The Extras
The Extras
Preserving the Past: Warner Bros. Corporate Archive
Ever wondered what's the difference between the Warner Archive and Warner Bros Corporate Archive? We sit down with Warner Bros. archivist Jeff Briggs, and George Feltenstein from the Warner Archive, to discuss the differences and the part each one plays in preserving Warner Bros. film and TV history.
The story originates from how an exhibit at Paris' Pompidou Center led to the birth of the Warner Bros. Corporate Archive and the pivotal role played by Leith Adams. Jeff relates how he was brought onto the team and some of his highlights in working with archival props, costumes, and archival photos. Along the way, we discuss the role of the Academy's new museum, the Jack Warner collection, and the partnership with the USC Film Archive. We also review the evolution of the studio's historic mailroom tour, initiated in the 1940s, and how it has developed into the current studio tour. And George relates some of the recent requests he has received from the press during the 100th Anniversary Celebration.
You may also be interested in our April 4th WB 100th Anniversary Podcast:
Celebrating 100 Years of Warner Bros History Through Releases from the Warner Archive - The Early Years
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Hello and welcome to the Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies and animation and then release on digital DVD, blue Rain 4K or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lark, your host. Today. We have two podcast regulars back on to continue our celebration of the 100th anniversary of Warner Brothers. George Felstein has been with Warner Brothers for 27 years and is the guiding force behind the Warner Archive, and joining him is Warner Brothers Archivist Jeff Briggs, who has been with the studio for 29 years and, as an archivist, deals with the studio's history on a daily basis. Hi, george, jeff. Welcome back to the Extras podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's great to be here, Tim, Hi Tim.
Speaker 1:So it's been a few months since we were on talking about some of the titles that came out in Warner Brothers the 1920s and 30s in celebration of the 100th anniversary. But I think today we want to talk a little bit more about the archives and some of the work that's done, jeff, by you and your department, george. Why don't you introduce kind of what it is that you want to talk about today?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that sometimes a little bit of confusion between the Warner Archive collection, which is the boutique brand that is a part of Warner Brothers Discovery that sells Blu-rays and DVDs to the home entertainment market, and then there is the Warner Brothers corporate archive, of which Jeff is a seasoned member, that do corporate archivist work, which is completely different and sometimes people get confused. I'll get phone calls or emails from people that want to reach the corporate archive and vice versa. So I thought it would be a good opportunity for Jeff to talk about what he does at the corporate archive and what his experiences have been and how the two have dovetailed, because we couldn't do a lot of the things we do without Jeff's input, counsel and discoveries.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks, george. Yes, so just a little. I think we have to go into the background of the archives at the major studios. I would think, george, you'd agree that the archiving wasn't really at the forefront of the studios. Maybe with the exception of Disney until fairly relatively recently, the studios really didn't have major archives and I think they kind of in the early days they viewed their, maybe their materials, their props, their costumes as similar to the way they viewed their films, as products that could be reused. So maybe the popularity of props and costumes which started to bubble up, I probably in the 70s and even more so in the 80s, kind of made the studios take notice of things, especially when we had auctions, famous props and costumes going for a lot of money at auctions. So from a Warner Brothers standpoint, the corporate archive which I am an employee and I actually I started at corporate archive and I kind of went into different archives in the middle of my career and recently rejoined officially rejoined the corporate archive which is going strong after more than 30 years.
Speaker 3:It all started essentially with an exhibit in 1991 at the Pompidou Center in Paris. There was a history of Warner Brothers exhibit and it was curated by a man named Leith Adams who, george and I will agree we cannot praise more in the history of Warner Brothers the importance of him to Warner Brothers history. He was the archivist for the Warner Brothers archives down at USC, the University of Southern California, where Warner Communications had donated a huge chunk of material back in the 70s and he oversaw that and was asked by Bob Daley and Terry Semmel to create this exhibit for the Pompidou Center. That exhibit was put on and was a huge success and so Leith was asked to create an archive at Warner Brothers and that became the Warner Brothers corporate archive, which was founded in 1992, and I joined the corporate archive in the summer of 1994.
