories worth to be told are written on paper.....the rest goes awash in the big electromagnetic storm.
Also the tapes can go bad themselves. I had a large stock of old 2" and 1/4" tapes that were salvaged to digital by baking the tapes one last time before the final digital transfer.
Now the digital tapes are unreadable....
I think its a good thing that data gets lost
The music thats worth remembering is written on paper, the stories worth to be told are written on paper.....the rest goes awash in the big electromagnetic storm.
BobbyMurcerFan
Well-known member
"... In short, digital storage, be it on hard drives, DVDs or solid-state memory, simply isn't on a par for anything close to the 100-plus-year lifespan of film. The life of digital media is measured in years, not decades, and file formats can go obsolete in months, not years. ..."
The above b.s.. I have CD's from the 1980's that still work fine, e.g. Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" that I purchased when it first came out. I have a Compaq 486 Windows 3.1 laptop that still boots and runs fine. To say that digital media lasts "years, not decades" is absurd.
The above b.s.. I have CD's from the 1980's that still work fine, e.g. Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" that I purchased when it first came out. I have a Compaq 486 Windows 3.1 laptop that still boots and runs fine. To say that digital media lasts "years, not decades" is absurd.
BobbyMurcerFan
Well-known member
Frank, I love the writing. But I have to say that I believe the future scientists of millenniums from today will be technologically advanced enough to make a Jazz drive.
Just to aid this discussion a bit. The reason I gave the Mitchell and Kenyon film archives as an example is because they are the best known example of footage being recovered from old stored film. They are the largest archive of old documentary film in the world, and Mitchell and Kenyon were some of the earliest pioneers of what would now be called movies. The first record of them showing a film to the public was only 2 years after the Lumière showed the first public screening of a film ever. So it's just about as early as it gets. Yet this huge cache of films remained lost for most of the 20th Century in sealed drums. They were also shot on early nitrate stock, so they were very volatile. In other words they are the best case study there is.
I'm not a filmmaker, just someone interested in filmmaking in the future. However, I'm pretty good at analysing problems. One of the key problems with this discussion is people are talking about different things. What I mean by this is the Variety article is about the very long term storage of digital productions, and how they might not last the 95 plus years that US copyright allows. Referencing the 100 plus year life of film. So in reality we are talking about lengths of time probably in excess of the lifetime of the creators and the production companies. It also involves films that will probably be forgotten about for a long time, and only at a future point in time, will the relevance, value or importance of these productions be realised.
Whereas some people here are talking about the short term preservation of productions, during the working life of the creator and the commercial viability of the production.
Whilst similar, these are in reality 2 entirely different orders of problem. There are big differences. Whilst a production has got commercial worth, the producer of it has got a vested interest in preserving it for posterity, they will make efforts to store it, and to make sure it's accessible. Therefore they are likely to update the digital storage medium, if the one it's stored on, becomes obsolete.
However, with longer periods of time the production is likely to get left on the shelf so to speak. So no one will be looking after it, updating the storage medium etc. By time someone realises its worth, digital material might not be recoverable, or stored in a way that can be easily read.
Take the Mitchell and Kenyon film I used as an example. In the short to medium term, you can see why it was put away and forgotten about. 10, 20, or even 30 years, after of local events, was not really of interest to anyone. However, after a 100 years or so gap, this local film, which before was only of minor interest, suddenly becomes the most important archive of social documentary film in the world. This footage give a unique window into an era no living person remembers. Also the Lancashire mill towns recorded in this film, are essentially where the industrial revolution began. So they are no of interest all around the world to historians. This is why the BBC made a major prime time production using this footage. So suddenly after all this time, they were more commercially valuable, than they originally were.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/jan/07/1
The essential point I'm trying to make is that footage initially has value, and then its value starts to fade, and people lose interest in it. It gets put aside or lost. Then suddenly, because all the other stuff as been lost, it becomes immensely valuable, due to it's rarity. However, to survive to the point when it becomes rare, it will have to survive a period when people will have lost interest in it, and will not see it as having worth. No one will take any special care of it during this period. Only with hindsight, do we realise the worth or value of something old. That's the challenge for digital, surviving that mid-term period when it's not seen as valuable and the medium it's stored on becomes obsolete, or even gets thrown out. You immediately know a sealed can has film in it, so it doesn't get thrown out. Whereas if you just look at an old server or hard drive you can't immediately access, it's not at all clear it contains valuable footage, and looks no different to other old computer scrap.
