Today was Rob and Dan's only day off. We met Andrea Kalas for lunch at Bibendum, a very very cool restaurant. The building was the UK headquarters for the Michelin Tyre Co., built in 1909. There are Michelin man themes throughout - from exterior flourishes to stained glass windows to mosaic tiles. It's an awesome corporate logo extravaganza.
Andrea is the Senior Preservation Manager for the British Film Institute. She used to work with Rob and Dan at Dreamworks, and shares their passion about saving old films. Rob told her about our family films from 1926 and she's really looking forward to seeing them. She worked on restoring the films of Mitchell & Kenyon, a "late Victorian and early Edwardian film company" based in Blackburn, Lancashire. They would be a footnote in history (known primarily for their faked footage of the Boer War) except that in the early 1990's, two barrels containing 800 reels of nitrate film were discovered in Blackburn. It was footage shot by Mitchell & Kenyon. Most of it was of everyday, turn of the century life throughout England, Scotland, and Wales. They would go to fairgrounds, boardwalks, factories, mining camps, etc. and film the people there, in return for those same people coming to pay to watch themselves, their friends, and families on the big screen that evening! Imagine finding 800 of those films...and then having to restore them all.
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