Speaker 3:My early years at the archive consisted mostly of looking for props, costumes, business files which were strewn all over the various locations of the studio. The major studio was in Burbank but there were satellite areas. There were warehouses, offices off the main lot, sometimes close to the main lot, sometimes several miles away. We needed to go and bring everything back together to a centralized location. So a lot of my first, I'd say, two or three years at the archive was going and finding this material.
Speaker 2:And that has led to the whole company benefiting from Jeff's expertise and knowledge, not only of these assets that he's found in terms of photography and various other things, but it supports every other division that is dealing with making the Warner Brothers legacy available to the people, and that's terribly important.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. To give an idea, just some examples of some of my fond memories of early in my archiving career a lot of the work we did and I have to thank I'm not the only person that works at the corporate archive. There was a whole team of people unbelievably talented archivists, some who do a lot of longer work there, but we have a huge. We have a very big team now working and doing God's work, basically keeping the studio's history alive. But when I started at the studio, one of the main projects was the Warner Brothers Museum, which was on the lot and opened in 1996. Unfortunately it closed down during the pandemic but a lot of it has been incorporated into the new tour center. So if you take the Warner Brothers tour you can see a lot of the material that was in the museum in this new tour center if you take the tour.
Speaker 3:But I spent weeks and weeks going through the prop department and we have a huge four-story gigantic building on the lot with, I would say to say, hundreds of thousands of props and the same for the costume department. It's a few football fields worth of costumes. Some period going back to the beginning of the studio. We even found stuff from the first national days there, but sometimes vintage clothing going back to, I believe, the 18th century in some cases. Some of the highlights were I found the I guess you call it a screen or a divider that was in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, which you can clearly see in the film and in stills. I found that in the prop department. Now again, somebody else probably would have found it, but I can take the bit of credit for fine writing Right, and it's amazing.
Speaker 3:I think I drew there, but after like six hours it's like, oh, I need a break. I do whenever I go by there I get this feeling of nausea from working too much there. I mean just memories of that. It's still a thrill to go back in there, but it can be overwhelming and it's very. It can be taxing at times. And my fondest memory from the costume department is finding, oh, I think we had probably five or six Levi's denim shirts, black denim shirts, and we took a look at them and inside they had wardrobe tags for James Dean. They are the denim shirts that he wore in Giant during the scene when he strikes oil. So we have several of those and those were on display in the museum before. That's probably the highlight of the material I found.
Speaker 1:So I'm kind of curious when you came on as an employee, there's this kind of this daunting task. It feels like I mean, based on what I'm hearing you say, how did you figure out where to start and were you tasked with going through the props first or photos first, or how did that start off for you?
Speaker 3:Well, as I said, leif Adams was the director of the archive and he had a vision that was started even before I joined. You know, we had a very small staff there were only about five of us in the early years and it was mostly, you know, getting stuff together with the ultimate goal of putting them in the museum. And the museum opened in June of 1996 and it's probably my personal highlight in terms of all the events I've been to at the studio. It was a pretty star studded affair. Who meant so many people were there? I mean the highlights Elizabeth Taylor was there and she actually brought her dog with her. Roddy McDowell brought her.
Speaker 3:And let's see who else was there Angie Dickinson was there, warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway let's see from the old days. Virginia Mayo was there, gene Nelson, the director of Vincent Sherman, was there, and you know here I am essentially working the event and answering questions, but we used to have docents that worked there who were former employees. One of our docents actually started at the studio in 1929. Wow, so he was quite old at the time and he had some amazing stories. I remember him telling me about how he worked on Mystery of the Wax Museum.
Speaker 3:We had another employee who started it in the 30s and I used to give him rides home after he would do the docenty work at the museum and he used to be a driver for the studio and he drove everyone from Errol Flynn to Bruce Lee Wow, and he had some very colorful stories, I'll tell you that, and that was part of the museum as well. You know just the rich history of the former employees who got to be there and talk to the guests. It was great and so many of them loved doing that. It was just very exciting for them as well. So it was kind of a living history there, as well as the items we have on display.
