RE-ENVISIONINGJAPAN:EphemeralFilmRecuperation,Restoration,andDigitalCuration

JoanneBernardi,NoraDimmock,JoshRomphf(Univ.ofRochester)AMIA,11/10/2016

I. Re-envisioning20THCenturyJapan:Findingfilmsincontext

II. RecuperatingEphemeralFilms:Opensourcetoolsfordigitalrestoration

III. DigitizingFilmsinanAcademicContext:Planningstrategiesforalarge-scalecollaborativeproject

THEPROJECT:“Re-EnvisioningJapan:JapanasDestinationin20th

CenturyVisualandMaterialCulture”

JoanneBernardiAssociateProfessor

JapaneseandFilmandMediaStudies

PROJECTBACKSTORY

TokyoandYokohama

AsakusaTokyo’sentertainmentdistrict

Benten-dorimainstreet,Yokohama

Topicalpostcardsasvisualrecordofplace,Particularlyurbanlandscapes,e.g.

Globalcirculationofobjectsandimages...

10p.m.16thNov.1905KandaTokioJ.“DearMrDavidRWightman–IknowfollowingfactnowandIhopeyouwillexcuseourdisrespect.Theotherdayabouttwentydaysago,apostmanbroughtmesomepictorialcardsfromforeigncountry....Newservantofourhouserefusedtoreceivethosecardsfordeficientpostageandsentback,whenIwasabsent.YouwillforgivemeIamsurewhenIexplainthereason.Yourtruly,YOSHITAKAKUBO

(1905)

...andtracesofpersonalencountersatadistance

ExpositionUniverselle1900Paris St.LouisWorld’sFair1904

Japan-BritishExhibition1910 Panama-CaliforniaExposition1915SanDiego

Y.M.C.A.(n.d.)

à

“FortheRightsofMankind”(1917)“TodaywechinwithChina,

andfarawayJapan....”(1926)

“Japan’smissionistoharmonize

theCivilizationoftheEastandWest”

USA(n.d.)

JAPANINTHEWORLD

ーナーディ��

Japanconjuredupasamusementpark:JapanGardens,Wonderland,RevereBeach,Massachusetts(1906-1911)

EDIFICATION&INFORMATION:Generalculture,history,language,socialwork,

USOccupation(1945-1952),USWWIIpropaganda

Magazines,assortedpublications

1923

1935

1916

PropagandaandPostwarAlliedOccupation

LEISURE&ENTERTAINMENT:Advertising,shopping,WorldFairs,Photographs,Slides,Stereographs,Literature,SheetMusic

SingerCo.promotionalitem:Popularconsumption----productandedification

Sheetmusic:Orientalistfantasyandentertainment

Images,objectsnotofJapaneseorigin

RECORDEDSHEETMUSIC

YAMASAN(1902)

http://rej.lib.rochester.edu/viewer/26

Photographs,Glassslides,Stereographs

Advertisements,entertainment,children’sliterature

TOURISM&TRAVEL:

Brochures,GuideBooks,Hotels,Travel(Air,Land,Sea)

BoardofTouristIndustry,JapaneseGovernmentRailways(n.d.,c.late1930s)

NipponYusenKaisha(N.Y.K.ShippingLine)ephemera

(n.d.)

TravelBrochures,Postcards:RailwaysandShippingLinespromotionalmaterialtoutingJapanasa“two-hemisphereattraction”

1906

1935EsperantoGuide,JapanGov.Railways1927

Movingimagesdefinedthe20thcenturyinanunprecedentedway--REJincludesrecuperated16mm,Regular(Standard)8mm,Super8mm

&Archivalfilms

THEFILMS

PEDAGOGY

JapananIntroduction(originallywrittenandprod.ByWayneMitchell)Multiplevariations,1951-1998,asstudiedin“TouristJapan”(2002-present)

LOOKINGFORWARD

•  ENCOUNTERS

•  “ROUTES”

THEWORLD’SFAIRINANUTSHELL

“ACENTURYOFPROGRESS”1933ChicagoWorld’sFair

“Encounters:”comprehendinghumanexperienceonagranularlevelthroughnarrativesembodiedbyindividualobjects

CJ. • A.

