Mediageek Can Never Get Enough Pirate Radio

Last night I finally watched Pirate Radio (a/k/a The Boat That Rocked) on HD pay-per-view, as it seems I can never make it into a regular movie theater these days. I quite enjoyed this romp through the short life of a fictional 1960s UK pirate radio ship, inspired by the infamous Radio Caroline. While the film exaggerates things for drama and laughs, it nevertheless does a good job at illustrating the significance of pirate rock ‘n roll radio to a nation whose mainstream government-run media was stuck in a rigid cultural torpor, utterly in denial of rock’s brewing revolution. And it does this without sanctimony or excessive sentimentality.

Just before watching Pirate Radio I realized that yesterday was also the 46th anniversary of Radio Caroline, which didn’t meet its fate quite as dramatically as the fictional movie ship. Then today I stumbled upon a very good short documentary about the contemporary London pirate radio scene. Altogether I was inspired to write my newest piece for Radio Survivor on UK Pirate Radio, Now and Then:

What many probably don’t realize is that pirate radio is still going strong in the UK, especially in big cities like London. Contemporary pirates are also inspired by the fact that the BBC still doesn’t play a lot of cutting edge popular music, which these days means electronic music and British forms of hip-hop….

Rocket Blower, I Love You

Seems that photography is a topic the moves me to write at the ‘geek. So let me get in a quick post about a simple little device that has blown me away, pun intended.

I’ve been shooting, developing and scanning my own black and white film for about two years now. And one of the biggest problems with the DIY method is dust on my negatives. I’ve tried all sorts of methods to keep it at bay. The one that worked the best was canned air, but it’s not particularly environmentally friendly.

Then I heard that a number of DIY photographers swear by Giotto’s Rocket Blower, which is a completely analog solution, if you will. Really, it’s just a big hand-operated bulb blower shaped like a rocket so you can easily set it down.

I’ve had this roll of film that I did a horrible job of developing and drying. I was in a rush and wasn’t careful and just botched it badly. When I first went to scan it the negative was so dirty and messed up that I got too frustrated only got about half-way through. Finally, today I decided to give the rest of the roll another shot wiping it down with an anti-static cloth and blowing off dust with the Rocket Blower.

Holy crap! This neg turned out as clean as anything I’ve ever scanned myself. I had to clone out only a few specs of dust in Photoshop. Pre-Rocket Blower I would have to spend several minutes hunting down specs and tiny hair-like dust particles.

It’s also great for cleaning keyboards or anything where you need to blow some dust out easily, but careful. In that way it’s better than canned air because you have much more control and are less likely to blow dust into something delicate when cleaning electronics. It’s nice to discover that sometimes the simple things work best.

LoC Digitizing and Preserving the Nation’s Motion Picture Legacy

Who knew the Library of Congress has a robotic system for the automated digitization of VHS and 3/4″ Umatic videocassettes? I sure didn’t, but I’m glad I took a last-minute opportunity yesterday to learn about the LoC’s film and video digitization and preservation facilities and efforts as part of an event on the Northwestern campus (where I work) called Screen Cultures: A Symposium on Moving Image Collections and Historiography.

I was only able to attend one panel featuring NYU historian Dan Streible, organizer of the Orphan Film Symposium, and the LoC’s head of the Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Mike Mashon. Streible discussed how preserved and digitized film materials helped him research his book Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema. He emphasized how having access to higher-quality and resolution copies reveals details that help construct a more accurate history. Streible also noted that the existence of multiple copies in different formats tells stories about the intended purpose and audience for a film. For instance a 16mm copy of what was originally 35mm film may indicate that it was distributed for small-venue or even home screenings.

I was reminded about the existence of paper prints of early motion pictures that were made prior to 1912 when copyright law didn’t cover movies. In effect, creating these prints was a way for early studios to hack the copyright system, since only works that could be fixed on paper could be copyrighted. Thus, studios submitted these huge rolls of paper contact prints of their films to the Library of Congress so they would enjoy copyright protection.

In his presentation Mike Mashon showed off the digitizing and preservation resources housed at the new Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpepper, VA. There they have a specialized Kinetta Scanner (PDF: “Preserving Early Motion Picture History with the Kinetta Archival Scanner“) that digitizes the paper prints at a rate of 4 frames per second. Before this device was available, preservation and duplication had to be done by hand, photographing the prints frame-by-frame. Amazingly, the digitized paper prints can then be output back to optical film.

The LoC is digitizing all of their video and film assets using a lossless version of the Motion JPEG2000 codec. Unlike common video codecs like DV, AVCHD, H.264 and DVCProHD, the one the LoC is using throws away no image data, with only a moderate amount of lossless compression in order to shrink the data size. This means the LoC is retaining as much video quality as their digitizing equipment can capture, but it also means they’re storing a massive quantity of data. According to Mashon their data center is able to archive 8 petabytes on tape, with a copy on spinning discs for regular access.

In addition to the full quality MJPEG2000 files, the LoC is creating so-called “access” files for use by the public in MPEG2 (the same codec in DVDs). They’re moving to creating MPEG-4 files, which are more bandwidth efficient.

It was reassuring to learn that despite all this digitization the LoC plans on retaining and preserving original films, even ones on volatile nitrate stock, as long as they remain usable. However, when asked about retaining videotapes, Mashon acknowledged that space will become an issue and holding onto magnetic tape will be a lesser priority. One very practical reason for this is that videotape degrades more quickly than film or paper, often becoming unplayable in as little as twenty years.