Speaker 2:And I think that you know that was a cyclical thing that kept the museum and events at the museum thriving for many, many years, and it was exciting to know what was coming next.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the first exhibit focused on the first 50 years of Warner Brothers. So I believe the latest item we had in there was from the Wild Bunch. We had the actual detonator and special effects that were used to blow up the bridge in the Wild Bunch in that famous sequence, and then the and everything else was before that we had. We had borrowed stuff. We had the original Casablanca piano on display there, the original Maltese Falcon, those we borrowed from their owner at the time it was a private party owned it and the upstairs was all dedicated to Warner Brothers Animation. It was a beautiful display.
Speaker 3:The highlight for me, which we had audio recordings of, that you could listen to with sound sticks, of Mel Blanc vocal sessions recording for the cartoons. I'll tell you you listen to any minute of those and you would be laughing your your off. They're magical, yeah, absolutely incredible. I still remember because I think these were from the early 60s and his son, Noel, was with him and at the end of his wording you know I would say, okay, kill it, Noel. Very, very funny stuff. And then we had a second exhibit at open 1999 that came up more up to date. So we included all the Batman and Superman material, more of the Clint Eastwood films. We had the door from the Exorcist and a lot of other material, and that was. That was a fun opening too as well. Not quite a star-studder, but pretty exciting.
Speaker 1:So did you find, jeff I mean, this is just my own kind of personal interest in hearing you Did you find that a lot of the stuff from the early movies unfortunately had been auctioned and and was no longer owned by the studios or wasn't even available? And then at some point was there more? You know, at some point later on did they keep more of that stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, the thing that's good from a Warner standpoint of I mean to answer your question yes, but to give it more context, warner Brothers never had an auction like, for example, mgm have, where they auctioned off all of their treasures. But I know that I'm sure that things just kind of disappeared over time as time went on. In the movies, you know that market got more interest. There was more interest in that. So, yes, there's a lot of things that we don't have and who knows, if, you know, it could have been something from, you know, in the back in the old days, they might have rented a costume from another place, from a Western costume or a different company, and it would have gone back to them, you know. But we do have a treasure trove of material that did stay and thankfully, the wardrobe department and the prop department did reuse a lot of that material, which was, you know, maybe not the best to keep it in the good condition, but it prevented it from leaving the studio and overall, you know, most of the material we have wasn't pretty good condition. I'm just thinking of the stuff that we, you know, brought together back in the 90s and the team even before I came put together. So you know what we have is an overall very good shape.
Speaker 3:But are there big pieces from Warner Brothers history missing? Of course there are, and some of those we have seen up at auction. You know, it's like the Bogart trench coat from Cateau de Casablanca. No one knows where that is. Is it out there? Do someone know they have it? Or there are some treasures that we wish we had but we don't. Happily we have a again, as I said, a huge collection to share when we have exhibits.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with Jeff.
Speaker 2:I think the MGM auction, which was a horrific point in time for all of Hollywood because it showed that the once greatest studio of them all had fallen victim to I'll just say it an ignorant majority stockholder who just wanted to raise cash and have a fire sale.
Speaker 2:And if you think that they auctioned off Dorothy Slippers from the Lizard Vase one of the sixth pair for $15,000, which seemed like a fortune at the time, and now they're worth millions and millions, and everything that wasn't tied down to keeping what was left of the studio running was sold, and I think that sent shockwaves through a lot of Hollywood and got people to start thinking about how important it was to preserve this.
Speaker 2:And the fact that we have at this studio as much of our historic legacy that we do is not only I think some of it is a little bit of good luck, but I would say a huge portion of it is due to the influence of Leith Adams, as Jeff so rightly pointed out, and what has gone on that began as his department's work 30 years ago and continues to this day, but also the work that went on to repatriate and bring back things that had gone astray for whatever reason, and now you see this archival mentality you know, leading to finally a creation of a museum of Hollywood history that the Academy got going and there was talk as far back as, I think, the 1940s, but definitely more aggressive action in the 1960s to try to have some kind of a preservation of Hollywood's history and it didn't become an all industry effort until the Academy got everybody together but within Warner Brothers and I think Jeff was right in making the distinction that Disney always saw the value in and I think that came from Walt Disney himself of keeping meticulous care of everything that went into the making of their animated films.
