One of the joys of my job is the constant discovery of things that aren't there, and how telling that can be. Sounds ludicrous, I know. Allow me to digress...

One of our collections contains the original production files for a small variety of film productions. We have anything from a couple to close to a dozen boxes for each title, and the contents of the boxes does generally produce a similar set of file titles - camera reports, cast/crew list, daily production reports, script drafts, production scripts, editors scripts, continuity files, etc. To any student or professional in the field of film, television, or advertising production, these titles will sound extremely familiar to the setting of a motion picture production.

As a student of languages and art history (2D still images primarily), most of these titles were quite foreign to me when I began listing the files of said collection, but after going through a relatively small percentage of the film production files a familiar set of titles was prominent in almost every box. Almost. One particular film falls directly in the 'genre' (if there is one) of contemporary blaxploitation insomuch as the all the elements of the film (plot, characters, dialogue, music) produce a purely stereotype representation of black people regardless of the target audience. The production files for this particular film totaled 3 bankers boxes - which within the context of the rest of the collection is on par with what would be expected of a B-rated film produced by said collection's company. In the boxes were files with the same titles as I expected to find by the time I was listing it - but they were much thinner than I expected. Further investigation revealed that in a number of those files, there were merely a few blank photocopies of forms whose titles matched those of the files (i.e blank daily production report forms were found in the daily production reports file).

I pose this next question will full understanding and awareness that I have no experience with motion picture production, merely the archiving of it: How can you expect to make a film that isn't a total piece of cultural trash without keeping some kind of record of what everyone is doing?

So where's the discovery, you're asking. Get to the freaking point already, you're saying, if you've managed to get this far at all. I'm close I promise.

According to accepted archival best practices and standards, it is generally a wise idea to purge those 'things' in our collections which have no unique information on them (space is and always will be a premium, alas). These blank forms have nothing on them that isn't recorded elsewhere, in fact some of these forms are an industry standard so they will be in every other box of film production records and documents that we have. Logically, what would be the point in keeping these blank files as no researcher in their right mind would go searching for 'the' prime examples of industry standard film production forms in the files of a production they've either never heard of or would rather they hadn't? If all the files in the boxes were just blank forms why keep them at all? Technically there is almost no record of the production of this particular film. Almost.

The two largest quantities of records in the boxes were continuity Polaroids and product placement files. Ah, the product placement files. In this case, these particular files were overstuffed with legal agreements with large product-driven companies. The continuity Polaroids capture images of mostly female cast members* in skimpy clothes or snapshots of portions of a scene where a particular product would be placed. Without a doubt, these are worth keeping, and their value is heightened by the sheer lack of anything other usable record of the production. And there is the discovery.

The blank files were kept, along with the rest of the Polaroids and product placement files. They will "forever" remain together - so that somewhere else down the line, the discovery is there for someone else to make.

*footnote - Whether the images of girls in skimpy outfits being the predominant still image record of the cast during production is a reflection of marketing/production values or is merely a reflection of the main cast's ownership over their own images, I do not know.

Finder of lost gems

I love to find things for other people. The look on people's faces when they see something they were searching for - the sense of recognition, obvious elation and the reflection of the memories across someones face as they begin to interact (perhaps once more?) with whatever it was they asked me to find.

I have a precious early memory of this very experience involving my grandmother. I would spend most of my afternoons with her as my parents worked late. Tutu (grandmother in Hawai'ian and the way she preferred to be referenced) would pick me up and take me to her house where I'd get to snack on coke and M&Ms while watching the almighty cable television networks. In the evenings we'd play cards together.

Well Tutu had a lot of jewelery, as I suppose lots of grandmothers will tend to do. One day when she picked me up, she was quite upset. She had lost something and spent all day searching for it. It was a pair of diamond earrings, with two sets of 'jacks' (one a ring of emeralds and the other three diamonds that hung vertically). She could remember exactly what they looked like, and even the exact size, shape and colour of the box she kept them in but for all of her efforts she couldn't find these earrings anywhere. What distressed her the most was that these earrings had been in the family for a generation or two, so losing them was akin to disrespecting ancestors.

I was known to go pawing through all of my Tutu's jewelery drawers, with her permission of course. She had some really great stuff from big baubles to gaudy plastics to fine gold chains to costume jewelery that made me look like a princess. And I always put everything back exactly where I had found it, that was the deal. I could look at any of Tutu's jewelery as long as I put it back right where I found it. This was an incredibly special relationship for me because unlike my parents, she never hovered over me or constantly reminded me to be careful. It was assumed I knew how to be gentle, and all she requested was that I respect her order when I moved things about. That was the only way she could find them later, if I put them back right where I found them.

But for all of my previous permitted snooping, I had never seen these earrings and had no clue what she was talking about. No image was coming to mind. I had never seen 'jacks' for earrings and only knew that somehow they 'attached' to the single diamond studded posts. I felt awful because I couldn't help her in any way, and of anyone I was in the best position to do so.

So fast forward a couple of days and its another lovely afternoon when I should be outside but I'm inside watching cable and sipping on a coke out of a Strawberry Shortcake tumbler. This afternoon, Tutu came to me with a request I'd gotten before: she wanted me to open one of her safes so she could get at something. She had two, and both were low on the ground and in less-than-optimal lighting. Kneeling was difficult for her at this point in her life and her eyes were not great, so it was a snap for me to help her and I was happy to do it. Plus how often to kids to get open safes? Big fun!

There I am, on my knees in front of this little safe, and just as she's trying to tell me the numbers and direction to turn the dial, I spot something under a chair close by. Its a small, brown, velvet box... a classic jewelery box. I snapped it up and having never seen it before, turned to my Tutu and said, "Tutu, what's this?"

"OH MY GAWD" she said in a voice that I can still hear if I close my eyes. It was the diamond posts, and the 'jacks' too. They had been in the very safe I was trying to open, and must have fallen out a week or so before while she was searching for something else. In the dim light, she never saw them hiding in the shadows, practically in plain sight.

I saw how happy she was to know these earrings were safe. I vividly remember a sense of relief that came over her instantly. I also remember the stories she started to tell me about these earrings, stories she had never told me before probably because the object in question was never in sight to remind her of them.

Its not a great story by any means, but it is a truly precious memory to me. It is the first memory I have of being helpful by doing what I love to do and tend to do best: finding things. Its important to me to recall that memory at times when I feel incredibly bogged down by the basic, technical work that I'm faced with lately. Too much lifting boxes, building boxes, transferring material from one box to another, listing that material, fixing the old listing of that material... it makes me frustrated and leaves me feeling incredibly lonely. I think of my Tutu when work drags me down because I am happy to know that I'm helping someone. I will never see the faces of the people I'm helping, but I can remember my Tutu's booming voice and sincere smile. Someday, it will be the booming voice of someone else, and think of the stories they will tell then!