[Quicktime Movie]

“The World’s Fair in a Nutshell” is an object made for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (The Century of Progress Exposition). Let’s take a closer look at the Nutshell.

The nutshell is real.

It opens.

Tucked inside: a strip of paper, alternating images and text on accordion-style folds.

Photographs of fair locations alternate with descriptive captions. On the first fold: the Fair logo, date (1933) and theme, “A Century of Progress.”

Select locations include administrative buildings and re-creations of U.S. historical sites (e.g., “the Wigwam” and a log cabin replica of Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace).

These images and descriptions memorialize the past and celebrate the future.

Entertainment called the “Sky Ride” is referred to in the future tense—was the Nutshell made before the Fair opened?

The Nutshell appeals to the imagination of the recipient. The “Sky Ride” promises high speed rocket cars shooting through the air—a novel, delightful experience!

One Nutshell half has a tag: “The World’s Fair in a Nutshell” (aptly named). This half of the shell has the brand stamp, “Diamond,” still used today.

The tag is a mailing label. This also suggests the Nutshell might have been used to promote the Fair even before it opened.

Visions of the future and technological progress are key to the Nutshell’s rhetoric. “I WILL” is written beneath the “Spirit of Chicago;” building captions celebrate the simplicity of modern architecture; exhibits focus on emerging communication technologies.

“The World’s Fair in a Nutshell” was made for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (The Century of Progress Exposition). It entered the Re-Envisioning Japan Research Collection as item 1521 on Sept. 17, 2015. Japan was represented at the Fair, but the Nutshell has no apparent connection to Japan; its design resembles that of an older souvenir in the collection, a postcard for the 1911 Exposition de Charleroi Village Japonais. In hand, these small objects are compelling. They conceal a wealth of information about events that were microcosmic distillations of contemporary world views.

TheA.C.GilbertCo.AtomicBombDexterityToy

c.1945

ThisisJapaninSounds

AsahiSonopresse,19606-331/3LPs(sonosheets)

NikkoPanoramaPostcard(n.d.)

“Routes”–aweb-basedpublishingplatformpromotinganinterdisciplinarycommunityofpracticeforobject-basedscholarshipandpedagogyforthestudyofJapanandbordercrossingsbetweenJapanandthewiderworld

Multimodalscholarship:accommodatesthedynamicvarietyofhumanexperience

RecuperatingEphemeralFilms:

opensourcetoolsfordigitalrestoration

JoshRomphf,Programmer–DigitalScholarshipLab

RiverCampusLibrariesUniversityofRochester

DigitalAssets

Over3TBofimages~2TBofvideo

DigitalAssetsOriginally,allaccessmaterialswerehostedonahighlycustomized

WordPresssite.

Notanidealsituationformetadatacuration,digitalassetmanagement,exposingitemrelationships,etc.

Hamstrungbymodifiedplugins:(

DigitalAssetsMigratingwellover1000multimediaelements

toOmeka–allowingforrichitemtypemetadataandstreamlinedplugindevelopment.

DigitalAssetsEasierinteroperabilitywithnewerframeworksnotsupportedinpopularcontentmanagement

systems.

RESTAPIallowsfordecoupledor“headless”applicationsthatextendbeyondtheCMS.

MovingImagePipeline16mm+Super8scanned@EastmanDigitalServices->

AppleProRes422ThanksKyle+Gordon!

8mmscanned@GeorgeEastmanMuseum->.tifimage

sequencesThanksSophia+Jeff!