Speaker 2:But what we have here at Warner Brothers is remarkable, not just in terms of props and costumes and stills, but our studio itself and the way that it is maintained and the sound stage is being functional, and many of them are almost 100 years old and they're still state of the art and can do anything. This is a magical place and the work that Jeff does, jeff and his colleagues they're preserving not only the past legacy, they're also promoting the current and the future, because anytime a new movie is made or a new television program is produced, everything is analyzed as what needs to be kept, and I think that's a look toward the future, and I find all of that terribly meaningful and rewarding.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's good you mentioned, george, that, about the stuff we've been able to, as you said, repatriate. One of the for me one of the most exciting collections we have actually came from the. It was jack. We have a good chunk of Jack Warner's personal collection of memorabilia and history which we we got from the Warner mansion. After and Warner Jack's wife died, I believe in 1990, we had the opportunity and I say this is the world we I wasn't there at the time but to get that material and take some of it back and Our Jack Warner collection is very impressive and there's some amazing stuff in that.
Speaker 3:You know, I was just looking yesterday and I'm not sure where this originally came from. It might have come from the Warner mansion, but we have a poster. It's actually a window card for the first rent in tin film, when then where the north begins, which just came out a hundred years ago last month. It's just exciting to see stuff that old. We have some scrapbooks as well from Jack Warner. I believe we have one for Harry as well, and I dig deep sometimes and in one of the scrapbooks I found a Letter to Jack Warner from the comedian Al St John, who silent comedy fans will recognize as being the foil of Fidy Arbuckle and Mabel Norman back in their films in the teens and he actually made some films for Warner Brothers before they incorporated. And in this one scrapbook there's a letter to Jack from Al St John. I almost fell over when I saw that. So very exciting stuff. You know some of it. You know a little more in the weeds but yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3:And something else I'll just mention quick About, especially on the more recent films the, the amount of care and work that the incredibly talented people who make the props and costumes and the design and design them. There are some movies that I won't mention their names, that I don't think are very good, that Warner Brothers made, you know, but the, the material from them is absolutely stunning, the work and the care and the love and it's it's. You know it's kind of sad when a movie doesn't do well or doesn't have a good reputation, but within that there is magnificent work. Again, I don't want to mention any titles but there's some in my mind where you know the props and costumes we have are just beautiful. They're incredible works of art and I think working here has made me appreciate that fact that even if a movie doesn't come out as well as it was intended, there is artistry to be savored within those films and TV shows.
Speaker 2:I'd have to agree.
Speaker 1:So, jeff, what's the? What's the best way for the average person you know people who are listening right now to See some of these things, to interact with some of these things I mean, the museum is no longer Running, as you mentioned Is it through the tours that are now available on the studio La?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's for the Warner Brothers studio tour. It was just finished, about two years ago and it's, it's gigantic. I mean when I started to hear, the tour center was just in the tiny building on the lot and maybe they had about a 10 tour guides. I mean, now it's just, it's. It's incredible how much it's grown in the last 30 years. They've got dozens and dozens, especially in the summer months. Well over 200 tour guides I probably should Double-check that number, but definitely over a hundred and it's become a huge tourist attraction. And it's amazing what's been done and it's pretty spectacular, you know it's.
Speaker 3:It's different than a universal studios. It's not really a theme park, it's more of a nuts and bolts, look. But if you love movies and TV shows and in the history in general, you know the tour is wonderful and the tour center has, you know, a ton of exhibits, much bigger than anything they have in the past, and there's also a small space on the lot when they have some exhibits as well. So for the general public, guess that's the best way to see that material. There's a lot of great stuff.
Speaker 2:And I I would have to say and I think this is terribly important that all of the tour guides are trained Marvelously. I don't know who does the training, but they are trained to understand and Speak well about the history of the studio. So Whenever I'm like walking past a tour bus and I hear the tour guide Telling people what they're seeing, it always makes me so proud of these wonderful people that they have been enlightened to the legacy of the studio and Pass on their enthusiasm for it to the people who come here for a tour.
