Research Collections

Students have access to the vast collections of the Motion Picture, Photography, and Technology Departments for use in scholarly research. In addition to holding one of the largest archival film collections in North America, the motion picture department also contains more than 3.5 million paper items, including production stills, scripts, posters, and other ephemera available to students.

Books on film history and preservation are loaned to each student for the duration of the academic year. These books are also available for purchase at a discounted price in the Museum shop. Handouts will also be provided.

Video and Audio Resources

Many lectures held at the school have been recorded on videotape and are available to students through arrangement with the school administrator. The video archive includes recordings of conferences, seminars, workshops, and symposia related to motion picture preservation. A searchable database has been created for the collection of more than 650 titles. In certain cases, special screenings of these tapes are organized during plenary sessions. Videotapes are not available for loan and may not be duplicated or made available outside the Museum. The motion picture department also holds a wide range of audio materials. These include more than 70 one quarter inch, reel-to-reel audio interviews conducted with famous directors, actors, and film industry professionals by George Pratt. The department also preserves collections of audio materials relating to Burton Holmes and James Sibley Watson, Jr., and more than 250 musical audiotapes produced by James Card to accompany silent movies.

Digital Restoration Lab

In 2003, George Eastman House announced the creation of a state-of-the-art digital motion picture restoration laboratory. Housed in The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, the digital laboratory, the first of its kind in North America, has become an integral part of the restoration work done at George Eastman House and a key instructional component in the curriculum of the Selznick School. The installation of this digital facility was made possible by Haghefilm Laboratories, which is currently involved in several major restoration projects with George Eastman House and is a longtime supporter of the Selznick School.

George Eastman House receives from Haghefilm "scanned" versions of the films to be preserved, enabling the preservation team to make decisions regarding image correction and—when appropriate—restoration of image content. Using the Diamant and the da Vinci Revival systems, preservationists and students will be able to remove dust, scratches, and other blemishes, as well as correct problems such as significant color fading. Once this operation is completed, the tapes or hard drives are sent back to the laboratory where the images are transferred back to a preservation negative and finally onto a projection print.

Technicians from Haghefilm Laboratories provide Selznick School students with instruction on the fundamental aspects of this procedure. Training and use of the technology also enables students to further improve their expertise in this discipline.

The Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center

The Museum's storage facilities for nitrate era films are among the best in the nation. These nitrate vaults are located near Rochester in the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center. This facility (with a constant temperature of 40°F [4.4°C] and 30% relative humidity) consists of twelve vaults comprising a total capacity of more than 26 million feet of nitrate film. Climate control is regulated electronically and monitored through a computer system in the Museum's main building.

The Motion Picture Archives

Safety film preservation masters and research access copies are stored in the archive building of George Eastman House in vaults that are maintained at 40°F (4.4°C) and 30% relative humidity. The total capacity of these vaults is more than 100 million feet of film. Another vault is dedicated to paper-based collections, which includes movie stills, posters, scripts, film scores, correspondence, ephemera, pre-cinema artifacts, and other film-related papers.

The Motion Picture Study Center

Located in the Museum's archive/education building, the study center is equipped with all the viewing facilities necessary for scholarly access to prints from the collections. The study center provides researchers with four flatbed viewing tables (two for 16mm prints, two for 35mm), a screening room, and equipment for several video formats. Screenings can also be scheduled in the Dryden and Curtis theaters.

The Dryden Theatre

The Dryden Theatre, with a seating capacity of 535, has 35mm and 16mm projectors (both with variable speed), slide projectors, and multi-standard video apparatus. The largest archival screening facility in North America, the theater is one of the few remaining venues in the country equipped for the projection of nitrate films, as well as with a Dolby Stereo Surround system, a piano for musical accompaniment of silent films, and a special screen for 3-D projection. The Dryden Theatre hosts public film programs up to seven days a week, including senior citizen matinées once a week from March through October. A calendar with detailed descriptions of all scheduled films and related events is distributed six times a year.

The Curtis Theatre/Lecture Hall

The Curtis Theatre/Lecture Hall seats up to 80 and is equipped with 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8mm film projectors and multi-standard video projectors. The theater also has a piano for musical accompaniment of silent films. The Curtis Theatre is used mainly for lectures, seminars, workshops, and other educational activities.