Welcome to my portfolio where you will find essays, projects, and internships completed during my time in the Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
I entered MIAS with a keen interest was in physical conservation and preservation. A scientist at heart, I wanted to use empirical methods to save as many moving images as possible, for as long as possible. I wasn’t content in knowing the five different stages of nitrate decay; I wanted to understand this transformation at the molecular level. My interest in the physical medium of celluloid film was rooted in five years of experience as a camera assistant in film and television. Working in the industry during the dramatic transition from film to digital gave me a profound respect for the physical medium of film.
At UCLA, courses such as Professor Ellen Pearlstein’s Issues and Problems in Preservation of Heritage Materials allowed me to develop this interest in physical preservation as it applies to a wide range of other materials including rare books, photographs, and audio materials. I was able to investigate the best strategies for preserving collections containing a variety of media, as well as how to implement emergency preparedness and response plans. Outside of the classroom, professional development opportunities, particularly the AMIA conferences, allowed me to keep up with the latest in scientific and technical research from places such as the Image Permanence Institute and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following a multi-year study funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, researchers at UW-Madison concluded that nitrate film becomes less volatile as it decays, opposite of what was previously held true. I am excited about the implications of this new data and other discoveries and developments that continue to take place in our field.
Dino Everett’s Moving Image Archiving: History, Philosophy, Practice course expanded my conceptions of archival work and the wide variety of skills and tasks required to keep an archive up and running. Through courses on topics such as cataloging, access, and management, I understood how interconnected each discipline is to one another. I could see how the pieces of specialties in our field fit together and how dependent they were on one another. No longer content in how narrow my interests and focus were, I desired the knowledge necessary to successfully fill several of these roles.
Interning at large institutions such as the Academy Film Archive and UCLA’s Film and Television Archive I saw how this environment allowed archivists to become highly specialized experts in their chosen field. Entering the program, this was the path I intended on taking. Yet the multiple roles and adaptability required of an archivist at smaller institutions is very appealing to me. As a matriculated Moving Image Archivist, what now interests me most is assisting smaller institutions—such as regional archives, local museums, or special collections— whose moving image departments are either non-existent or in need of a major overhaul.