Speaker 3:Yes, agreed, yeah, the tour guides are really, are really a Fantastic and for those of you listening who are more into the classic Hollywood, there is a special classics tour that they have that is more tailored to the, the classics. You know, it's funny when I think of a classic and with some other people younger than me think of classics Probably different things. But if you want to focus on more of the older stuff and not just the stuff from the last 20 years or so, they do have a tour that caters to that and I'm very proud to say that they gave me a test tour to get my opinion before they went live with it, and I was like you guys rock.
Speaker 2:This is awesome when you put together. Yeah we got great people in the tours group have really done an outstanding job. There's been a tour of the lot for Decades, right, jeff?
Speaker 3:Yes, we have. Well, I think, the tours we know and now started probably in the Burbank Studios era, but we have, it's funny, we have photography of a studio tour. Was called the mailroom tour. That Started, well, the photos we have were taken around 1940, so there was a tour going back to that time, maybe a little before that.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the you know the, the behemoth that it is now but I think that was that was the point that I wanted to make was that you know, from relatively modest beginnings the opportunity was always there. Universal's tour, I think, goes back to the beginning of their studio. That's true, I universal was basically a B studio until Really the 1960s I think they were not in the class of Warner Brothers and MGM and Paramount and Twain Street Fox. They were on a little bit of a lower rock, but their tour was always a source of revenue for them. And we don't have a theme park and that's what Universal's tour really is. We have a true tour of a Hollywood studio.
Speaker 2:The physical plant has been here since 19 opens in 1926, when it was first National Pictures and the company moved headquarters here after buying first National shortly thereafter. But there's living history on this lot and then Jeff is going through and finding amazing photography of special events that happened here on the Warner lot as Employee, including movie stars events, because it was like one big family. And, jeff, I would love for you to talk about things that you were kind enough to share with me, those Friday the 13th pictures. For a tip, I'm not talking about the movie Friday.
Speaker 3:Right, right. Well, I'll jump back a tiny bit and just say In about 1999 there was a decision to spin off a new archive from the corporate archive and it was called the corporate image archive back then. Now it's now, what do we call it? We just call the image archive now, and I was asked to be the first employee of that. So I jumped at that opportunity and it was a similar Philosophy. We wanted to unite all of the studios photography, bring it back to one central place and start scanning it. So starting around 1999, 2000, we had a scan team and we started scanning material. We started with the material that we had here and this is, you know, this is after the Turner merger. So this includes RKO photography, mgm photography and we scan the select, the. Basically we would scan the approved, the talent or filmmaker approved images and Also the historical photography and lot photography from the studio, of which there's, you know, thousands of thousands. I mean that our system now, our digital system in the area that I oversee, has Close to 1.4 million images in it.
Speaker 3:That was another exciting you know going to find, because there were, you know, as I said, the photography was strewn about somebody you know, back in the old days. They take some photography from somewhere and never take it back. So, even you know, recently I'm still reincorporating some Photography, finding originals, and what was exciting back then too was to find the original negatives. If we had it Just as an example, we, you know, because back in the days they would, you know, dupe an image and they hand out, like those dupes which usually would fade over time, and you'd see an image that would, I, look okay but doesn't look great. We would find the original negatives or the original transparencies and scan those. I'll give you one great example. We have there's. You know, the approved photography from a film is called a selection, basically, and Oftentimes there would be black and white and color. You, for the film blazing saddles, one of our biggest movies in one of this history, I actually prepped that for scanning. This is probably 20 years ago and every single image and they were about, I wanna say, 350 or 400, every single approved image we managed to scan from the original negative and they look Absolutely magnificent. Wow. And you'll see that stuff on the more recent blue rays and dvds, basically anything from maybe the mid two thousands on. You're gonna see the fruits of the image archives, labor of you know, finding the best quality and someone you know who's deeply invested in one of those history finding Lot photography or historical photography.
Speaker 3:Here's an example about was it about a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago we have photography from that was taken during the construction of the first national lot in 1926. Some of that was in our system and it's been many years ago. But I came across a couple files that have more images that somehow been overlooked. So we found we had about 30 and I found about 50 additional photos and, amazingly, we had Caption sheet, which I don't know how that's right over the time. And so we scan these about 80 photos and they look absolutely magnificent. They're incredible and you can, you know, we scan them at a pretty large size. You can zoom into the little details like signs on walls and construction signs. It's just wonderful and we have. We managed to.
