Category: Women In Archiving

S4.3: Stephany Kim: Filmmakers of Color, Daily Activism and Pushing Boundaries to Work For a Better Future

I could fill this page and 50 more with words of praise for Stephany Kim.

I miss our lunches at Musso & Frank’s. I miss our laughs and inside baseball talks about archiving, Hollywood and Korean culture.
I never thought she would come on the podcast but finally it happened and more importantly, she came on to discuss the current situation in the US with the protests and #BlackLivesMatter and systemic oppression.
This episode is a little longer than normal (please forgive us) but I think you’ll agree that we had a lot of ground to cover.

I also want to point out that since the time of our recording, three more Black men have been lynched. 5 Black men hung from trees in just a little over a week. The police want to call them suicides.
No Black person looks at a tree and thinks: yeah, that’s how I’m gonna off myself. Just like how all the white folks used to kill my ancestors way back when.
NOT A SINGLE BLACK PERSON IN EVER.
While people protest for BLM, there are calculated publicly visible murders being carried out. Yeah.

And less and less white people are paying attention to the people who are protesting because they have the added distraction of having the US opening up again for business which (inevitably) will only lead to a lot more COVID cases.

That said…Stephany and I had an amazing conversation about what education had missed in the way of POC in film, our varied local experiences of the recent BLM protests, Karen Eruptions and what the archives world is(n’t) doing.
Check it out!
And don’t miss the bio below as well as the mad amounts of links!

Stephany Kim is a Coordinator, Restoration and Preservation at The Walt Disney Studios. She received a BA in Film Studies from Smith College and a MA in English (Media Preservation) from the University of Rochester. Her film-related interests are in the history of silent film intertitles and modern day approaches to intertitle recreation, preservation of home movies and family histories of people of color in the United States, and the celebrity image and its relation to parasocial interactions during the silent film era.

Her free time is usually dedicated to Polaroid portraitures, staring at pie designs (one of her favorite Instagram accounts is @crumbcrush), and daydreaming about fluffy animals and carne asada tacos. She is overly invested in THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF even though she doesn’t bake.
Stephany was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley and is unapologetic for her Valley Girl accent and usage of Valspeak.

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Links and references from the ‘cast

The racist history of tipping: https://afropunk.com/2018/04/the-racist-history-of-tipping/

Black crime fiction writers

Chester Himes: https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2017/fall/chester-himes-lonely-crusader-african-american-fiction-writer/

Walter Mosley: http://www.waltermosley.com/

Iceberg Slim: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/books/review-street-poison-the-biography-of-iceberg-slim-studies-the-life-of-a-pimp.html

Barbara Neely: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11/814603243/remembering-barbara-neely-a-pioneer-in-crime-fiction

Here’s a full list of Black-owned bookstores to support right now:

HTTPS://WWW.TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM/LEISURE/ARTS-AND-CULTURE/G32782756/BLACK-OWNED-BOOKSTORES/

Some ways you can show up for Black Trans Folks: http://www.tgijp.org/from-words-to-action-showing-up-for-black-trans-women.html

A collection of Black-led Queer and Trans orgs to support: https://www.bustle.com/p/32-black-led-queer-trans-organizations-to-support-22959025


And finally…for those wondering about James Wong Howe…
there actually are a few books about him! Check ’em out here:

James Wong Howe, Cinematographer
by Todd Rainsberger

James Wong Howe The Camera Eye: A Career Interview
by Alain Silver

Mo Henry: Negative Cutting, Orson Welles Restorations & Women’s Power in the Film Industry

Mo Henry!!! Mo Henry!!! She is so cool!

I wish you all could meet her and hang out with her! I hope that you get a good sense of how cool she is from this episode because she really is one of the most fun-to-hang-out-with women I have ever met.