Ignore what I say if it's of no interest. I just thought I'd highlight some of the key issues because I thought they were being overlooked. It appeared people were talking at cross-purposes about different things. I won't contribute any more to this thread, because I've not got any industry experience and it was just a few observations. So I'll leave it to those that know what they are talking about. On this forum I mainly read interesting discussions, rather than contribute to them
I'm not a filmmaker, just someone interested in filmmaking in the future. However, I'm pretty good at analysing problems. One of the key problems with this discussion is people are talking about different things. What I mean by this is the Variety article is about the very long term storage of digital productions, and how they might not last the 95 plus years that US copyright allows. Referencing the 100 plus year life of film. So in reality we are talking about lengths of time probably in excess of the lifetime of the creators and the production companies. It also involves films that will probably be forgotten about for a long time, and only at a future point in time, will the relevance, value or importance of these productions be realised.
Whereas some people here are talking about the short term preservation of productions, during the working life of the creator and the commercial viability of the production.
Whilst similar, these are in reality 2 entirely different orders of problem. There are big differences. Whilst a production has got commercial worth, the producer of it has got a vested interest in preserving it for posterity, they will make efforts to store it, and to make sure it's accessible. Therefore they are likely to update the digital storage medium, if the one it's stored on, becomes obsolete.
However, with longer periods of time the production is likely to get left on the shelf so to speak. So no one will be looking after it, updating the storage medium etc. By time someone realises its worth, digital material might not be recoverable, or stored in a way that can be easily read.
Take the Mitchell and Kenyon film I used as an example. In the short to medium term, you can see why it was put away and forgotten about. 10, 20, or even 30 years, after of local events, was not really of interest to anyone. However, after a 100 years or so gap, this local film, which before was only of minor interest, suddenly becomes the most important archive of social documentary film in the world. This footage give a unique window into an era no living person remembers. Also the Lancashire mill towns recorded in this film, are essentially where the industrial revolution began. So they are no of interest all around the world to historians. This is why the BBC made a major prime time production using this footage. So suddenly after all this time, they were more commercially valuable, than they originally were.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/jan/07/1
The essential point I'm trying to make is that footage initially has value, and then its value starts to fade, and people lose interest in it. It gets put aside or lost. Then suddenly, because all the other stuff as been lost, it becomes immensely valuable, due to it's rarity. However, to survive to the point when it becomes rare, it will have to survive a period when people will have lost interest in it, and will not see it as having worth. No one will take any special care of it during this period. Only with hindsight, do we realise the worth or value of something old. That's the challenge for digital, surviving that mid-term period when it's not seen as valuable and the medium it's stored on becomes obsolete, or even gets thrown out. You immediately know a sealed can has film in it, so it doesn't get thrown out. Whereas if you just look at an old server or hard drive you can't immediately access, it's not at all clear it contains valuable footage, and looks no different to other old computer scrap.
Ignore what I say if it's of no interest. I just thought I'd highlight some of the key issues because I thought they were being overlooked. It appeared people were talking at cross-purposes about different things. I won't contribute any more to this thread, because I've not got any industry experience and it was just a few observations. So I'll leave it to those that know what they are talking about. On this forum I mainly read interesting discussions, rather than contribute to them
My post crossed over with yours. The point I was trying to make was about this issue. The main problem is that one piece of old computer junk will look much like any other piece of useless junk. Until you've found a way of reading it, you can't tell if it is just junk, or if it might have some amazing footage on it. Whereas at least with a can of film you have some idea what it is. So you're not likely to throw it out. Whereas the old hard drive with valuable footage on it, is far more likely to get mistakenly scrapped as useless garbage. I know I've broke my pledge not to comment again, but I thought it worthwhile clarifying what my longer post was about.