Speaker 3:Maybe about six or seven years ago we had some photography that have been deposited down to usc and had been out of order with his hands for Probably twenty, five, thirty years.
Speaker 3:We got it back and scan it and we had all these studio publicity Photos from the twenties through the, through the fifties or sixties and some beautiful, beautiful shots, original, negative, some of it nitrate, nitrate.
Speaker 3:We safely put aside and store in a safe place, but that material just looks wonderful. I found Some amazing shots of of, like, the Warner family standing at a train station, probably from the late twenties, and you know, in one photo you got jack Warner and, and here you're in there too, but you also have girls and I can have Wallace there and the Warner, the rest of the Warner family, leon slush, and there is there. It's just really exciting to see that stuff for me and identify it. And, you know, for the future as well, and you know I did deep, you know, into, you know some of these people who are very obscure but it's important to note this material. So the, you know, the, the photography has been I can't call my baby that collection I've been, you know, intimately involved with for over twenty years and Very excited to see people use it and use, you know, stuff that was scanned, that that that myself and my team and the team I work with were able to scan and preserve.
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask you about who who kind of does come to you or accesses those photos to expose people who obviously do books.
Speaker 3:And documentaries as well. The recent WB 100 documentary that's on max right now. George and I Were deeply involved with that boy over two years, I think George right, yes, I, that was last summer when I was digging deep into the physical archives. I would go there and, you know, look for particular material. That's when I came across those 1926 photos and I found some photos of, like the dedication of the Columbia pictures building in the early brumwick studios era and it was great to see them used in the documentary. And we get requests and there's also we get requests for, you know, office decor, you know, and hallway decor is at the studio and all over the country at the Warner Brothers offices to decorate, you know, and sometimes even my great timelines to help with that. You know a lot of, there's a lot of uses for that. And the books the other, the Warner Brothers 100 anniversary book that just came out, the Tcm branded book yeah, a lot of the material that came from us.
Speaker 1:There's a sleuthing element which you know is kind of fun to, since there some of them don't have great, great records.
Speaker 3:No, exactly, yeah, that's, that's a great, that's a really fun part of it to.
Speaker 1:I just did a podcast with Gregory orin the updates that he did to his documentary. I know he worked with you Both, actually, in terms of trying to get some assets in hd or some of the newer assets and some of the new stuff that he added To that release now which is coming out on DVD. And then I recall, of course, working with you on the extras, when we would need to use still photos. I'll pick some from more current television shows just as an example. But when I worked on the big bang theory, just going through, you can't just use any image. It has to be a selected, approved talent, approved by legal. Everything in your system there let's people like myself know, go in, select the pictures, submit them to legal, make sure that they're all good and then and then we can use them in the extras or in the packaging or in things of that nature for the promotion of the extras and home entertainment release.
Speaker 3:Right, I also internally my share a lot of a historic photos with. We have a, an online kind of a Social media site that's used for employees and I share a lot of historical information on that. You know a lot of our fellow employees, george, and you agree that really don't know that much about the history of the studio, but when given the opportunity to get really excited about it, so I'm always putting on, like you know, like that you're in 1010 film 100th anniversary. I did a little post about that and give a little historic information on it and people seem to appreciate it, which is great Because it's important to know the legacy of the studio, especially for employees.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree with you more on that one.
Speaker 1:I know, george, with the 100th anniversary this year, that you have been involved in giving some tours of the props and different archives and things that nature and people have been able to see some of the pieces that, the videos that you are in and things of that nature. So you've been really actively involved this year too with with a lot of the archives and the sharing to the media outlets and other places.
Speaker 2:Without question, and it's been such an honor and a pleasure and I've met journalists and television personalities as well from all over the world and I've accompanied them on tours of the lot. And then we go to the corporate archive. We had people from Poland, sweden, more than one from France, I believe, italy. We had also from the US, we had CBS Mornings, we had journalists from the Guardian and various publications, several of whom interviewed me and about the company's history and my involvement in what's been going on with the 100th, because there are certain things I was very involved with the like representing the corporation through corporate communications and these tours and press events. There are other other things I had no involvement in.
