Deborah Stoiber and The Sign of the Cucumber

Rochester has a number of sites that are representative of our cultural heritage, not just that of Rochesterians, but that of our nation as well.  None more exemplifies that than the George Eastman House.  An independent museum, the Eastman House is the legacy of George Eastman, founder of Kodak.  It houses one of the world’s oldest film archives, which is well known.  What is not as well known is that the it is the center of hub of schools that concentrate on film preservation and photograph conservation.

Since 2000, Deb Stoiber has been the Nitrate Vault Manager at the Eastman House.  She works to preserve the heritage to be found in these older films as well as teaching a new generation of students in film preservation and conservation.  (Interesting tidbit: the vault is no longer at the Eastman House location.  It had to be moved as the film is highly flammable and in the enclosed conditions in the vault could be disastrous not only to the collection, but the surrounding neighborhood.)

In this fun talk, Deb discusses the importance of film preservation by introducing us to a quirky little film from the early 20th century called “The Sign of the Cucumber”.  It’s a half-hour film, produced by a small troupe of actors who did it for the sheer love and joy of making films.  It’s currently in the public domain due to its production date, but not all of the films in the vault are so lucky.

Due to the quirks, flaws and nuances of our copyright system a lot of these films have become “orphaned” where the production company no longer exists, but the copyright is still in effect.  As a result, these films will most likely never be seen again.  Fortunately, Deb introduces us at the end to a number of places on the web where other public domain works can be found and you can find something new in something old..