In the Fall of 2019, with the encouragement of Dicky Bahto, I began a roughly monthly series at Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles called Remains to be Seen. The name of the series was chosen in honor of filmmaker and friend Phil Solomon, who had died earlier that year. The idea behind the series was that as a film preservationist, I always had a bunch of prints of films to look at for work reasons. These could be newly made prints from printing or preservation projects, vintage prints I wanted to check for curatorial or archival reasons, and occasional wildcards. Since normally I’d just be looking at these prints alone at work in a small screening room, I thought how fun it would be instead to turn it into a public screening series and essentially open up these “work screenings” to a curious and enthusiastic audience. The contents of each show were to be a complete mystery, and I would introduce each film only as it was about to be projected, often giving contextual or technical info as well. At the end of the show I would actually pass out the program notes.
I did about 6 editions of this, and they were really fun and often full, and it was fun to not only share the access to these films that my work gives me, but the surprise aspect of it seemed important too, as it emphasized how surprising and special it is that we can see these films.
The pandemic put a sharp (temporary) end to it of course, and on March 30, 2020, encouraged again by Dicky Bahto, I decided to try to translate the experience to live streaming on instagram, which involves filming a 16mm projection with my phone, earbud microphone literally dangling over the Pageant projector speaker to pick up the unexpectedly good quality sound. It was only three weeks into the quarantine period of the pandemic, but like many people I was sorely missing the social contact and cultural consumption of events that normally so defined my day-to-day engagement with Los Angeles and my life. When I started the live stream on that March 30, I was really moved to see all of these names join in to watch – many familiar but many new to me – and over the ensuing weeks I felt like I had stumbled upon an unexpected way to reconnect with community, and on an even bigger scale than my little shows at the Film Center. I got to know a bunch of new people, many of whom I eventually met in person, and it was really a sort of social and emotional lifeline for me to have what became a regular Tuesday night event that a few hundred people would check out each week. And I called it Remains to be Streamed, to maintain the conceptual throughline with the original series that begat it.
Anyhow, I did the live stream pretty much every week without exception for quite a while, only having to take some breaks for a few personal events that came up. Longtime attendees will remember the projector stand I bought that only came with three legs or the unintentional “shrine” of books and knickknacks that used to sit just under the projected image in my old apartment when I first started it. It was incredibly thrilling to “discover” films new to all of us that were so exceptional and outstanding, such as Anita Thacher’s Loose Corner (1986) or the two weeks’ worth of Michael Rudnick’s films that so charmed and excited us. It’s also been really meaningful to me that some of the films getting their exposure in this live stream then got programmed in various places because curators saw them in my stream, which was the best I could hope for.
As in-person events started to get back to typical frequency and attendance in late 2022, I started to take more breaks, and by the beginning of 2023 I knew I needed an extended break. At this point, I still consider it something I do on an occasional basis, but no longer weekly, sorry. But if you follow my instagram (@preservationinsanity) you’ll definitely hear if I’m planning to do one at any point. And I’m also pleased to say that although it’s more periodic, I did revive the in-person Remains to be Seen series as well.
In March 2021, Britt Al-Busultan and Sarah Schipschack (from Filmverkstaden and Polar Film Lab, respectively) wrote me about a curatorial project and book they were putting together called when the light hits just right, themed on a celebration of analog film and all of its facets. I participated in a talk they organized, but also contributed a text to the book. I was totally uncertain about what to write about, until literally the day it was due, it suddenly occurred to me that I should write about Remains to be Streamed, not just because of its relevance to the book’s theme, but also because it seemed a nice excuse/opportunity to get some of my thoughts down about the experience of doing it. So in one dense session I wrote a 14,000 character text which I’m happy to put HERE in case you’re interested to read it.
Also, I kept mostly good track of everything I screened in Remains to be Streamed, but not 100%. A list of the “programs” is HERE, though I don’t really think of them as programs, but rather loose groupings of films I needed or wanted to look at, and that I thought it would be fun to share with other folks as enthusiastic about this stuff as I am.
LIGHTSTRUCK 