“I believe heavily in supporting public events such as Home Movie Day for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I believe that as archivists we are not supposed to be passive employees hidden away in a basement protecting old things, but actively engaged within the community we serve. HMD is a perfect event to showcase the films and educate the film owners on what they should be doing to take care of these cultural artifacts. In addition, I believe strongly in capitalizing on opportunities to contextualize home movies as celluloid films, that were designed to run through film projectors in order to exhibit them. Digitizing home movies neutralizes them all into one seemingly identical format when in fact different films throughout history were shot and projected on different projectors, and each can often tell us something about the global and socioeconomic backgrounds of the people that created them. This is why I often try to bring and project some of the less familiar home movie formats each year such as 28mm, 9.5mm and even 4.75mm widescreen.”
– Dino Everett
UCLA MIAS Alumni 2008
Archivist & Curator, USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive
“Home Movie Day is one of the events that I look forward to the most every year because of the people involved in making it happen. I’ve been participating in Home Movie Day since I was a student in the UCLA Moving Image Archive Studies program. It has been a great opportunity for me to meet and engage with fellow students and professional archivists in the community that share a common interest in engaging with, and educating the public about an historically overlooked, but totally democratic form of moving image documentation. As a relatively new professional in the field myself, it’s also become a great venue for me to stay in touch with the goings on of the UCLA MLIS-MAS program and meet some of new students who attend and volunteer for HMD every year. As one of the volunteer inspectors at the HMD events, I’m often handling and repairing regular 8mm and Super8mm films brought in by the attendees. Since I don’t really run across these smaller formats in my day to day work it’s also become a great yearly refresher to keep me nimble with my small gauge film handling skills!”
– Robert Vaszari
UCLA MIAS Alumni 2014
Media Vault / Inventory Dept. Manager, Multicom Entertainment
“I originally became involved in Home Movie Day when I first began contemplating a career change from work as an assistant film editor, to working in the field of film archiving. In my 13 years of participating in HMD, I’ve been exposed to footage that truly reflects the daily lives from the time they were shot. I now work at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and HMD continues to provide new discoveries and lessons for my new career in film archiving, and in my personal life as well. Also, it’s rewarding to help people see their own home movies (often for the first time), give them advice on how to care for them, and how to digitize their films, so they can be more easily shared with family and friends.
HMD is also a community unto itself, and I have made friendships that have sustained, despite people moving away from my home in LA. And when I’ve found myself in other parts of the country, the local HMD community, wherever I am, is usually there to offer camaraderie. It’s a worldwide community that always feels intimately local.”
– Tim Wilson
UCLA MIAS Alumni 2008
Film Prep Technician / PHI-UCLA Film Lab, UCLA Film & Television Archive
“The best part of working film prep at Home Movie Day is the opportunity to interact with the other film handlers. Many times these movies are not in the greatest shape and the problems that arise in each film can be quite unique and varied. Having the ability to work beside and problem solve with alumni from our program and other professional film inspectors is extremely rewarding, since film handlers can often find themselves working in solitude.”
– Adam Foster
UCLA MLIS MAS Candidate 2019
“For me, Home Movie Day is an event that encapsulates a spirit of DIY activism within archival practice. The hands-on participation is definitely one aspect I enjoy, as well as the event’s ability to empower both volunteers and audience members. The experience of reanimating images for the community evokes responses of unexpected nostalgia, pangs of grief, reminiscence of youth and squeals of joy that are fulfilling – but also cathartic.
This year a woman brought a couple films made by her brother who has since passed. What was projected was not only meaningful for her because of their relationship, but also because the films were made by a man with a sophisticated and artistic eye. Hearing her talk about their relationship while the movies were running was a tear jerker in the most wonderful way. It was my favorite and most memorable part of this year’s event.”
– Brianna Toth
UCLA MLIS MAS Candidate 2019
“There are many things I love about being a media archivist, but one of my absolute favorite annual events is Home Movie Day. What is Home Movie Day might you ask? Well, it is just that – an event where people all around the world can bring their home movies on an array of formats (depending on what type the venue supports) and have them run before an audience, almost like a show-and-tell. Local archivists generally host it and can give patrons information on how to store their films properly, have them digitized affordably to a format they support, and also help them with repairing the movies depending on the kind of format they come on.”
– Shiraz Bhathena
Video Archive and Post-Production Specialist, USC Shoah Foundation and Digital Repository
“I like the quiet moments of Home Movie Day: when we’re all sitting together in the dark watching a lozenge of light move on the screen, with the hum of the projectors and the smell of old things shaking off their dust. I guess these moments are rare at a successful HMD between the emotional or comedic commentary from participants about their films; historical, technical, and practical questions from the audience; illuminating answers from our emcee; and the exultation of HMD bingo winners. I love all of those moments, too, and the balance of both keeps me coming back for more.”
– Kate Dollenmayer
“Hard to believe I’ve been a Home Movie Day volunteer or coordinator since 2005 –more than a quarter of my life! I was immediately struck by what a warm, civic gathering it was, and how much I learned from the films and participants about a place that was then new to me (Maine). I never tire of hearing the collective identification of captured locales, with attendees challenging their own memory and those of others, and am perversely pleased by those small mysteries that will continue to elude us. Like all historical documents, they can’t tell the full story, but rather shade in certain details of a life, a time or a place.”
– Sean Savage
NYU Tisch School of the Arts, MIAP Alumni 2006
Film Archivist, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science
“I volunteer for Home Movie Day because I think it is important to help the community learn the value of their own home movies and also because I enjoy watching other people’s home movies. As historical documents, home movies capture a slice of everyday life that I find fascinating. I’ve found that most audience members at Home Movie Day have that same experience, even when they don’t know any of the faces being projected. Beyond the entertainment of viewing vintage fashion and landscapes, it is easy to get sucked into the personal stories you are watching by crafting your own back story and narrative for the people on the screen.”
– Trisha Lendo
UCLA MIAS Alumni 2010
UCLA AMIA Student Chapter 