The LoC makes digitized materials available for viewing in its reading room on Capitol Hill. I learned that members of the public can request materials to be digitized for viewing. If the material is in the public domain or licensed for distribution you can even take a copy home, provided you bring media suitable for copying it.

I can only imagine the cost of this enormous preservation effort, but I’m very glad that such investment is being made in retaining these valuable documents of our historical and cultural legacy.

Film’s not dead, either

Oh, no. I’m not ready to give up on the anti-planned-obsolescence rant just yet…

The world of photography has been much less chaotic than the worlds of audio and video over the last century. There’s really only been one significant technological disruption–from film to digital. Yes, there have been multiple formats of film over the century, but they mostly boil down to differences in size. But it is nevertheless the case that you can still buy new film for the vast majority of film cameras made since 1909.

Digital, of course, was supposed to be the death knell of film, but things didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, digital photography sparked new public interested in photography as an art and hobby, which ended up leading a lot of folks back to film. Like the vinyl LP vs. CD debate, there are plenty of passionate photographers ready to argue that one or the other is inherently superior. As one of those people who never took a strong interest in photography until getting my first digital camera, my perspective is that is has less to do with better than different–qualitatively different.

Still, the film business isn’t at all like it was a decade ago, when digital cameras were $1000+ investments yielding the kind of resolution you now get from a $10 keychain digicam from the drugstore. But there still is a film business.

The Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle recently published a story about a local business you might have heard of, that’s still hanging on to the film business: Kodak. The article quotes Kodak’s marketing manager for professional film, Scott R. DiSabato:

“We call it the ‘and’ world,” DiSabato said. “We know the professional use will be significant enough the next couple years, we’ll get the investment (into those film lines) back.”

In fact, Kodak introduced a new color film formulation this past year, a time when film still makes up a third of the company’s gross revenue.

Again, I’m not arguing against technological innovation. I have nothing against digital cameras, and I own several. I also own a pile of film cameras (that I picked up for next to nothing). I’m just pointing out again that obsolescence is a business process and a social process. That is, there’s nothing inherent in film that should make it obsolete, so much as that the combination of the need to find new products to sell, the fact that some of these new products actually do offer new and significant benefits and a social shift to embrace that new technology.

The social element is important–Kodak is still making and selling film because people are buying it and using it. They’re finding value in it, whether it’s due to nostalgia, the belief that it is superior to digital, an affinity for film’s aesthetics, or simply because using disposable film cameras when you need them makes more sense than dumping several hundred bucks into a digital cam.

If people choose not to accept the supposed inevitability of obsolescence in significant numbers, then we can interfere with that process. Moreso than with VHS videotape, film has a certain unavoidable market dynamic — someone has to manufacture the film stock and developing chemicals if the medium is to stay alive. I’m certain that the medium can survive even with smaller “boutique” manufacturing, but film’s not something the vast majority of people are going to be able to make at home. So a certain critical mass of buyers and users has to be maintained to keep film viable as a non-obsolete, if niche, technology.

Videotape, on the other hand, is reuseable. Certainly if all manufacture were to stop today eventually the tapes in use now would eventually wear out. But the true death of the medium would come more slowly than if film were to be no longer manufactured.

As (electronic and chemical) media makers we are still dependent on a consumer economy, but that doesn’t mean we are utterly subject to its whims, nor without feedback mechanism. We do not have to buy up every new so-called innovation because it’s supposed to be better, nor do we have to abandon a technique, method, medium or tool just because the industry, press or blogosphere now declares it dead. In fact, fantastic personal innovation, ingenuity and creativity can be sparked in the continued embrace, or reembrace of a reportedly obsolete technology. Whether it’s audiocassette, VHS, film, vinyl LP, laserdisc, minidsc, 8-track or daguerreotype, it’s not dead for you until you don’t want to use it any longer.

Thanks to Ken Rockwell, the most entertaining photography writer on the internet, for pointing me to the Kodak article. For more about practical, technological and qualitative strengths of film, read Ken’s essay, “Why We Love Film.”

Saturday Is Home Movie Day

Dig into your closets, attics and garages and rescue your old home movies. They deserve better than that. They need to be preserved, archived and seen!

Home Movie Day is an annual event in service of celebrating and educating people about the cultural and historical value of their old home movies, especially ones on film. With a little bit of care and proper storage analog film home movies can last generations, possibly outlasting the digital photos, VHS videotapes and web movies that have come to supplant this medium.

The day is celebrated with viewing and educational events in cities around the world. Here in Chicago the Chicago Film Archives are hosting three hours of home movie inspection–where you can get your old films assessed for damage and preservability–followed by a viewing program with live musical accompaniment at 6 PM.

My pal Jimi Jones organizes the Home Movie Day in my old home base of Champaign-Urbana, IL. This year it will be held at the Urbana Free Library. Beginning at 10 AM they’re having a film clinic, where you can get your film looked at and learn how to preserve it, with screenings beginning at 11 AM.

Jimi has made two appearances on the radioshow to talk about Home Movie Day and the important value of preserving these cultural records.

I can’t stress how critical I believe it is to invest just a little time and effort into preserving the media we create, both to honor the act of creation, and for the sake of history and record. As an educational media technologist I have worked with too many faculty, students and researchers who have lost forever important media works that could have easily been preserved with a little bit of planning and time. Don’t let you memories fade away.