If you had told me that we would end up being friends when I first saw her talk about her work on The Other Side of the Wind, I would’ve doubted you. She’s genuinely amazing, inspirational and….well, we could have gone on for a few hours more with other stories…

So I hope you enjoy this conversation and I hope that you read all the articles that I’m including here because they are AWESOME. Much like the magnificent Mo!

Bio:

Mo Henry is a film negative cutter acclaimed by many as one of the greatest in her field. Her works include franchise film series such as Spiderman, Batman, The Matrix, and Harry Potter, cult classics such as Mulholland Drive, The Big Lebowski, El Mariachi (uncredited) and Apocalypse Now Redux. Mo worked exclusively for many years on Clint Eastwood’s films and on all of Frances Ford Coppola’s restoration projects. More recently, she cut several of Christopher Nolan’s films such as The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Inception.  According to The Internet Movie Database, she has been a negative cutter on over 300 films, although Mo claims IMDB has many inaccuracies, missing many films that she has cut and including her on films on which she was not involved, and her ultimate total far exceeds 300. In addition, she cut a fair number of adult films under the alias Ruby Diamond. Despite her low profile she has amassed a fan base over the years, and many fans are known to stay during the final credits to see if Mo’s name appears.

She is a fourth generation Henry negative cutter, starting at Universal at 19. Her first cut feature film (uncredited) was Jaws, a film she was told (by her boss/father) was likely to be a flop, so he allowed her to train on it as a novice. She took a break from negative cutting to be a real estate agent in Beverly Hills in the eighties (with, as she describes it, “Big Hair and Big Shoulder pads”), and as a production coordinator on television commercials and rock videos.

She is left-handed, which initially made it harder for her to learn to cut negative, however, she says her obsessive-compulsive disorder works to her advantage, as it allows her to remember numbers and because she checks everything repeatedly, she has rarely made a mistake.

Mo is a Los Angeles native and a first generation American on her father’s side of the family, the Henrys having immigrated from Ireland.

LINKS:

Orson Welles’ ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ gains Oscar-winning editor, top talent

https://www.aintitcool.com/node/80117

Mo Henry: The Last of the Negative Cutters?
Negative Cutter Mo Henry’s Analog Skills Are Yet in Demand in a Digital Age

Heather Buckley: Punk Rock Production & the Preservation of Genre Materials

So very excited to welcome my excellent colleague and friend Heather Buckley to Archivist’s Alley. Not only is she a successful horror film producer but she is a writer, historian and dedicated preservationist who works with a variety of film distribution companies to create additional features on the home releases of various genre films.

I am so thrilled to know her and to be able to have her on the show to discuss issues of genre, collecting and archival work as well as what access means within the world of these valuable materials. Our discussion runs the gamut from her own film productions to exploring our feelings about westerns and masculinity to why genre and “b-films” are just as worthy of preservation and archival treatment as any arthouse or classic silent work.

Dive on in! As usual, the bio and links are below the episode and I HIGHLY SUGGEST checking them out!! There is a LOT of great stuff to read there!!!!


Heather Buckley – Producer |  NYC/NJ/LA- is a graduate of University of the Arts with a graphic design degree and an academic focus on film history and criticism. She worked for thirteen years in the New York advertising world before bringing her creative and story skills into the film world. 
The first feature she produced, Jenn Wexler’s THE RANGER, for Glass Eye Pix and Hood River Entertainment, premiered at SXSW and played numerous festivals on an international run before its limited theatrical release in NYC and LA. THE RANGER was acquired by SHUDDER and is currently available on its streaming platform as well as Amazon Prime.  Heather’s work as a film analyst and journalist spans over a decade, with bylines in VULTURE, DREAD CENTRAL and FANGORIA. Her background in SFX work includes: CIRCUS OF THE DEAD, DEAD STILL (SyFy/Sony) and WE ARE STILL HERE (MPI). 
She is currently a Blu-Ray Special Features Producer having created documentaries for Kino Lorber, Liongate/Vestron, Arrow Films and Shout Factory releases including JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, BARTON FINK, THE LONG RIDERS, SAW 10th Anniversary reissue, and ARMY OF DARKNESS. 
Heather’s background buoyed the marketing on THE RANGER, where Heather took the creative lead on grass roots engagement and social media campaigns.
Heather’s current feature slate includes projects from auteurs that span the spectrum of genre film, exemplary of her attraction to unique stories with strong, detailed visual aesthetics and a clear position in the marketplace.