MovingImagePipelineAutomatedImageProcessing:

Denoisingof8mmscanner’scameraartifactsAutomaticcolorgrading(ifnecessary)

SlightdirtanddustremovalRecombination/animationof.tifimagesequencesfor

8mmscans

MovingImagePipelineOpenCV–ComputerVisionandImageProcessing

CurrentlymaintainedbyWillowGarage

Atreasuretroveofoptimizedimageprocessingandmachinelearningalgorithms

https://github.com/opencv/opencv

MovingImagePipeline

OpenCV–usedprimarilyforlocalizeddenoisingandinpainting(dirtanddustremoval)/moreexperimental

computervisionresearch

MovingImagePipelineAlsoworthmentioning:OpenImageIOMaintainedbyformerPixardeveloper

Nocomputervision–strictlyforimageprocessing(io)SupportforseveralindustrystandardimageformatswithafairlyhighlevelAPI(DPX,Cineon,JPEG-2000)

MovingImagePipelineFFMPEG–needsnointroduction.

Usedtooptimizefilesforstreamingandnativebrowserplayback(nopluginsrequired)

MovingImagePipelineNativebrowservideoplayback/HTML5videosupportis

somewhatofanightmare

Producing2accessfilestocoverallbrowsers:H.264encoding/mp4container(Chrome,*Firefox,Safari,

Opera,IE)

VP9encoding/webmcontainer(Chrome,Firefox)

MovingImagePipelineIfanylower-levelvideoplayercustomizationisdesired,HTML5videoAPIistheonlygameintownfornative

browsersupport.

VideoJS–ahighlycustomizableHTML5playerframework

https://github.com/videojs/video.js

DigitalAccess

Howdowerepresentarchivalmovingimagesinabrowser-basedenvironment?

OtherExperiments

ComputerVisionandDeepLearning

OtherExperimentsFrameboundarydetection/imagesegmentationfor

access

Computer Vision and Deep Learning

OtherExperiments

Attemptsatautomatedcolorcorrectionforfadedimages:

GrayWorldHistogramEqualization

Retinex(workedoutthebest!)

Moving Image Pipeline

OtherExperiments

Retinex(Retina+Cortex)–developedbyEdwinLand,founderofPolaroid.

Anattemptatwhitebalancethatismoreakintohowhumansperceivecolor.

OtherExperiments

Torch–adeeplearningframeworkfortheLuaprogramminglanguage

OtherExperiments

Image“style”transfertrainedonMIT’sPlacesdataset.

Izuka,Simo-Serra,andIshikawa

OtherExperiments

OtherExperiments

Acasefor“archival”trainingsets.Ifwecantrainfromtheidealimage,wecanreplicateitscolormap/profile.

OtherExperiments

Torch+DeepFlow(RyanBaumann,DukeCollaboratoryforClassicsComputing)

Computingtheopticalflowbetweentwoimagesand

blendingthem.

[LearningaboutJapan/Agfa,1937]16mmamateurfilm,4:38

DigitizingFilmsinanAcademicContext:Planningstrategiesfora

large-scalecollaborativeproject

NoraDimmockAssistantDeanforIT,ResearchandDigitalScholarship

DirectoroftheDigitalScholarshipLabUniversityofRochester

OurBeginnings

FilmsintheLargerLibraryContext

TheFirstDigitalTurninLibraries

• Digitizationasapreservationstrategy• Privilegingofnarrativeovermateriality

DigitalHumanities

• Opportunitytomovefromservicepointtopartnershipmodel•  Spacetoengageindisciplinaryresearch• Expandedroleinfacultyresearch• Re-skillingandrefocusinghumanandcapitalresources• Newframeworksforscholarshipandresearch

Re-EnvisioningJapan

DataandMetadataModeling

FullCircle

Re-EnvisioningDigitalScholarship

• Object-basedpedagogyandscholarshipovertextonlymodes• Nodtovisualandmaterialculturestudies•  SneakingFilmintoSpecialCollections• Humanistsnotprogrammers• Researchteamsoverwebdevelopers• Engagementovertransaction

hRp://humaniVes.lib.rochester.edu/rej/

joanne.bernardi@rochester.edu

ndimmock@library.rochester.edu

jromphf@library.rochester.edu