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Welcome back to a bonus edition of listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie. I’m Beth Accomando.
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In 1968, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead revolutionized horror: it brought the genre into the modern era, defined a new terrifying flesh-eating zombie, gave us a Black actor in the lead heroic role and placed the genre in a contemporary context where social commentary could be made. Michael Aguirre of See It on 16 Millimeter is touring California with a projector and 16 millimeter print of the Romero classic. Find out what drives someone to make screening films on 16mm his life’s work.
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BETH ACCOMANDO
So, Michael, you have a very exciting project that you're working on. You are touring around with a 16 millimeter print of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
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Night of the Living Dead. The dead dead who live on living flesh. The dead whose haunted souls hunt the living. The living whose bodies are the only food for these ungodly creatures. Night of the Living Dead.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So how did this all start?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
I run this, I guess, a company at this point. It's called? See it on 16 millimeter. Basically, I am bringing film to places and theaters that aren't set up for film, which is quite a lot of theaters these days. The Night of the Living Dead tour I am taking to, I think, four locations now. It was a print that I've had for a long time. I bought it. It was actually the first print I ever bought with the hopes of, hey, someday I want to show this for a crowd, but just never really got around to it until now. This is my first time taking the print out on tour. It's an original, and so I wanted to tour it through California because it is a great movie and I know people have seen the cleaned up Criterion version and stuff like that, but to see it on film on the way that everybody else first saw it, I thought would be a great thing to tour around, especially during the month of October with Halloween and everything.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Now, for some people who are young and don't experience films in theater, and if they do not on film very often, what is the allure or the romance or the magic of seeing a film on film?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
So I'll start off by saying it's not perfect. So if you're into perfection, if you're into crisp, clear, stick to digital. But if you're into analog and an imperfectness about it, there is a great allure to it. Film has a history to the prints. Many audiences have seen these prior to when it became my property at this point. And you see scratches sometimes you see skips, you see splices, which are little tears in the film that you have to repair back. So I compare it to listening to a record, like an original record. There's hiss, there's pops. It's not perfect, but that experience of seeing it on film, on the big screen, it's a magical feeling that you really cannot get anywhere else these days. I truly believe that it's a special event anytime that film is able to be projected onto a big screen.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Now, for this particular film, Night of the Living Dead, its history makes it even more appropriate to be screened on 16 millimeter because this was a very independent film made by George Romera way outside of Hollywood in Pittsburgh. So give us a little background on this and why it's a film that you want to bring around and show people.
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
Absolutely. It's Pittsburgh's first movie, I believe. And it was actually shot on 16 millimeter on a bunch of news equipment that Romero and everybody the whole crew. Yeah, it was not shot on 35 like most big Hollywood motion pictures. It was 16 millimeter. So just to be able to see the film on the correct format that it was actually shot on and not blown up to a bigger picture, I think is truly magical. And then especially just the content of the movie is still very much relevant to today. You can watch it today and it's still not a message that you're just kind of like, oh, I bet that happened in the 60s or something. No, it's still happening today and it's still very much relevant. And it's a reason why the movie is timeless. At this point, I wanted to share that magic of that movie with people again. And especially just like I said, watching it on 16 is just truly a special event. It's magical.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So you're going to be screening this at Digital Gym Cinema here in San Diego. So what can people expect? Because you're also going to bring some trailers and you have to set up your own projector and everything too.
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
Yeah. So actually, for this event, I had to source a very rare lens from Holland in order to fit the theater because there's such a short throw in the theater. But I got the lens, and the lens is perfect for the theater. It will be filling the entire screen inside Digital Gym Cinema. We are going to be running it. I think we're just going to do one projector because of space. But there will be quick 22nd changeover. I can change the film out pretty quick. But there is also a trailer show before that. I have queued up a bunch of, I would say like October themed type of trailers to get everybody kind of amped up and excited for the feature and maybe some snack ads and stuff like that from Driveins. It's going to be truly fun. A lot of these trailers I don't think are available on YouTube. So it's an experience especially to see those trailers on 16 and then watch a feature on 16 and what got.