Speaker 2:So I always like to be able to speak about the things I was involved in and I have to say that everyone who came from all four corners of the globe Couldn't have been nicer and everybody was just blown away by the studio and the tour and the corporate archive and all the things that we have, including 10. Patmobile's, stretching from keeping to Robert Pattinson, they're all in the corporate archive and they all work. It's amazing to go there and see all this and it's been so meaningful to me personally to be able to speak of the company's history to all these people, and it's the work of the people of present day as well as the past who unite us all in Warner Brothers history, and that's it's been a delightful thing. It's a wonderful thing to be able to talk to you about today, tim. Well, this is not an old radio Station, I think A TV station.
Speaker 1:Not a大, not a Kurtz Stadium.
Speaker 1:I know that one of the great joys as an employee of Warner Brothers and I've talked to other people recently and they say the same thing is just walking around the lot and you look at the stages and you see those placards and you just see history right there and it's so fascinating.
Speaker 1:And obviously you go inside and inside it's either empty or it's a brand new movie or TV show. So it's living history as well, because it keeps moving on and on the placards you'll see a TV show from last year or this year and so you see the movies, the TV shows, everything that are being filmed in the sound stages and it's a terrific lot for that purpose of just walking around and feeling the history. And now the tours, I think really have up the ante and I know that I had my mom go through it, my aunt and family and relatives, and it was a great way for them to kind of just learn and see some highlights of the studio and it's a fantastic. I love the way that Warner Brothers and the work that you guys have done to help promote the history of the studio has, I think, really helped garner more interest in the studio. The studio tour has just explodes in popularity and I think it just shows the potential of making sure that these archives are getting the history out there to the fans.
Speaker 3:Agreed.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more, and you know, what it all comes down to at the end of the day are the films themselves, and that's where the Warner archive collection steps in in terms of making the films that relate to this history we're talking about available and looking better than they ever have before, in some cases, better than they did when they came out, and it's really a thrill to be part of the living history of this studio as it continues to grow and felt. And at the time that we're recording this, everything is Barbie, and that's a wonderful thing Because, you know, I never thought anybody would make a movie like that and it's a remarkable, clever, intelligent, insightful film that hits the zeitgeist of multiple generations and people of multiple interests. And it's once again, very, very good to have a big, successful motion picture coming from our studios here, because it was a welcome return back to having excitement around a new release that is loved the world over, and I hope it is just the beginning of a new era of success for the company.
Speaker 1:So that leads into an interesting question for you, Jeff, and that is how soon does a film that is in theaters start having assets that is going to come your way Photos, images, props, things of that nature?
Speaker 3:Usually from the corporate archive side, the props and costumes they often will get and this is I'm not as involved, I haven't been as involved with this but I know the reps really well who do deal with this material and they usually get them before the movie has come out, I think after the filming stops, and then they get the assets because you know, I've seen Barbie stuff here months ago.
Speaker 3:And for the photography, we really for the new films, I'm somewhat involved with the press photography. You know the stuff that you see once again, I mean, it's a different world now. Everything once it's online, it's online and then it's released, right. So we in our system and you know, in terms of being archived, it's pretty much when it gets released to the public, you know, maybe a teeny bit before, but it's usually at the same time and we make sure that the material is kept safe. And you know, I talked to the incredible photo editors for our features and they, after the film comes out, we usually try to put a little more photography in, so it's a little more to choose from going forward.
Speaker 1:Well, that's pretty interesting. I mean, that's right up to the minute of what you're working on and what's in theaters. And you have to understand that some of those props, yes, they're done with the movie, but they may ask to use them to shoot commercials or sequels or prequels or all kinds of promotional things over the next number of months, or even things for the home entertainment. So everybody needs to know where those are, yeah, so we keep them safe, nice and safe.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been really interesting. I appreciate you guys coming on the podcast to explain just a little bit about how the archiving process goes on at the studio, because we've all seen the articles online. We've all seen the videos of you, george, giving the CBS this morning, one especially, I think, was pretty well noted by people on our Facebook group and people who buy the Warner Archive product. It was great to see you on there and the archives in there.
