Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Case Study No. 1370: Meredith Reese

Meredith Reese, cataloging librarian at HBO
2:54
Meredith Reese, cataloging librarian at HBO, on her work in moving image archiving.
Tags: Meredith Reese moving image archiving Moving Image Archive News moving image archiving courses film archiving film archive moving image archive media art media art preservation HBO cataloging librarian
Added: 2 years ago
From: pmonaghan3
Views: 138

[scene opens with a young female librarian speaking directly to the camera]
MEREDITH: I'm Meredith Reese, and I work for a television and production studio archive in Los Angeles.
["What advice do you have for aspiring moving image archivists?" appears on screen]
MEREDITH: So what I would suggest to others is to keep in mind that there's always an aesthetic purpose. We are always living out the dreams and visions of all the creators that are coming for us, and the creators that are creating materials now. Along with that, there also needs to be a heavy management side, and to know the responsibilities of what that means. How to cooperate with people, how to collaborate with other, y'know, companies. Other facets.
[cut to another shot of Meredith]
MEREDITH: I would suggest to anyone to, y'know, train your eye, and train your ear. Um, keep up on current technologies. Everything in the news, every ... Even outside of our industry, in the computing world. Any type of records retention, records management, copyright issues, you name it. Uh, art movements, y'know, what's going on with experimental video. What's going on with digital remixing. What's going on with social networking. Uh, that's all going to inform our practices, and inform our aesthetic purposes. I really do think that it goes back to what the aesthetic purpose is, that our generation and the generation to come is still wanting a film-cinematic quality with their experience. And that we, even in a digital handheld environment, are still replicating that, in a way. We haven't quite, y'know, we haven't crossed over into the Bladerunner world ...
[she laughs]
MEREDITH: Of, y'know, post-apocalyptic digital images. I don't think we're there yet. I don't know when that will happen, and if that will happen, but the aesthetic that we are representing now, what we are keeping, our cinematic heritage is a very tangible thing, so find out about that. Y'know, train your eye. Know the difference between what 4K looks like versus 2K. Uh, train your ear to surround sound versus stereo, mono tracks versus other types of tracks. I mean, just learn! Go for it, jump in and know your stuff so you can train other people. Um, I think the biggest thing that I do constantly is explain what I do to people outside of the industry, and people within the industry. And I can find common ground with librarians and museum people, people that even have a tiny bit of information there. I can find common ground with film makers, actors, directors, writers who have a little bit of knowledge that way. And those are the people that we need to keep in mind. I mean, that's our audience. Y'know, the people that will give money to your non-profit or the people that are gonna buy your movie.

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From archivists.org:

The HBO Archiving Group is charged with the long-term archiving and preservation of HBO's program assets. The Group operates the HBO Materials Archive, an extensive, varied, and active archive of film, video, and audio elements that supports the network as well as HBO's production departments by receiving editorial materials for both temporary and long-term storage.

The Director is responsible for overseeing a staff of specialists, both on and off-site, handling film, tape and digital assets on a daily basis as well as engaging in long-term strategic planning for the storage, migration and conservation of our analog and digital assets.

The Director will also participate in efforts to coordinate digital archiving and metadata strategies company-wide and set the agenda for the storage, preservation and migration of both physical and digital assets into the future.

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