Construction is halfway complete on a $150 million multimedia preservation and restoration facility in the City of Santa Clarita funded by the Packard Humanities Institute. The state-of-the-art facility is being built on 60 acres along McBean Parkway and has been designed to resemble a Roman monastery. The non-profit previously funded the construction of more than 100 vaults on the property to store pre-1950s nitrate film owned by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The preservation and restoration campus project, one of the largest in Santa Clarita, began in September 2011 and is scheduled for completion in late 2013, according to George Ross, a representative of David W. Packard, founder of the Institute, who is overseeing the construction. Work at the 180,000-square-foot facility, part of which is underground, will include restoring, preserving and digitizing large collections of film, television and audio media owned by both the Packard Institute and the UCLA archive. “This brings everything together,” Ross said. “It is a better environment for the media to be in.” The Packard Institute houses its film collection in several locations where the content is stored in highly-controlled environments. The UCLA archive is made up of more than 400,000 moving-image holdings, the second-largest in the world after the Library of Congress. The collection is maintained at the main campus in Westwood and in locations in Hollywood. The Packard Institute is an invaluable partner in efforts to preserve film and television culture, according to the UCLA archive. The project in Santa Clarita “promises to be very exciting and the Archive is optimistic that it will result in new collaborative opportunities for both organizations,” the archive said in a prepared statement. Preserving film, especially copies dating back 50 years or more, is a delicate task that requires low temperatures and humidity. In poor conditions, the acetate in a film print can begin to “eat itself up,” causing irreversible damage, Ross said. The archive preservation center will feature a laboratory, storage for film and audio media, gallery exhibit space, and a small theater for educational events. “Every time we see another phase completed we have renewed excitement,” said Jason Crawford, marketing and economic development manager for the City of Santa Clarita. Ross said the project has been through several design changes — as is customary for a large-scale project — however the tweaks have not delayed the project’s completion. “We didn’t want to hold it up to get the design finished first,” Ross said. “We would have been finished a year later (than planned).” BAR Architects in San Francisco designed the buildings. Williams Notaro, of Fairfax, Va., supervises the design team and handles the mechanical and electrical engineering. Morley Builders, based in Santa Monica, is the general contractor. The complexity of preserving film and videotape requires custom-made equipment. William Notaro, for instance, helped to design the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system with unique features such as controlling the flow of outside air, two independent air paths, and an all-aluminum construction that can last up to 100 years. The facility will apply for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the green aspects of its construction and operation, Ross said. The Packard Institute purchased the property from Newhall Land in 2001 with the intention of building the preservation facility. Much of the land, visible from the Golden State (5) Freeway, is hilly and contains canyons, Ross said, noting only a small portion is buildable. Crawford said the UCLA archive will add to the existing educational facilities in that part of the city. “We know having them there between Cal Arts and College of Canyons makes that a great corridor,” he said. The Packard Humanities Institute was found in 1987 to fund long-term archeology, film and television, music and education projects. The Institute operates a film preservation lab in partnership with the UCLA archive, and also works on preservation projects with the Library of Congress and George Eastman House, an international museum of photography and film in Rochester, N.Y.
Film Preservation Center to Open Next Year
