Day 4: (Madrid) You Need Sleep
Ugh. Today I’m feeling super sick. Nauseous mostly. I haven’t been getting much sleep due to some snorers in the group (no hate to you guys! I’m just a light sleeper) and I don’t think I’ve been hydrating as much as I should. We’re out in the hot ass Spanish sun for 14 hours at a time walking ~11-12 miles a day while listening to history tours. Plus, I keep forgetting to put sunscreen on which probably isn’t helping. It’s all very cool, but it’s definitely a lot… A lot of sun, a lot of walking, a lot of information and a lot of time being brain-dead. Some of us can’t form sentences anymore – it feels kind of like boot camp, but it’s okay.
Today is a “slow day” – we’re taking a bus (thank god) to el Centro de Conservación y Restauración de la Filmoteca Española in Pozuelo de Alarcón. For those of you who may not have known, my study abroad program is called “Spain: Spanish Culture through film and Social Media” so those two aspects are what we have mostly been focusing on. I took a connected class to this trip in Spring Quarter where we watched and analyzed a variety of Spanish films while also learning a little bit about the Spanish history and the development of their culture. Here, in Spain, we’re focusing more on the Social Media aspect (hence the blog) but are also throwing a bit of cinema in, like our trip today.
El Centro de Conservación y Restauración de la Filmoteca Española is a film restoration and conservation center that is working on developing technology to better preserve, restore and conserve cinema in both film and digital format. It’s really cool and pretty much brand new – you can read an article about it here, but prepare to translate! They were SO excited to have us and even for not being a film major – these facilities were freaking cool. First off, everything was sterile – floors so clean I wouldn’t hesitate licking them, white walls, minimal signs and unmarked doors. Definitely had the feel of some like top secret government lab or a hospital, so it was pretty cool but I didn’t ask too many questions (you know, Illuminati and shit).
We started off the tour by learning a little bit about how film is projected, going behind that booth thing that you always see in movie theatres and watching as the massive machines roared to life and started quickly rolling the film.
They told us that there are different kind of films and different temperatures at which the different films need to be stored and they took us through the building where all the air conditioners and dehumidifiers were kept. Again, very clean and well kept. They had a really large number of air conditioners and dehumidifiers (you try remembering all these numbers!) for the 36 vaults where the films were kept. Then, we had the pleasure of looking at where they receive and change the film containers, where I watched two men work like machines opening old tin canisters and putting the long, delicate film roles into new, plastic containers. After that, we checked out one of the vaults where the store the films – it was kept at 42 degrees Fahrenheit, but they had some vaults that went down to 60 degrees below. (yikes!) The Spanish people showing us around didn’t like the cold at all, but us Chicagoans could spend a while in there – so we were taking pictures, laughing and running around while they shivered and urged us to move along, haha.
Then, they took us to the stations where people manually clean and repair damaged film. We saw a girl probably not too much older than myself, hunched over a spotless table emitting white light through a strip of film where she was repairing it by putting on a special clear tape to fill the spaces – all by hand. You’d think by this day and age, we’d have a machine that could do that, but film is so delicate that it needs to be handled with the utmost care, which I guess is managed by human hands. She spoke English very well and explained to us what she was doing and even showed us some incredibly damaged film which was beyond repair. Then, we walked over to another room where a small, old man with tangled long white hair sat a table peering over his glasses at a roll of film. Although he didn’t speak English, he told us that he is in charge of repairing the films where frames have been erased or are just unrecognizable – a very difficult feat. They have thousands of films that need this reparation, but this small man was one of the only ones who is able to work on them, and each film requires a lot of care and dedication as you can imagine, so the wait list for reparation is very long.
This man was hilariously cute, obviously extremely excited that a group of students had come to visit him in his work space and he didn’t hesitate to show us everything. He jumped up and showed us the films that we kept frozen that can only be taken out in the winter to be worked on due to the temperatures outside and in the building. The cutest part, though, is just as we’re about to leave, he shows a brief moment of discouragement and says, “Oh, wait… I want to show them the film I restored… It’s only a minute, I promise, let me show them!” So, we all turned around and walked through his work space into his small office in the corner – he frantically tucked his tussled white hair behind his ear and worked on turning his computer screen (which was Windows mind you Mac/Apple users and especially those art school kids – this film guys uses WINDOWS!) so we could all see it. He first showed us a terrible clip of a not-so exciting boxing match from the 1920s, which honestly looked like it took place at a circus. There were times were the screen was black, the image was distorted or even just missing. The fight was very chopping and hard to follow. But then, the cool part happened – the sweet old man put a side by side clip up of the damaged film next to the version that he had restored.. and daaamn that old man has talent! The clip ran perfectly and you could see the lame little fight between two suspender-ed mustached men (who look like now-a-day hipsters) “duke” it out. It was really cool, and he was so proud, like, SO proud of himself. I thanked him with a warm smile and a semi-awkward (okay really awkward) “¡Buen trabajo!” – I think he appreciated the effort, but I walked quickly out of the room.
We finished up with a short presentation on the preservation of digital film, which believe it or not is quite challenging. Film files only last about 5 years, so they require constant maintenance and upkeep in order to ensure that the files are updated with new systems and such so they can still be played in the future. It was super interesting and the guy was really knowledgeable in the subject. Unluckily for me, I was feeling ill and nauseous and was mostly paying attention to how freaking comfortable the chair was.
As we piled in the bus to go back to lunch, we were informed that we would be going to another lecture later in the evening, and we should meet back within an hour of getting back to the hotel. Our lunch spot was beautiful, very old style – but due to feeling sick, I didn’t eat any of the delicious looking food in front of me – only a hunk of bread.
I took the rest of the day off because I was feeling so sick and sleep deprived.. and went to take a nap in the hotel room. Just how my luck works, they were doing construction right next to our room so I couldn’t nap… Figures. Spain doesn’t want to me sleep, I guess.
I ended up waking up somewhere around 8pm and feeling somewhat refreshed after I finally did get to sleep, I decided to go out to dinner with a few girls from the trip. During dinner, we came to know that there was a birthday in the group and that we just haaad to go out to celebrate! We all got excited, and at around 11:30, we all started getting ready to go out. Obviously, I just threw on black jeans and a black tank top because Spybar has taught me well, but the other girls went all out club gear. We were planning on seeing the house DJ legend Seth Troxler who was playing literally across the street from us at Mondo, but by the time 12:30am came around, everyone was tired… Wearing our going out clothes with full makeup, we laid in bed and talked until everyone went to sleep. Crazy, partying college kids, I know. Mom, how could you ever trust me in Europe?!