It’s easy to forget how fragile film actually is. Time, the elements, poor handling, all pose threats to the physical medium of film and thus requires someone out there to preserve and restore it for future generations to enjoy. The British Film Institute (BFI) and The Mill have created an exciting short that reminds the world about the vulnerabilities of the medium.
An exciting short about film preservation? It’s true! Thanks to clever editing, the partnership has created this video that has characters from various British movies desperately trying to outrun the degradations of the film stock before they get swallowed whole (like a live action version of Don Hertzfeldt’s “Rejected” cartoon). It’s not easy work to restore film, which requires significant time, effort, and funding, so hopefully this short will raise awareness and contributions for the BFI’s efforts. For those interested in how they did it, there’s a pretty fascinating behind the scenes video as well.
British Film Institute – Film is Fragile from The Mill on Vimeo.