Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2012 - (Page 28)

Preserving the Golden Interview with Brian Meacham, Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, Brian Meacham didn’t have access to a lot of art ﬁlms or foreign ﬁlms, but those he did see left a lasting impression on him. He concentrated in ﬁlm as an English major at Amherst but wasn’t sure of his career path. Then, during graduate school in library science at Simmons College, he took an internship—and after graduating, a job—at the Harvard Film Archive. Working with the physical medium of ﬁlm, he realized that he held in his hands not just a historical record, but an art form that future generations should have the chance to enjoy, even in the digital age. Why is it important to preserve film? Film is the dominant art form of the 20th century. Films tell the stories people were thinking about, struggling with, and dreaming up at any given point in our history since the late 1890s. At the same time, and almost more interestingly, films often unconsciously capture how we looked, how we acted, how we spoke, in a way that may have seemed obvious and unremarkable to those doing the walking, talking, and wooing but is fascinating to everyone since. To subsequent generations, films can be like a wormhole straight to another era. How did you come to work at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? At the Harvard Film Archive, my work included inspecting film prints, making sure that the label on the can matched what was actually inside, and making sure that the films were in screenable condition. I didn’t have much film-handling experience, though, so if something didn’t look right, I would have to talk to someone else about how to fix it. I wanted to gain experience in film inspection, film handling, and film repair, so I applied and was accepted to the Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman House in New York, one of three film archiving education programs in the U.S. At the end of that program, I landed a job as the public access coordinator at the Academy Film Archive. This is one of the larger archives in the country, with one of the best collections of film pertaining to the Academy Awards, among many other films. My job was to facilitate the screening of prints from the collection, to 28 imagine tHInkStoCk Mar/Apr 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2012

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2012
Big Picture
In My Own Words
Theater Bound
Art Song
Out of My Head
Playwright’s Journal
Play(wright) in Progress
For All Time
My Life in Felt and Foam
Preserving the Golden Past of the Silver Screen
An Actor and a Critic
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Broadcom MASTERS
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2012