The film you are watching is “The Negro Soldier,” a 1944 documentary produced by
the U.S. Army’s Special Services Division and Hollywood’s famed director Frank Capra.
The film chronicles accomplishments by African Americans throughout American history, emphasizing
their participation in U.S. armed conflicts dating from the American Revolution to World
War II. Although the order for the desegregation of the military services did not occur until
1948 and took many years to implement, “The Negro Soldier” represents an early effort
by the Army to use film to show the significant contributions of African Americans to the
U.S. war effort. In 2011 “The Negro Soldier” was chosen to be preserved in the National
Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
This film’s place in history was ensured by the specialized work of the Motion Picture,
Sound, and Video Office and the Special Media Preservation Laboratory of the National Archives
and Records Administration. We are the caretakers of one of the largest audiovisual collections
in the United States, and whether it’s footage of the Bay of Pigs invasion, sound recordings
of the interrogation of Nazi war criminals, or a documentary film on the apprehension
of Bonnie & Clyde, it’s our mission to preserve and make available to the public our government’s
historic images and sounds.
In order to see how this is done, we’ll follow the lifecycle of the classic documentary
film “The Negro Soldier,” from the time of its arrival at the Archives to its place
on the shelf of the Research Room as well as into our online catalog, where it will
be available to researchers both here in the United States and around the globe.
The processing work begins when the accession containing “The Negro Soldier” arrives
at the Archives and the film cans are unboxed.
Some government agencies send thousands of films at the same time, and other times we
only get a few. And you never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes the boxes are filled
with old, rusty, metal film cans with no identification, and other times the films are neatly packed
in a box with a full list of titles and film formats, and -- if we’re really, really
lucky – a full set of descriptions.
After initial appraisal agreements are finalized between the Archives and the federal agencies
that created them, we use our own established criteria in our evaluation of each film. This
helps us make retention and disposal decisions, for example: Does the film document important
activities of the agency? Is this a film that would exist at another library or archive?
Are important people captured in the movie? These are all the kinds of things we take
into consideration.
The first step in the processing workflow is to identify the title of the film, see
if it exists anywhere else in our holdings, gather together all the film’s elements
and label them with an identifying number that will remain with all components of the
film when it is later re-canned, shelved, and catalogued. An inventory is drawn up that
captures all this information.
What makes motion picture processing unique – and complicated – is that a single film
may not just be a single reel. A movie may often have its visuals on several reels, with
its narration and music track also on several reels. So a single film can have enough separate
components to take up one or two boxes! Now in the case of “The Negro Soldier,” we
have a film that plays out over five reels, with its soundtrack and its visuals combined
on a single strip of film.
Our film is now ready for its next destination – the Preservation Laboratory.
Welcome to the Motion Picture Preservation Lab. We have six enthusiastic staff members
with the specialized skills that enable the National Archives to preserve and protect
America’s historic motion picture collection.
To do this, we evaluate the condition of our original films, and prepare them for cold
storage so that we can keep them as long as possible. We copy to newer film stock or digital
formats when deterioration of the original puts the images at risk of being lost. Every
day, we handle films that might not exist if care had not been taken to retain and preserve
them. We work on material that covers a wide range of content and condition, from deteriorated
16mm color footage from World War II to pristine camera negatives shot for educational films
in the 1980s. Today, we’re working on The Negro Soldier.
When we inspect films, we’re looking for signs of deterioration.
We’re measuring acidity levels and shrinkage. We make repairs so that the film will be ready
to be transferred or played. Sometimes we end up spending an entire day repairing a
single reel of film. We’re also identifying the film elements so that we can make sure
that the originals are given the highest level of protection and that only duplicate copies
are available in the research room.
We inspect about 4 million feet of film a year, but even at that rate, it would take
almost 300 years for us to look at every reel in the collection.
As long as we can purchase film stock, we’ll continue to do film to film preservation.
Digital is a great tool for providing access and doing restoration work, but it’s not
a great tool for long-term preservation.
