Digital Film Restoration

The focus of my senior thesis is on digital film restoration. Digital restoration is a complex process done through a computer program that requires training to master. A film technician works on the film and the restorer is present to supervise the work to keep the film looking as close to the original as possible. From the sources I have found, digital restoration is expensive and I am curious to find out what makes it expensive. What type of training and work goes into digital restoration and who’s involved. I am going to explore and possibly email interview several archives that practice digital restoration and discover what types of technology and methods they use. Find out which of the archives are more technologically advanced. I will focus on a few select archives in the U.S. such as IPI, George Eastman Museum, NYU, and UCLA. Case studies are going to be a big part of my thesis, I’m going to use films that have already been digitally restored and ones that are in need of being digitally restored. I want to be able to answer the question of what qualifies a film to be digitally restored or traditionally restored?

Close Readings

Ever since high school, I have been told to always use academic sources for any paper but never taught until college how to properly close read an academic source. Most times I’m skimming readings and only retaining most of the information. While reading the two sources I found, I was focusing on finding arguments and evidence that pertained to my thesis topic and looking past the fluff in the sources. I have learned that academic sources are structured in an organized way with sub-topics. Finding important information is easier with academic sources than a website. 

From research methods, I have learned how to recognize citation formats and what type of formats are best suited for certain types of papers. I have also formed the habit of looking over the citations to see where the author found their information and possibly visit some of their sources. The two academic sources I found were both on the topic of digital film restoration and both used interviews as their main source of information. I found that a lot of quality information came from the interviews since it is straight from the source and not another academic article. One source interviewed multiple archives in Europe to compare restoration techniques. The other source interviewed a restoration technician on his background in film. I ended up getting better information from the source that interviewed the technician. His stories were more personable and interesting, he told details about movie studios that aren't normally mentioned such as how they used to store their films; in a storage room with a hole in the roof and no temperature and humidity control. I find that interviews have less dry information than other types of research methodologies. 

TURCI, ARIANNA. "The use of Digital Restoration within European Film Archives: A Case Study." The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 6, no. 1 (2006): 111-124.

Belton, John. "Getting it Right: Robert Harris on Colour Restoration." Film History: An International Journal 12.4 (2000): 393-409. ProQuest. Web. 10 Oct. 2017.

Mi Historia so far

For my senior thesis I am focusing on an online oral history exhibit. This exhibit will focus on young, adults of Latin descent in Rochester, specifically on their immigration stories. I hope that by allowing the narrative to be held by those whose stories these are that we can shift the power narrative. Often times when we hear about immigrants in our political climate it is nothing but negative and often false ideas of what it means to be an immigrant. I also hope that this project will help educate people and maybe open their eyes a little bit more. The reason I am focusing on young adults ages 18-25 is because we hold the future in our hands. Everything that is happening in the US right now, all of the legislation and rhetoric, is going to directly affect this specific group of people for the foreseeable future, so their stories should be told loudly and proudly. Although I am focusing on young adults in Rochester at the moment, I hope to expand this project later on to include a wide variety of people from all over the country. This story is an important one to tell, especially for me as an immigrant myself.

Relationships Within Artpark and the Question of Its Success as a Democratic Art Space

For my senior thesis project, I intend to develop a relational database of the artists in residency at Artpark throughout its history. I will map out and visualize the network of connections between artists, staff, and the museums and art institutions these artists passed through both prior to and after their time at Artpark. A broad goal of this project would be to better understand the complex interpersonal and institutional relationships involved in the network and how it has evolved over time.

To compile information, I will use annual visual arts program catalogs from the Burchfield-Penney's Artpark Archival Collection as well as other easily accessible, inventoried materials including media releases, surveys, and administrative employee credentials. For example, from the surveys it is possible to tell which artists recommended other artists to come to the park, and from employee credentials it is possible to discern how the staff’s outside institutional relationships may have influenced the network of artists over time. Another dimension we are interested in would be determining the relationship between artists who were selected for the “major project” category (formed for avant-garde artists) and the "crafts" category and how the balance in the numbers between each category has changed over time.

An extensive historical chronicle of Artpark and its significance among outdoor sculpture park has been conducted through the former UB gallery exhibition “Artpark 1974-84.” The thesis for this contextualized Artpark as "a radical experiment in artist-public interaction and site-specificity that successfully balanced a populist mission with the creation of experimental art”(Firmin 2010).  According to curator Sandra Firmin, the park welcomed artists of diverse backgrounds and allowed them to experiment with art in a spectacular geographic and mythic location. By uncovering the complex network of relationships between chosen artists, staff, and outside institutions, my working research question will be to determine to what extent Artpark adhered to its populist principles. To what extent was Artpark turly the democratic arts program it aimed to be?


Artpark 1974-1984

Firmin, Sandra Q. Artpark 1974-1984. Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.

Senior Thesis Description

My senior thesis project is focused on creating an exhibit that shows the role Rochester played in World War 1. This is not just about the service members who went off and fought in Europe, but also the people who made weapons and equipment used on the Western Front. My goal is to tell the untold stories of the Rochester war machine that worked through the war aiding the Americans who were fighting in Europe. I want to focus on the response of the city and how fast the local industries were able to adapt for war and the hesitation of the citizens willing to join, at first, when they discovered America was at war. I want to tell this story so that people can have a glimpse into what happened when Rochester answered the call to war. I hope that with this exhibit I will be able to tell the modern day citizens of Rochester the acts of bravery and ingenuity that the cities inhabitants had during WW1 and how that can translate to today.

