Film Preservation Specialist

Memnon Archiving Services Inc (“Memnon”) is built around content preservation, servicing and monetisation. Through a combination of industry expertise and technical excellence, we manage our clients’ most significant media assets across the content lifecycle. By making media collections and libraries accessible, discoverable and usable, we empower organisations to tell stories and drive value from their content. The ES Media Group is a specialist supplier of end-to-end services for the professional broadcast and production industries, encompassing broadcast equipment sales and rental, broadcast systems integration, production equipment rental and media services. The ES Media Group is the parent company of Memnon.

Memnon is a worldwide leading provider of services to digitize, migrate, preserve, monetize and provide access to audio visual (Audio, Video, Film and Images) recordings of any format and data formats. We work for the biggest names in media, broadcast, cultural institutions, national libraries, universities, businesses, governments and international organizations

Role Profile

The mission of the Film Preservation Specialist within Memnon is to ensure the daily production activities within the film lab are running efficiently and effectively in effort to meet company goals. This includes team training and development, hands-on production work, quality control, and interface activities with management, client, and vendors.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Assure that contractual obligations and specifications for all clients are followed to produce deliverables that meet client needs.
• Review and prepare incoming film project manifests and objects to ensure their readiness for preservation production activities.
• Advise film lab staff on proper approach and technique for inspection, repair, digitization, and metadata description.
• Perform highest-level inspection, repair, and digitization of 8mm, Super8, 16mm, and 35mm films, including gathering accurate and representative metadata descriptions of all objects.
• Prescribe new and improved procedures and standards for all film preservation-related activities as necessary to improve lab production and/or satisfy client needs. This includes drafting and publishing training materials, as well as conducting hands-on training with lab staff as necessary to convey new procedures.
• Perform and supervise post-production work on digitized film files, including colour-correction, cropping and framing, speed adjustments, orientation adjustments, and audio synchronization/conformation.
• Perform quality control (QC) analysis of all files prior to delivery to assure that each file meets the technical requirements and quality specifications established in the relevant client contract.
• Ensure completed preserved film objects are prepared for return to the client in desired condition.
• Consult with the Operations Senior Supervisor to establish production goals and formalize production-tracking systems. Subsequently, direct and adapt lab activities as needed to assure that production goals will be successfully met.
• Provide physical organization of the film lab environment including the movement of film objects between work areas and storage so they can be worked on.
• Work with Memnon sales and management staff to advise on proposals for potential clients; this includes advising Memnon and potential clients as to the implications of client requests, as well as suggesting improvements/alterations to proposals where necessary to ensure favourable arrangements by which clients’ ultimate needs can be met in a realistic and financially responsible fashion.
• Provide film-related insight to Memnon and ES Media Group as requested to help establish policies and tools to inform the company-wide approach to film preservation and sales, both within and outside the United States.
• Maintain correspondence with clients while preservation work is underway to satisfy any questions pertaining to quality-of-work and preservation procedure, and/or to inform clients of unforeseen circumstances which need a client-approved resolution before work can proceed on a given film or collection.
• Work with the Operations Senior Supervisor and Production Manager to hire and onboard new film lab staff as necessary to meet production goals.
• Perform training sessions and demonstrations with staff in effort to enable them to perform high-quality lab work. This includes an understanding of film formats, technologies, codecs, Memnon film workflows, and the necessary considerations for handling films that pose various preservation challenges.
• Maintain and calibrate all film lab equipment including splicers, inspection benches, and film scanners; when maintenance needs lay beyond the capabilities of Film Technical Supervisor, correspond with equipment vendors (e.g. Laser Graphics) and Memnon staff to seek assistance in performing necessary maintenance.
• Track the lab’s inventory of consumable/disposable supplies place orders for more as necessary.

Reporting line

• You’ll report to the Operations Senior Supervisor
• You’ll work closely with the Production Manager and Engineering team.

Location

· Bloomington, IN, USA

Profile required

Education and Experience

• At least Bachelor or 3+ years of equivalent experience.
• Preferred: interest for/knowledge of audio/video/film technologies

Profile – Soft skills

• Good organizational skills
• Able to work in teams
• Have worked in a capacity where you have coached others
• Have worked in a capacity where you have been responsible for tracking progress
• Ability to prioritize on daily basis to meet defined production goals

Language skills

· Fluent in English.

Type of contract

· Hourly position (rate based upon experience)

We are committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce and recruitment and eliminating unlawful discrimination.

MEMNON