BETH ACCOMANDO
You interested in the actual physical format of 16 millimeter. You're a young guy. I'm not sure, like, how often you got to see film on film and theaters. So what kind of hooked you on this?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
So the whole film, growing up with film, that wasn't my era of stuff. I'm thank you for saying young guy. I'm 34. I feel a little older these days. So I used to travel a lot to La. To go see film. I actually went to events held at the Arrow and I was not specifically looking for film events. I just was going because it was movies they wanted to play that were interest to me. And I went and I saw that it was a triple feature, and two of them were on film. And I've never experienced the movie like that or that movie. I've seen the movie hundreds of times, but to see it on film for the first time was a different experience. And ever since that, I've been really hooked to it. Eventually, like a year or two later, I started collecting film prints, which is a big mistake. You're chasing a dragon at this point, it kind of feels like it's magical to me. Enough for me to travel. I've traveled up north to go see prints that were being played for the first time in the while that I've been programmed, and since then, I've just been hooked. It's been my life's calling at this point to screen prints, to restore prints. And yeah, I'm currently attending grad school right now for archival and restoration, so I'm hoping to dedicate the rest of my life to preserving this stuff, because we're not going to have it around forever. And for those that don't know, prints go bad at some point. They go bad and they're not runnable. And that's kind of happening right now with a lot of prints, especially the ones that aren't archived in cold storage or anything like that.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And what kind of feedback do you get from audiences? And do you get different kinds of feedback from people who are young versus people who are old?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
It honestly depends on the programming. A few months ago, I did a kung fu triple feature. It was all 70s prints on 16, and the crowd that came out for that was a little bit they were in their fifty s, a lot of them saying, I remember watching this as a kid, oh my god, I love this movie. I think I played five fingers of death, which is a classic kung fu film, and a lot of them are reminiscing about being able to see this back in the day. And then we have some other programming that I've done. I mainly do a lot of, like, late night type of horror stuff, so it's usually a younger crowd that comes out for those, and we'll get a mix of people, but the response has been good. A lot of people, it's nostalgic for them being able to see it, how they originally saw it, because digital wasn't the main thing until 2015 when the switch happened. So for the younger crowds, it's a new experience for a lot of people. I know there's been people that have showed up to some of these events and haven't really followed film, and now that they're seeing it, they're actually coming out to multiple events. And it's quite amazing to see some of the same faces come out again, and they're coming out just for film, just experience film, whether it's horror or drama or whatever it is.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And you said you're studying to go into archive work. If people are interested in something like that, there are actual programs for archivists and where can you get information about things like that?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
I'm in Orange County, so I'm not too far from La. And there is a lot of internships. There's a lot of archives in La. First of all, and a lot of them offer grants also, and a lot of them offer internships. But if people are interested in archiving, I would seriously consider an internship. I know the Academy offers stuff like summer internships or internships where you're going through, like, home movies and archiving home movies from Southern California and stuff like that. It's thankless work. I feel like you don't really get a big pat on the back, but you're doing a lot of historical preserving at this point because a lot of this stuff is forgotten about, and honestly, a lot of people don't give a crap about some of it. So to be able to be a part of preserving that history, especially motion picture film, is a great thing. And if anybody is interested, please reach out. I will convince you to go do it.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And do you have plans to tour any other films with this 16 millimeter?
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
So right now, for October this year, 2022, I am touring Night of Living Dead, and then I am also doing another tour this October. So I have two going for a 1950s Monster triple feature, which has like a 20 minutes trailer show of old monster black and white stuff. And then we go straight into Monster Pierre, this blancas, into Giant Gila Monster, which is a print that there's only been three prints that have surfaced in the last 25 years, and I have one of them. So that one I'm really excited for crowds to see. And then we go straight into Robot Monster after that, which is pretty much a slocky, cheesy triple feature of 1950s monster movies. And then also right now, I'm starting to program and get together a tour of It's a Wonderful Life for December. So I'm hoping to take that print to at least five dates through December. And to be able to experience that movie on film is truly great. I've screened it once at the Frieda Cinema in Santa Ana. I've had people coming up after being like I remember seeing it like that on TV with the wear and everything. Because television stations for those that don't know, used to run 16 millimeter prints for broadcasting. So actually, at the time, I had a 16 millimeter print from one of the broadcasts that I was screening. But now I was able to find an original 16 millimeter print and the quality and sound and everything is perfect on it. So I'm excited to take that on tour through December.
BETH ACCOMANDO
All right, well, I want to thank you very much for talking about The Night of Living Dead on 16 millimeter. I'm so excited to be able to see that on film. So thank you for bringing it here.
MICHAEL AGUIRRE
Absolutely. Excited for everybody to be scared.