I will be able to gain help from the local Military History Society of Rochester to gather information on much of what I will need for the exhibit. I will also use the R.I.T. Archives to gather further information on what the school did during the war and which members of the student body joined the military and whether or not they came home.

Doing History in Corporate America: A Case Study of the Eastman Kodak Archives

My initial idea for my senior thesis project was to create a online exhibit about the Kodak Camera Club (KCC), using materials from the archive at the Eastman Kodak Company that I helped to build for my internship, as well as oral history interviews with former KCC members. Since my last update, my topic has not changed much, but I have been in contact with several individuals at Kodak who have helped me shape and narrow the scope of the project. As of right now, my research question is: How can museum and archival practices be applied to corporate settings (such as the Eastman Kodak Company), and what unique legal, ethical, and practical considerations need to be made when creating an exhibit by and for a private company? I will work with Kodak's marketing department, which is in charge of the newly-created archives, to create an exhibit about the history of the KCC, which at its height in the 1950s and 60s had thousands of members across all Kodak departments.

I am still working to hone in on a concise topic, but my discussions with Matt Stouffel at Kodak have helped me to decide how I want to approach this project, and I look forward to continuing to develop my ideas!

The Ideal Public Servant

Museums are not the ideal public servants that they proclaim to be. More so, I believe that their idea of what constitutes an ideal public servant is faulty or incomplete; even if operating under their parameters of defined success in public servitude. I believe one better proponent and institutional role model of public service is the Rochester Public Market.

In my thesis, I would like to delineate the parallels between museums (that operate alongside AAM guidelines) and the Rochester Public Market (a cultural institution with a high level of public appeal and influence; through analyzing current and past histories and regulations of both. In addition I would identify and synthesize the major reasons and methods of operation that garner the Rochester Public Markets success in revitalization and propagation of diverse economies and public congregation. The Rochester Public Market, for example, has a large amount of teens and culturally diverse audiences flowing through their gates every week; categories of audiences that museums often have trouble reaching. The Public Market also implements many public events/programs to foster a broad community engagement; something that I haven’t seen in many other museums.

Ultimately, working off of accumulated research and conclusions, create a proposal for techniques and other operations that museums could implement to achieve higher success in audience engagement, visitation, and learning; creating a memorable experience. 

Native Peoples of the Americas, Redux: The Plan

Every thesis, or any research project, for that matter, begins with a working research question.  Now, this question may change and develop as research progresses and new information is brought to light or new ideas form, however, it helps to begin with a fairly concrete idea.  In the case of my thesis, this idea was that the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) history exhibits seem out of place, both within the museum’s mission and their physical space.  To narrow this down further, the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit appears especially outdated (both in terms of theme and method of display) and incongruous when compared to other parts of the museum, even its fellow history exhibits.  This leads me to ask the following question.  In what ways can Native Peoples of the Americas be altered or redesigned to better fit with the RMSC’s mission, both present and future, and visitors’ expectations for the museum and their experience within it?

In order to answer this question, I will need to conduct research in three different areas. To begin, I will review the existing body of literature on the history of display and representation of Native Americans in science museums in order to better understand the history of this practice, as well as how other museums are adapting/changing their Native American exhibits to bring them in line with both their current missions and modern understandings of native culture.  I will then interview key members of museum staff to gain insight into what they view the future direction of the RMSC as a whole to be, and what changes they might envision for the exhibit moving forward.  Next, I will survey visitors to this exhibit about their visit experience within the exhibit, how they feel this experience fits into their overall experience at the RMSC, and what changes could occur to the exhibit to improve their experience.

The end result of this research will be a set of recommendations for the exhibitions and curatorial staff of the RMSC, synthesized from all three sources of research, regarding how best to alter and/or redesign Native Peoples of the Americas, if and when it becomes a priority to do so in the near future.

Thesis Update: Independent Study and a Slight Change of Focus

        As noted in my last post, I spent the spring semester completing thesis work required for my Fine Art Studio degree, which meant that I would have to finish my Museum Studies thesis as an independent study course this semester, under the advisement of Dr. Decker. The completion of my BFA degree went well, but I still didn’t have much of a break after the semester ended; I was selected to present on the Uncommon Press at this year’s meeting of the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM), and accordingly continued working on my thesis in May and June, albeit with a shifted focus. 

        Originally, I intended to examine original or reconstructed objects which can be found in various cultural institutions, such as the press, through a lens which combines object-based, interactive-based, and interpretive-based educational lenses. For the conference presentation, however, and ultimately for my actual thesis, I decided that it would instead be more beneficial to focus on the way in which such objects can be utilized as touchstones for STEM education.

Daniel Krull presenting at ALHFAM 2017
(Photo courtesy of Dr. Juilee Decker)

        At this point, I've turned in my first in-progress draft, which has been edited by both my readers - Dr. Decker and Dr. Steven Galbraith, curator of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. I'll soon be submitting the next iteration, which will include an expanded and edited section about applications of STEM educational standards, and an updated literature review, which will be better-aligned with my updated focus. Once I've turned in this new version, I'll also be writing a new blog post. I'm planning to outline some of the actual ways in which I correlated the Uncommon Press and its use to STEM education and common core standards, so stay tuned.