Whether we’re going from film to film or digitizing for access, there are certain steps
we always go through. For each title, we do all of the inspection and hands-on repair
of the original elements to make sure they won’t be damaged if we run them on the equipment.
For reels we’re printing, we also time them to ensure that the new copies will remain
faithful to the original copy. We clean them and then print them on our printers. We have
a wide range of printers; we have one that was made in the Thirties, one that was made
in the Fifties, and one that is relatively new to the Archives. We choose the printer
based on the condition of the original film, because the printers have different handling
capabilities. We then process the film and then do quality control to make sure that
everything has turned out the way it’s supposed to. For The Negro Soldier, we’re creating
a new film copy and a digitally restored copy.
With the film copy, we can place it on a shelf in a managed storage environment, and it will
last upwards of five hundred years. With a digital file, if it’s not managed and migrated,
it may only last up to five years.
Although we still use film stock as our primary preservation format, motion pictures are being
digitized in the lab for a variety of purposes.
When researchers ask to see films that do not already have reference copies available,
we transfer the reels on our HD scanner and make DVDs for public access. We save the files
for later use in the National Archives’ online catalog or to be posted on social media
sites. In addition, we digitize high profile titles and films that are too fragile to be
copied on our printers at greater resolutions of 2k or 4k for access and preservation.
This is our preservation-level film scanner.
It creates digital files that preserve and protect the essence and characteristics of
the film stock itself, namely the film grain, the color properties. And the saturation,
density and contrast levels that exist in the film original are carried forward to the
digital file. Now, we’ve used this equipment to scan films like The March and The Negro
Soldier which have stable film elements, but generate enough public interest to warrant
high-resolution film scanning.
This is our digital workstation. Once the reels have been scanned, we use software to
do overall density and color corrections.
We can also use restoration tools like a scratch tool and a dust tool on a scene by scene basis
if needed. Once preservation projects have been completed, we preserve the raw and the
corrected file permanently.
Now that “The Negro Soldier” has been inspected, cleaned and copied, it is ready
for its next step -- description.
We can use the digitized DVD or we can load one of the clean prints onto our flatbed
screening machine to view for description purposes without running the risk of damaging
either the film or our machinery.
Just having a title in our catalog is often not enough. Ideally, we’ll view the film
in order to enter information into ARC, our online catalog. We’ll describe the movie’s
themes, its intended audience, any important historical figures or locations that are shown,
that sort of thing. Sometimes, as was the case with “The Negro Soldier,” we’ll
receive original description in the form of shot lists or production files. All this information
can then be combined with the preservation lab’s inspection sheet data on the length
of the film: the original, reproduction, and viewing copies that now exist; and what their
formats are.
The lab’s specific information – what we refer to as the “physical holdings”
will be valuable for the researcher who reads the description online and might want to watch
or purchase the film.
Once viewed and described, our film must be secured in the proper storage area with regard
to temperature and humidity to minimize the deterioration of the film over time. Original,
reproduction, and reference copies are each stored in their own location.
Archival preservation color film is typically stored in a vault at 25 degrees Fahrenheit,
30% relative humidity. This colder temperature prevents color film from fading over time.
Our black and white reproduction copy of “The Negro Soldier,” however, will be stored
at a much warmer temperature -- 65 degrees Fahrenheit, 30% relative humidity…
…with one or more viewing copies available in our Reference Room.
Researchers who come here can view this or other films on our flatbed screeners, or watch
reference video cassettes or DVDs on our players.
In most cases, researchers can make copies by using their own equipment or by using equipment
available in the Research Room.
The access to government films that we provide at the National Archives is unparalleled.
We get researchers in from all around the world who are amazed at the availability of
our holdings.
The National Archives has now completed its work on “The Negro Soldier.” The original
film will stay preserved on our shelf with multiple copies on hand for duplication and
viewing. Its message will be saved for current and future historians, educators, and documentarians.
Anyone with an interest in this subject, or countless other subjects -- both national
and international in scope -- can visit our facility in College Park, Maryland, or access
our holdings online.