Saara Kruus
- Cultural Heritage and Conservation
- MA
- Preservation and condition survey of 35mm black-and-white newsreels from Tallinnfilm's collection
- Tutor: Kadi Sikka
Preservation of films is a complex process involving many activities and professionals. Although several tasks ensure the preservation and high-quality digitization prior to and after scanning, the main focus of film preservation has been on the digitization. Inspired by this aspect, the master’s thesis aims to provide a thorough overview of the analogue film production chain and open the problems related to the preparation of films for digitization on the example of newsreels produced by the Tallinnfilm studio. The study of the physical condition of films also plays an essential role in identifying the limitations of a large-scale project during the preparation work and the selection of conservation methods. The theoretical part is accompanied by practical work in the Estonian Film Archive, during which I compared and analyzed 91,000 meters of film. The technical description, conservation and cleaning of the films, took place on an ongoing basis.