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Hi Mike: No, Unfortunately the Eastman House is not doing anything regarding archiving these types of programs. I think for several very understandable reasons: A huge percentage of these programs were proprietary - used for huge sales meetings and trade shows to release new product lines to sales people within the company or distributors. Like Apple releasing the first Macintosh with a program called "Blue Busters" (a takeoff on Ghost Busters - Apple busting "Big Blue" aka IBM), or Saab releasing the new (back then) 900 line, titled "Saab 900". Since many of the really big budget shows were for corporate presentation, it would be tough to get companies to release these privately owned programs. How many people are really interested in preserving them? I for one would be, but I'm in the small minority. There is not a lot of money to be recouped from trying to preserve a multi-image slide presentation. The funds at many institutions are very tight. When money does become available it is most often used for preservation of high-brow or more well-known media that a large percentage or people can identify with, know about, and would be interested in helping to support, or paying money to see, or is viewed by people as a more valuable or important asset. How do you recreate a multi-image program digitally and project it with the same effect, the look would really not be the same. Also, part of the wonder of watching a multi-image slide presentation is watching all those projectors firing away, hearing the clicking of the advancing slides and just shaking your head thinking how mad it was that it even worked. The few programs of note that would be worth taking a stab at resurrecting and preserving are in rough shape. I've talked to many of the old "well known" producers and owners of the past large production companies. The few shows they have kept are stored in garages and old warehouses. Mothballed away because they were so significant at the time and cost so much to produce that the people who produced them, loved them, and could not see throwing them out. But in most cases they did not store them properly. Fading and mold would be just a couple of the issues facing poorly stored slides. Richard mentions "The New York Experience". I remember seeing this program with my dad, then going back to see the projectors all firing away and watched in wonder. My dad was with Kodak for 35 years in the motion picture/audiovisual division and worked with people who produced such programs. Also Richard mentioned some great presentations used at National Parks. Kodak also produced many widescreen multi-image programs that were glorious wonders of photography and took you all over the world. These were used as promotional image pieces and toured the globe helping to promote Kodak. Donna Lawrence productions produced an amazing 360 degree slide presentation that ran as a fixed display for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. There was even a 24 projector show that ran as a fixed display on the Queen Elizabeth II (I have one of the slide projectors taken from the ship before the Cunard line retired her). All of these are noteworthy and would be worth preservation, but they were either fixed displays or touring displays. Even if a working copy was available, the slides got to a point of being so faded that they would be hard to bring back to their former full-color glory without a lot of work. And I wonder how many surviving audio tapes used to run the programs would have been in even decent shape. AMI - the Association for Multi-Image, which I was a member of for many years before it went defunct, had a national competition every year. Shows from all over the world were submitted. Any shows that won awards had Ariel Image transfers made of them to share with anyone in the AMI community who wanted to rent them out. This would be worth investigating to see who were the leaders of the organization prior to closing up shop, and who had the tape masters of the shows. Could they be had and if so, make arrangements to get them converted to digital format. At least the stories and the content could be saved. Several years back at my 25th reunion, there was talk of doing just that, but everyone got busy and nothing became of it. I'd still think I'd like to pursue this and should. I'm glad this posting came about so that I can again put this up a front burner. As a side note, many of these shows could be classified as moving image presentations. Many times we used a fat back that held a large roll of 35mm slide film on a Nikon 35mm still camera with a motor drive, to shoot moving image sequences. When you cycle these sequences these through 15 or more slide projectors - the likeness of motion picture film movement is close, with a different effect, but still amazing (and much cheaper than hiring a film crew and the equipment). I have a collection of these shows that I will post on Vimeo sometime in the next week or so for anyone that is interested. They were originally mastered on 1", then dubbed down to 3/4"-U. Copies were made and sent out on 3/4"-U dubs. I quickly copied these to VHS whenever they came in - so the quality is far from perfect, but it gives you at least an idea of how neat these shows really were. Kind Regards, John Schroth Media Transfer Service, LLC On 8/6/2012 1:39 PM, Michael Biel wrote: > From: John Schroth <[log in to unmask]> > >> I majored in Multi-image slide presentation at RIT over 25 years ago. >> They had a core-curriculum in Multi-Image slide production, the only one >> like it in country at the time. > Wow! In this thread we have really hit on a nearly forgotten format for > archiving, and your info and expertise is valuable. Is Eastman House > doing anything on this? I think this topic is worthy of an ARSC > Conference presentation -- not sure if the Moving Image organizations > are interested in these non-moving image presentations. I remember the > ones I've seen being very impressive -- but every time a movie was > inserted, the combination of the noticeably lower resolution and the > disruption of looking at lengthy-held still images reduced the effect. > These programs could be reproduced with the superior HDTV projection now > available, using multiple projectors and screens of course. There > should be an effort to do it NOW while we still have people like you > that remember the equipment and programming so it can be converted to > computer controlling. > > Mike Biel [log in to unmask] > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2012.0.2196 / Virus Database: 2437/5181 - Release Date: 08/06/12 > > >