Follow Heather!!! at:https://facebook.com/joe.spinell.liveshttps://www.instagram.com/_heatherbuckley/https://twitter.com/_HeatherBuckley
INSIDE at the Cannes Film Market:https://variety.com/2019/film/global/cannes-film-market-readies-third-frontieres-genre-platform-1203209691/
THE RANGER is on SHUDDER:https://variety.com/2018/film/global/amc-shudder-sxsw-the-ranger-1202978378/
THE RANGER Vinyl:http://creep-records-store.shoplightspeed.com/the-ranger-original-soundtrack.html
THE RANGER Novelization:http://www.haverhillhouse.com/product/the-ranger-by-ed-kurtz/
THE RANGER T-Shirt:https://atomiccotton.com/product/the-ranger-unisex-t-shirt/

Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez: the Minority Majority, Community Involvement & Our Plea to Stop Being a Jerk!

I am so glad that I am able to come back to the Podcast-waves with this episode.

Some things are a *little* out of date since we recorded this episode waaaaaaaaay back in April but most everything is still incredibly relevant and very very real.

I am so thrilled to have been able to have Elvia on this show. What she is doing in Irvine is so important and her drive to make sure that the future is a better place is so clear. I am incredibly impressed by this University archive and they are quite lucky to have Elvia. She is an incredible person who respects and values the voices that ask to be heard.

This is the rarest thing. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed having this conversation. ELVIA IS AWESOME!!!!!

As usual, bio is below the podcast link!

Elvia is the Assistant University Archivist at UC Irvine where she is responsible for providing physical and intellectual access to University Archives and Faculty Papers. She was previously the Processing Archivist for Latin American Collections at Princeton University. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and holds a Bachelor’s of Art in art history from UCLA. 

Michelle Caswell: Creating Archives, Making Space & Activating Records of the Now

I first met Dr. Michelle Caswell when I was at UCLA finishing my degree and I already heard how amazing she was back then.

Years later, I was lucky enough to finally get to meet Jarrett Drake in person because he was here in Los Angeles for a conference that (I think) Michelle was running and we talked a little bit about how Michelle’s perspective and work was to the things that we believed and fought for in the archiving world.

Fast forward to now.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Jarrett, Michelle and I are all still working for the same things just maybe not within the same formats or institutions and (obvs) there are many reasons for that as my podcast has shown.

I feel so grateful to have been able to sit down with Dr. Caswell and talk with her about what she does and has been doing because she is TRULY INCREDIBLE. The work that she does and the thinking that she pursues within the archives and memory field is larger than the archives and library/information world. She’s the best kind of academic: the kind who goes for access and important content over fanciness. It’s not that her work isn’t smart- it’s smart as hell!

But the fact that she produces and discusses topics and material that we can all get together on? That’s my jam!

Anyways, here’s our conversation and the bio and links are below as usual.

PLEASE check out those links!!! They are AMAZING!!

BIO: 

Michelle Caswell, PhD, is Associate Professor of Archival Studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she directs the UCLA Community Archives Lab.
She is the co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive, an online repository that documents and provides access to the
stories of South Asian Americans. She is also the author of the book Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory and the Photographic Record in Cambodia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), as well as more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles on archives, memory, and communities.

Info on the event at UCLA on 2/23 https://www.saada.org/ucla

Film mentioned in the podcast: “Lavaan” by Zain Alam https://www.saada.org/wherewebelong/lavaan 
Archivists Against:
http://www.archivistsagainst.org/
Michelle Caswell:
https://michellecaswell.org/