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Film preservationist wins award

By Elizabeth Packer

Jan. 28, 2008 9:01 p.m.

Director, producer, screenwriter … film preservationist?

Though the latter may seem out of place, the art of preserving and restoring film is key to maintaining and protecting cinematic history. UCLA’s Film and Television Archive, home to one of the world’s largest media collections, is at the forefront of this movement, led by preservationists like Ross Lipman.

Lipman, who has been with UCLA since 1999, was recently awarded the National Society of Film Critics’ “Film Heritage Award” for his work restoring independent films, specifically his recent work on the 1977 Charles Burnett film “Killer of Sheep.”

While “Killer of Sheep” was never widely released when it was first finished, Lipman’s restoration last year has allowed a wider audience to experience the film.

Lipman was very pleased at the recognition, especially because it brought attention to the often overlooked field of film preservation.

“(Preservationists) work behind the scenes, and that’s as it should be. Our job is not one that’s going to be in the limelight, but it’s nice when some attention can be called to the field,” he said.

Unlike art conservation, which generally involves retouching an original object, the field of film preservation requires the creation of new copies of the deteriorating film. Many older films were made using a chemically unstable nitrate film stock, which is highly flammable and will crumble into dust over time, necessitating restorative efforts, explained Nancy Mysel, one of Lipman’s coworkers at the archive.

“Preserving a film can range from copying (a film) from an unstable element like nitrate onto a polyester-based film stock, which has a longer life, to full restoration, which is what Ross did, when you’re taking multiple sources of the same film and printing them and trying, if it’s damaged, to get it to its original state for presentation,” Mysel said.

In addition to this technical aspect, film preservation contains an important research element. Since films often occur in multiple versions and forms, Lipman finds himself having to search for existing copies to compare in order to create the most authentic preserved film possible.

Lipman recalls a particularly challenging case from his career ““ the restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature, “Tille’s Punctured Romance.”

“I wound up comparing around 30 different copies of the film, of which I used 13, each of which had to be printed in a different way to get them to match with each other. Part of the work is to comb the world’s archives, bringing in elements from different countries ““ from private collectors and from institutions, comparing them for both content and image quality.”

Film preservation remains a relatively small field, one that Lipman knew for a while he wanted to work in.

“It’s the perfect way to combine my background as a filmmaker with my interest in film history,” he said.

For Lipman, who specializes in restoring independent film, “Killer of Sheep” was an ideal project, since director Burnett is a UCLA alumnus.

“Killer of Sheep,” was Burnett’s master’s thesis at UCLA. A film that depicts life in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, it has been critically lauded for its honest presentation of the area’s social conditions. However, aside from a few screenings at festivals and various colleges, the film was never widely released.

It was only last year, 30 years after Burnett made the film, that “Killer of Sheep” was distributed, a result of Lipman’s efforts and a partnership with Milestone Films, the distributor behind the movie’s release in theaters and on DVD.

“Our restoration and our partnership with Milestone Films really catapulted the film from a legend amongst film scholars to the status of a masterpiece recognized by the general public,” Lipman said.

“Killer of Sheep” was a mainstay on several of 2007’s top 10 lists of films, more success than Burnett ever dreamed.

“The film has been languishing, so to speak, for 30 years, and I never thought it would be so successful. What (Lipman and Milestone) turned it into, what it is now, it’s difficult for me to find words for in a sense,” Burnett said.

With “Killer of Sheep” completed, Lipman still has plenty of work to keep him busy. Currently, his focus is on preparing a copy of “The Exiles,” a documentary that follows a group of Native Americans who move off of a reservation and into the Los Angeles area, for its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February. On top of that are the 10 to 20 projects he has lined up, all in various stages of completion.

Just another day in the life of a film preservationist.

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Elizabeth Packer
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