Sweet Storage
Celluloid Heroes
by Lois Becker

Media degrades. The most dramatic example is 35mm nitrate film, which becomes chemically unstable and highly flammable. But all media are subject to deterioration. Everyone has seen how the colors in photographs can turn over the course of a few years. And even slight fading or change in texture is a significant artistic, cultural, historic, and financial loss when one is talking about classic, one-of-a-kind film, audio, and videotape recordings. One of the great benefits of the digital revolution is the fact that digital media does not degrade as quickly as other media, and many classic recordings are currently being "digitally remastered" to preserve them. But this process takes time, and even digital media will still degrade eventually. Look what happened to Apocalypse Now (see Indieopolis article to the right).

Fortunately, proper care can extend the life of even the most fragile celluloid treasures. Keep It Self Storage (KISS) is one of a new breed of storage facility conforming to Library of Congress preservation guidelines. State-of-the-art storage areas are maintained at a uniform 42° F (freezing cold even on a summer's day) and 20% humidity. KISS also has an emergency back-up generator, guaranteeing that your precious media will continue to be protected in case of power failure, and filters that are constantly cleaning dust, dirt, and chemicals from the air.

The facility is electronically gated with restricted security code access and video and motion sensors to provide a safe, secure environment that is accessible 24-hours-a-day. And because it's self-service (with sizes ranging from a single shelf media locker to a 23,000' vault) it's also affordable. And that's important because, as the UCLA Film and Television Archives will attest, independent films made as recently as the 1980s are already deteriorating. So if you're an indie filmmaker with a stack of 16mm film cans taking up space in your closet or a mountain of videocassettes gathering dust and grease in the garage, maybe you need to think about preservation too. Pictured at bottom: KISS Media Vaults 4444 Vineland Ave, Toluca Lake 818-769-KISS www.kissvaults.com.

Originally published on NoHo News, May 2001 - Vol. 3 No. 16 - Web Edition

Politicians, Parties, and Playmates in NoHo
The PLAYBOY Archives
by Quentin Dunne

On a quiet street in Toluca Lake, there is a place where several decades' worth of
movie stars, rock singers, and esteemed artists of all fields mingle with some of the world's most beautiful women. This same location houses some of the most
extravagent parties of this century... or any other. If one is priviliged enough to be admitted past the unassuimg exterior, they can watch glitterati and literati mingle,
as well as observe countless fundraisers and charity events attended by celebrities
and politicos alike.

I am speaking, of course, about Keep It Self-Storage (KISS) Media Vault at 4444 Vineland Avenue, where all of the above are preserved on film at the behest of Playboy Entertainment Group. Since its first published issue in 1953, Hugh Hefner's Playboy Magazine has played a key role in reshaping American sexual and cultural attitudes.
It has been a source of praise, rebuke, and endless curiosity. Within its pages such stars as Marilyn Monroe, Drew Barry-more, and Cindy Crawford have shed their
clothing, while future presidents have given interviews, and writers ranging from
William F. Buckley, Jr. to Camille Paglia to Vincent Bugliosi have opined. Along the
way, there has been vast coverage of all things Playboy - the magazine, the mansion,
the publisher, the clubs, the Bunnies-come-Playmates, to name
but a few - both by the outside press and by Playboy itself. For the past several
months, Playboy has stored their filmed archival footage (everything from Sixty Minutes profiles to private home movies to) right here in NoHo's backyard. A separate KISS facility, also located in Toluca Lake, houses their videotape footage as well.

KISS owner Ben Dalby says he's both happy and honored to have Playboy as a tenant. "They used to have two other vaults elsewhere before consolidating with us. They felt they got better service from us," Dalby says. "They obviously have a very large
collection, and they're continuing to grow," he notes, but is confident he's prepared for
the growth with a present film archive area of 1500 square-feet and a 3000 square-foot video storage facility.

The following is a portion of a telephone interview with Alan Ferguson, a seventeen-year veteran of The Playboy Entertainment Group and now their Director of Post-Production Services, in which he spoke about some of the issues involved in keeping such a
detailed collection of materials.

Q: What was the motivation behind starting the Playboy archives?
F: Well, Hefner is a real record keeper. He loves keeping records of everything. Playboy started in 1953 and we literally have material since then -- interviews, documentary footage of all the parties, you name it. And we're very thorough. We have a reciprocal agreement with news organizations that anything they air about us, we get a copy of.
All of that's in the archives too.

Q: Why did you choose KISS, and what kind of measures do you take to preserve the archives?
F: It's a state-of-the-art facility as far as I'm concerned. They know what they're doing. Film needs to be kept at a colder temperature than videotape, so the conditions our materials are kept in are monitored very carefully... to avoid problems of decomposition. Every ten years or so, we have to replicate, or duplicate, things on an updated system, such as transferring the footage onto optical disk. It's an involved process. [To avoid erosion of print quality, film must be kept in room temperatures of 45 degrees with
25% relative humidity, while videotape must be kept at 68 degrees with 50% relative humidity.]

Q: How would you describe your relationship with KISS?
F: Great. Ben Dalby has been very cooperative and has a helpful team. We wouldn't
be there if they weren't.

Q: How often do you actually deposit new archive materials or look through old ones?
F: We go in and out of the vault every day.

Q: Are the archives available to researchers or other interested parties?
F: From time to time, we'll get a request and let someone take a look. We do
cooperate with researchers, but not with the general public.

Q: Say three hundred years from now, social historians are looking back at the latter
half of the 20th century, and one of their tools of study is the Playboy archives. What conclusions do you think they'll draw regarding the impact of Playboy on American society?
F: We've had a tremendous impact, I think. A lot of people would like to deny it, but I think it's true. In the sixties, in particular, we had a huge subscription base and, at one point, we had the most recognized trademark [the "bunny" ears] in the world. God
knows we spawned a lot of imitators, but Playboy Magazine was the first. And we
hope to keep our archives in conditions so that three hundred years from now they
WILL be accessible to social historians and they can observe the degree of impact
we had.

Originally published on NoHo News, Jan. 2002- Vol. 4 No. 8 - Web Edition

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