IU Libaries Film Archive, IU Cinema, & NYU Orphan Film Symposium
present
Orphans Midwest: Materiality and the Moving Image
September 26-28, 2013
@ Indiana University Bloomington
Thursday, Sept. 26 9am-5pm,
Indiana University Memorial Union (Dogwood Room)
SCMS Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group graduate student conference
Placing Orphan Films
Conveners:
Martin Johnson (Catholic U), Amanda Keeler (Marquette U), and Andy Uhrich (IU)
8am coffee & pastries
9am Category Problems
Luke Stadel (Northwestern U) Placing “Scientific” Cinema in the Pre-Nickelodeon Era
Dave Sagehorn (Northwestern U) Amateur Adjacent and Nearly Orphaned: Complications in Categorization
Ashley R. Smith (Northwestern U) Recurring Nightmares: The Shifting Ephemerality of “Exclusive” Serial Killer Interviews in America’s “Wound Culture”
10:15am coffee break
10:30am Toward a Historiography of Film’s Productive Forces, via Twin Cities Archives
Matt Levine (U of Minnesota) Films that Teach: Audio-Visual Education Services
Rachel Schaff (U of Minnesota) Tracing the Archival Function: Home Movies, Amateur Films and the Institution
Anaïs Nony (U of Minnesota) Walter Breckenridge and the Educational Nature Film of the 1950s
Jen Hughes (U of Minnesota) Media Ethnography in Practice: Sadie Benning, the Walker Art Center, and Social Capital in the Film Archive
12noon lunch
1pm Orphan Geographies
Ben Strassfeld (U of Michigan) Local Orphans: Examining the Local through Detroit Newsreels
Nate Brennan (NYU) Orphan Films or Prisoners of War? The Use of Captured Enemy Motion Pictures as Evidence and Intelligence during World War II
2:15pm break
2:30pm Future Directions
Ashley Blewer and Travis Wagner (U of South Carolina) Un-Caging the Orphan: What Intersectionality Can Teach Us about the Educational Role of Orphan Works
Brian Real (U of Maryland) Orphan Films and Digital Humanities: Bad Metadata as a Barrier to Good Research
Kit Hughes (U of Wisconsin - Madison) “It’s the Pictures that Got Small”: Incorporating Video in the Orphans Movement
3:45pm break
4:00pm Closing Thoughts
6:30pm Opening Reception IU Auditorium
8:30pm Films for Cello
Four works presented by filmmaker Bill Morrison
with live performance by Opus 3 artist and cello virtuoso Maya Beiser
Light Is Calling (2004) music by Michael Gordon
Cello Counterpoint (2005) music by Steve Reich for Maya Beiser
Just Ancient Loops (2012) music by Michael Harrison for Maya Beiser
+
world premiere of All Vows, with Michael Gordon’s music, “All Vows” (2006)
Indiana University Cinema and the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program commissioned Bill Morrison’s All Vows. The project is supported by Indiana University’s New Frontiers in the Arts & Humanities Institute.
Friday, Sept. 27 in the Indiana University Cinema
9:00am Welcome
Orphans Midwest trailer (Russell Sheaffer, 2013)
Rachael Stoeltje (IU Libraries Film Archive), Jon Vickers (IU Cinema), Dan Streible (NYU Orphan Film Symposium)
9:15am Keynote by Tom Gunning (U of Chicago)
10:00am Silent-Era Films
Mike Mashon (Library of Congress) Paper Prints in the DataCine Era
Dan Streible (NYU) Versions of "Films": Kinetoscopic and Digital
Heddi Vaughan Siebel (media artist) Anthony Fiala’s Arctic Expedition Films, 1901-1905
+ A Dash to the North Pole (Charles Urban, 1909) compilation film, with partially retitled with Swiss German intertitles. 35mm print from BFI National Archive
Greg Wilsbacher (U of South Carolina) The Fox Varieties Series: Frogland (192?) and the Unreleased A Frontier Post (1925)
11:30am break
11:45am Media Migration chair: Jeff Martin (Independent Media Arts Preservation)
Mike Casey (IU Media Preservation Services) The Media Preservation Initiative
Stefan Elnabli (Northwestern U Library) The Open-Source Avalon Media System: Digitizing 2,425 Wildcat 16mm Football Films (1929-89)
Mona Jimenez (NYU) Early Video Processing Tools: Art & Technology
1:15pm lunch
2:30pm Educational Films and University Distribution chair: Rachael Stoeltje
Alex Kupfer (NYU) University Extension Programs and Nontheatrical Film Distribution
Natasha Ritsma (Kenyon College) History of the IU Audio-Visual Center
Amy Beste (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) EB Films: The Living City (1953)
Marsha Gordon (NC State U) & Allyson Nadia Field (UCLA) On Felicia (U of California Media Center, ca. 1965) and Felicia Bragg
4:15pm break
4:30pm Indiana – Working for a Living
Donald Crafton (U of Notre Dame) and Andrew Beckman (Studebaker National Museum) Partnership of Faith (Studebaker Corp., 1949)
Gregory A. Waller (IU) a home movie from Brown County
James Paasche (IU) Transportation Underground: The Story of a Pipeline (Robert Young, for Indiana Farm Bureau Co-Op Association, 1953)
6:30pm dinner break (on your own)
8:30pm Portmanteau: 35mm, 16mm, HD, and ¼” Magnetic Audio Tape
Kit Hughes (Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research) trailers from the Emile de Antonio Collection: Millhouse: A White Comedy (1971) and the German-language Point of Order (1964)
Greg Wilsbacher introduces the premiere of the 35mm restoration A Frontier Post (Fox, 1925), musical accompaniment by Gabriel Gutierrez Arellano
Jennifer Reeves introduces her hand-painted 16mm film Landfill 16 (2011)
Albert Steg (Center for Home Movies) introduces Suitcase of Love and Shame (Jane Gillooly, 2013) and the suitcase of tapes he discovered
Q&A with filmmaker and Guggenheim Fellow Jane Gillooly (School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
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Extramural Blue Note: IU Cinema’s public programming on this Friday night includes a midnight screening relevant to the symposium, but not technically part of Orphans Midwest. Free admission for registered symposium attendees.
