Rare IU film collection digitized

With the digitization of 129 rare and out-of-print films from the Lilly Library's David S. Bradley Film Collection, IU students, faculty and cinephiles have received an early holiday gift. \nBradley, a Hollywood director and fanatical film collector, bequeathed his collection of 3,200 16mm films to IU in 1997. Shortly thereafter, current director of IU's Digital Library program Kristine Brancolini decided digitizing the 16mm films not available commercially in DVD format was a necessary measure. \n"There is a portion of the collection that you simply cannot buy on DVD, and so the idea was to have a DVD copy of every film in the collection so you don't have to use the 16mm films," Brancolini said. \nWith funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Brancolini and collection processor and cataloguer Rachael Stoeltje began the task of transferring the films from 16mm format to DVD in July 2004. Almost exactly one year later, the project was complete.\n"We didn't want a poor quality transfer, so we hired a vendor ... to do the conversion," Brancolini said. "We wanted the films to be professional-level quality so that they could be screened in a professional manner."\nAlthough the process cost $425 per hour to transfer the films to DVD, Stoeltje said she believes the price was worth it. \n"By digitizing the films, we have improved access to these unique and otherwise unavailable films to the students, faculty, Bloomington community and, through interlibrary loans, the rest of the country," Stoeltje said. \nTo view the films before digitization, patrons had to use a special screening machine and the films were accessible only at IU's campus. Now that the films have been transferred to DVD, access has become simpler -- especially for professors.\nGregory Waller, chairman of the communication and culture department, who teaches Silent American Cinema and Hollywood Films of the 1930s, said he believes the process was of vital importance to his classes.\n"This is a first-rate collection that deserves to be used," Waller said. "Digitizing the material makes it much more available for students and scholars alike."\nProfessor Chris Anderson, who teaches a class on the history of Hollywood and American culture, said the digitization of the films provides a rare opportunity for his students and creates a cinematic experience that is unique to IU. \n"When films aren't available to the public, they're essentially dead. By making so many titles in the collection available in digital format, the project has brought these films back to life," he said. "My students have seen feature films that even many film scholars have never seen, such as director Ernst Lubitsch's 'So This is Paris?'"\nBesides aiding the study of cinema, the digitization of the collection has also benefited the Bloomington community, as DVD copies of the Bradley films have been used by The City Lights Film Series and the Buskirk-Chumley Theater's Golden Age of Hollywood series. The 16mm films are stored in an off-campus facility where the temperature is set to 50 degrees Fahrenheit and a constant relative humidity of 30 percent is maintained. Each viewing of the 16mm films carries the risk of damage to the film, a threat that Brancolini said she no longer has to worry about with DVDs. \nSome rare gems buried within the collection include the work of Dorothy Arzner, one of the first successful female directors; a short silent film series titled "Perils of Pauline," which was previously considered to be lost; and a 1941 version of "Peer Gynt" directed by Bradley himself -- notable for the screen debut of a 16-year-old Charlton Heston. Augmenting the collection are the works of such legendary directors as Tod Browning, Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille and F.W. Murnau. \nWith the project now complete, Brancolini said she is pleased with the results and is looking forward to the benefits of having the collection available in DVD format. \n"I'm so glad that these films will be used more widely on campus and within the community and that they will enhance access to such a unique and rare collection," she said.