Blogathon: For the Love of Film Preservation

[craig2010]

http://www.filmpreservation.org/about/PR-2012-05-11

"BLOGGERS SALUTE HITCHCOCK DISCOVERY
Raise Money for NFPF’s Web Premiere of ‘The White Shadow’

Contact: Jeff Lambert (415-392-7291, [email protected]" target="_blank" target="_blank)

San Francisco, CA (May 11, 2012)—The National Film Preservation Foundation will be the enthusiastic recipient of the 2012 For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon, a Internet fundraising event to be held from May 13 to 18 through which bloggers around the world rally for film preservation and access. The blogathon’s goal is to raise money for the web premiere of The White Shadow, the lost Hitchcock film discovered at the New Zealand Film Archive in 2010.

The White Shadow (1924) is the earliest surviving feature linked to Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1990), the film’s assistant director, art director, editor, and writer. Directed by Graham Cutts, The White Shadow is a wild, atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other “without a soul.” The first three reels of the film were identified by the NFPF among the cache of American nitrate prints at the New Zealand Film Archive last year. No other copy is known to exist.

“This Hitchcock find fascinates film lovers from Australia to South America,” said blogathon coorganizer Farran Nehme, who blogs at Self-Styled Siren. “Already more than 100 bloggers from five continents have signed up, and more are sure to join once the event is underway. All want to play a part in returning this film to the public.”

“Bloggers can do a lot when they work together, and they’ve proven it over past blogathons, with their dollars and especially their enthusiasm,” added coorganizer Marilyn Ferdinand, who blogs at Ferdy on Films. “During our first year, the blogathon raised enough money for the NFPF to preserve three of the first ‘lost’ films recovered in New Zealand—Sunset Limited (1898), The Sergeant (1910), and The Better Man (1912). Everyone of us felt tremendous pride in making a tangible difference for scholars and audiences everywhere.”

Online giving will be especially easy this year, thanks to the blogathon banners and donation buttons carried by participants. “Film bloggers are an international community with a passion for improving access to rare films,” commented coorganizer and banner designer Roderick Heath, who blogs at This Island Rod and Ferdy on Films and is contributing from Sydney, Australia. “Through the blogathon we channel our energy and talent toward this very real goal.”

The blogathon banners and buttons, created by Roderick Heath, can be downloaded here. Donors can send a gift via the donation buttons on participating blogs or give directly through the NFPF Web site at this special link.

The White Shadow was preserved to film at Park Road Post Production in New Zealand, under the direction of the NZFA. A new preservation master and exhibition print was sent to the Academy Film Archive, which hosted the gala re-premiere screening in September 2010. With the money raised by the bloggers, the NFPF plans to record the music developed by Michael D. Mortilla for this event and stream the new video copy to Hitchcock fans everywhere later this year.

The film is among 176 early titles recovered and sent to the United States through a multi-year preservation collaboration of the New Zealand Film Archive / Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua, the American film community, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. Some 70 percent are thought to survive nowhere else. For more about the project, click here.

The National Film Preservation Foundation is the nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America's film heritage. Since opening its doors in 1997, the NFPF has supported film preservation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and has helped save more than 1,900 films. The NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress."

[rudyfan]

I'm participating in this, or wil be tomorrow. Fred is also contributing a guest posting. For the first two days worth of blogs, go to http://www.ferdyonfilms.com

A worthy cause worth makin a donation, no amount is too small.

[Brooksie]

Me too, mine is now online at http://brooksiescollection.tumblr.com/day/2012/05/15. It's about the 'dual role' phenomenon in silent films - one actor playing two parts, as in 'Stella Maris', 'Lady of the Night' and so forth - and Hitchcock's interest in doppelganger characters.

[Frederica]

My blog-a-thon entry on Hitchcock's The Pleasure Garden is now up at Donna's "Strictly Vintage Hollywood."
http://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blogs ... m-iii.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

[Brooksie]

There has been some great reading amongst the various blog entries. I'd particularly recommend http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/movies/ ... ms-online/, particularly in light of the Digitev announcement today (see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12264&p=85485).

Unfortunately the donations remain far below target. If you haven't contributed, do consider lending a hand.

[silentfilm]

Eric Grayson's Dr. Film blog, "My Top 13 Films That Need Preservation":

http://www.drfilm.net/blog/?p=229

[missdupont]

My blogathon entry from Strictly Vintage Hollywood:
http://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blogs ... -film.html" target="_blank

[Frederica]

And Donna's done another entry, a lengthy, detailed, informative post on Hitchcock's only lost film (starring Our Beloved Preceptress!) The Mountain Eagle.
http://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blogs ... m-iii.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

The blog-a-thon kitty is still very short of the funding needed to score White Shadows and stream it. Times are tough, we know, but every dollar is a help.

[Joe Thompson]

At The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion, I did five posts with information about Hitchcock and other folks from various motion picture industry yearbooks and encyclopedias. The image is Hitchcock's full-page ad from The 1963 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures. Here is the first post, which has links to the other four:
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com/2012/05 ... k-may.html

I also made a donation. I hope other people will, too.

[Frederica]

The Blog-a-Thon had an exciting final reel denouement, bringing the donation total up to $6,490, not the full $15K they needed but a respectable chunk. As per the Siren:

http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/201 ... house.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

So, where does that leave us in terms of streaming The White Shadow this fall? The Siren turns the microphone over to Annette Melville, the protean force behind the National Film Preservation Foundation's fundraising efforts. (Working with Annette behind the scenes has been David Wells, and a round of applause for David, too, as he's been tracking donations and just quietly being indispensable from the beginning.) Anyway, here's Annette:

There is no presentable digital copy of the film now. We have to raise sufficient money to make a digital copy, record the new score, pay the composer and musician, mix the score, and lay it down to the digital copy, in addition to the web hosting...We hope to raise these funds over the next few months...Plans are afoot but cannot be finalized until we have the all the necessary money.

In sum, what we have is not the whole megillah, but it's a darn good start. Annette says our efforts have gotten the NFPF a good part of the way--"the heavy lifting." The NFPF are deeply grateful, and in addition, "there is also an important long-term goal of planting a seed--of getting people thinking about film preservation and the value of supporting it." She's very happy, as are we all, that we've accomplished that.

Screen captures from The White Shadow have been posted on The Blog-a-Thon's Facebook page, that Cutts guy had quite the cinematic eye:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/For-the-L ... 9318823764" target="_blank" target="_blank

And Mr. Urbanora has kindly listed all the posts that refer to Hitchcock's silents or silent film in general.
http://thebioscope.net/2012/05/20/casting-a-shadow/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Donation links are still live.

[Roseha]

The links are still live, I just put in another donation.