11:59 pm public screening (Adults only.)
Eric Schaefer (Emerson College) introduces William Mishkin productions
The Orgy at Lil’s Place (Jerald Intrator, 1963) 77’
+ trailer for Fleshpot on 42nd Street (Andy Milligan, 1972)
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Saturday, Sept. 28 in the Indiana University Cinema
9:00am Outs & Trims
Nadia Ghasedi (Washington U) from Eyes on the Prize, Henry Hampton Collection
Carolyn Faber (Kartemquin Films) from Kartemquin Films
Ken Eisenstein (Bucknell U) from the Hollis Frampton Collection
Ken Eisenstein (Bucknell U) from the Hollis Frampton Collection
Noelle Griffis (IU) from the Peter Bogdanovich Collection
10:45am break
11:00am Off the Rails: Hell Bound Train
Jacqueline Stewart (U of Chicago) and Brian Graney (IU Black Film Center/Archive) Early Black Film Artifacts as Material Evidence: Digital Regeneration
S. Torriano Berry (Howard U) Reconstructing the Eloyce Gist Film Fragments at the Library of Congress: Hell Bound Train (1929-30) and Verdict Not Guilty (1930-33)
12:30pm lunch
2:00pm Kinsey Institute Film Archive chair: Russell Sheaffer (IU)
Eric Schaefer (Emerson College) on William Mishkin and The Orgy at Lil’s Place (1963) Joseph Slade (Ohio U) and Liana Zhou (Kinsey Institute)
3:30pm break
3:45pm Recontextualizing Bits & Pieces
Greg Wilsbacher on Indiana University Graduation (Fox Movietone News, 1929)
Craig Kridel (U of South Carolina Museum of Education) Alice Keliher and the Human Relations Film Series (1937-1942)
Screening: a rare archival16mm print from the HR series:
Fury (lynching) (Human Relations Commission, 1939)
edited by Helen van Dongen
from Fritz Lang's Fury (MGM, 1936)
Andy Uhrich (IU) The Film Group of Chicago: Advertising Films and Verité Documentary
5:15pm break
5:30pm Closing Thoughts and Discussion
6pm reception + dinner, IU Art Museum
featuring Skip’s 16mm Silent Science Screening projected by Skip Elsheimer (A/V Geeks)
8:30pm Music in Orphan Films in the Indiana University Cinema
Curated by Kelli Hix
(singer/songwriter, musician, and film archivist at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)
Hix Pix Mix likely to include things such as:
Bradley Reeves (Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound): Kincaid on Makin’ Music (WBIR-TV, Knoxville, 1983)
Andrea J. Kelley (IU): Hong Kong Blues and Lazy Bones (1941, Hoagy Carmichael) IU Archive of Traditional Music
Asia Harman (IU Libraries Film Archive): Hoosier Promenade (Janet R. MacLean; IU Audio-Visual Center, 1957)
Anne Wells (Chicago Film Archives): Park Band (Hedman-Gray, Inc., ca. 1965)
Carolyn Faber (Kartemquin Films): Anonymous Artists of America (Gordon Quinn and Jerry Temaner, 1970)
Greg Pierce (Orgone Archive): Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia (Jeffrey Eger, 1971)
Garden Gates: performing live with a collage of science and nature films from IU Libraries Film Archive
Andy Uhrich (Center for Home Movies): Blanche’s Recital (Arthur H. Smith, 1977), with live accompaniment by Lylas
Kelli Hix (Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum): Super 8 Kodachrome home movie of Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, and other country music stars in Anderson, Indiana (1971)
Jake Austen (Roctober Productions): Chic-A-Go-Go highlights (Chicago Access Network Television, 1996-2013)
Skip Elsheimer (A/V Geeks): All Girl Melody Makers (Castle Films, 1946)
Sara Chapman ( Media Burn Independent Video Archive): Cheat-U-Fair (Columbia College Visual Production Seminar: Carl German, Thomas Phillips, Bruce Real, Scott Rosenthal, Marsha Rudak, Bob Schordje, and Al Stoncius; instructor Jim Passin, 1980)
Liz Coffey (Harvard Film Archive): Honky Tonk Bud (Scott Laster, 1986)
