Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Monday, November 14, 2022
A mysterious machine in a Syracuse warehouse keeps old movies alive. It’s the last of its kind in the world
syracuse.com: The machine in the attic of the Delavan Center is nobody’s friend.
It is loud and crabby, and deeply mysterious. It is not allowed to fraternize with the more efficient machines in the letterpress company hangar on the floor below.
It’s extremely interesting to me that this machine is one of the last of its kind. Being the only one of its kind makes it super valuable to the film industry, especially if there’s nowhere else to get the film this machine produces. Having been made by Kodak in the 1950s, it is surprising that this machine has lasted as long as it has. I admire Urbanski for keeping it working and continuing to sell its film that it makes. Even though it doesn’t really make a profit anymore, and is such a hassle to take care of, it is important to preserve because it will save the dying art form of film television and movies. However, a paper jam needed 3 months to repair, I can see how this machine can become tedious and hard to use, especially when the past owners gave up on this machine. I hope that Urbanski and his family help to keep it running for a while, so that this art form can be preserved and continually used.
This machine is incredible to me. It's like if the Adeptus Mechanicus was trying to make a film company. The fact that this is a one of a kind machine for an extremely specific task is mind blowing to me. The fact that the maintenance, operation, and repair of this weird machine is more or less oral tradition is also incredible. I'm sure that notes from the current/previous operators does exist somewhere at this point. But it definitely helps reinforce that lost tech kind of feel to it. You can almost imagine someone receiving it and being unsure whether they should dissect it to document how it works for fear of accidentally damaging it.
One point in the video that was interesting to me is that there is a little hammered metal box, seen at 0:58, with a marker and several other components. I'm unsure why you would want to store them loosely on top of a very old, one of a kind machine. But I guess you work with this thing long enough that you can even get careless with something like this.
2 comments:
It’s extremely interesting to me that this machine is one of the last of its kind. Being the only one of its kind makes it super valuable to the film industry, especially if there’s nowhere else to get the film this machine produces. Having been made by Kodak in the 1950s, it is surprising that this machine has lasted as long as it has. I admire Urbanski for keeping it working and continuing to sell its film that it makes. Even though it doesn’t really make a profit anymore, and is such a hassle to take care of, it is important to preserve because it will save the dying art form of film television and movies. However, a paper jam needed 3 months to repair, I can see how this machine can become tedious and hard to use, especially when the past owners gave up on this machine. I hope that Urbanski and his family help to keep it running for a while, so that this art form can be preserved and continually used.
This machine is incredible to me. It's like if the Adeptus Mechanicus was trying to make a film company. The fact that this is a one of a kind machine for an extremely specific task is mind blowing to me. The fact that the maintenance, operation, and repair of this weird machine is more or less oral tradition is also incredible. I'm sure that notes from the current/previous operators does exist somewhere at this point. But it definitely helps reinforce that lost tech kind of feel to it. You can almost imagine someone receiving it and being unsure whether they should dissect it to document how it works for fear of accidentally damaging it.
One point in the video that was interesting to me is that there is a little hammered metal box, seen at 0:58, with a marker and several other components. I'm unsure why you would want to store them loosely on top of a very old, one of a kind machine. But I guess you work with this thing long enough that you can even get careless with something like this.
Post a Comment