Speaker 3:So that was a lot. We couldn't have a better ambassador.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the Guardian article too, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was very exciting for me because for as long as I've been here and Jeff was shocked when I told him this I had never been to the corporate archive. I can't believe that. I knew what it was and I would ask for things to be sent, and they'd be sent, and I knew the people there, but it just never came to my having been there, and once I was, I was like, oh my God, I could spend days here.
Speaker 3:It's overwhelming.
Speaker 2:And frankly there were a lot of things that well, almost everything that is there I didn't touch or go near. I'd be afraid to open up a box or a garment bag or anything. That's what we have archivists for. They know how to handle that kind of.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:But the way they keep all the costumes together. There's a whole like Humphrey Bogart section of costumes and the Doris Day section of costumes and Jimmy Cagney and Edwin G Robinson and Joe Crawford and Betty Davis and Natalie Wood, and it just goes on and on and on. It is astounding and they did admit they did put some of the more awe-inspiring stars in the most viewable racks but it's three stories high in terms of the costumes. And then I see some of the costumes from some of my favorite television shows that Warren Brothers just made, like Lucifer or Longmire, which are, and things like everybody loves, like the big bank, dirty. I mean there's just friends and two and a half men and it's all there alongside the Betty Davis costume from Now Voyager. It's astounding. And there's animation, there are toys from Hannah Barbera. It is absolutely astounding and it's so well cared for and so well inventory.
Speaker 2:We're very fortunate to have a company that supports that kind of approach to archival activity. And of course, as I've said on Tim your podcast many times, the film and tape archival aspect of what is done at Warner Brothers is rooted in decades of preservation and that has its roots back into the preservation program that started at MGM in the 1960s preserving nitrates to safety, and MGM having been bought by Turner by the MGM library and Warner Brothers buying Turner that brought the sense of film and tape archival preservation to Warner Brothers 27 years ago. So there's just so much protection going on looking forward to the future. It's a very exciting time for people who like and care about the past as well as making sure that the present is available for future generations.
Speaker 3:Right, and what's important in Georgia you basically said this, but I'll say it again and underline it is all the archivists, not just the corporate archive, but the film and tape people. They really care about this stuff. I feel fortunate that we work with people who care so much and are dedicated to keeping this history alive. I feel very honored to work here and among such great people. It's really, I feel really blessed. There's nothing more I love than when I take someone to the warehouse and see them light up when they see this material. It's like when I first showed my son one of his favorite movies when he was a kid or something. Just to see that reaction is just thrilling, because I share in that as well.
Speaker 2:Jeff, I echo everything you said. I think we're, like mine, big shock on there, very much feel the same all along, without question. I think it's really great, tim, and I thank you, that we've had a chance to kind of talk about this on the extras and share kind of what goes on here that a lot of people don't hear about, specifically the work that Jeff does that contributes to so much of what Warner Brothers can offer the public in terms of having a view of its legacy. It's really quite remarkable.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to thank you both for coming on the show. I want to thank Warner Brothers for allowing us to talk about this topic today and share that with the fans, because it really is a unique sneak peek into Warner Brothers, one of the major studios of Hollywood, and how you guys keep the archives and the history of this great studio for the future.
Speaker 3:Tim, it's the best studio in Hollywood.
Speaker 2:Without question. I say that without bias.
Speaker 3:I agree, same here.
Speaker 1:What's always great to have George Feldenstein and Jeff Briggs on the podcast. We're fortunate to be hearing directly from the same people who most media outlets are being directed to this year for the 100th anniversary celebration of the studio. So thanks to George and Jeff again, and to Warner Brothers. If you haven't had a chance to listen to George and Jeff's discussion of the early films of the studio, you can find that episode in our podcast archives from April 4. Their knowledge of these films and the history behind them is right up there with the best film scholars in the world, so we are very lucky that they are friends of the podcast.
Speaker 1:If you're on social media, be sure and follow the show to stay up to date on our upcoming guests and to be a part of our community. And if you're a fan of Warner Brothers, you're invited to a Facebook group called Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog group. So look for that link and our social media links in the podcast show notes. And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to follow and leave us a review to iTunes, spotify or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Alarc, stay slightly obsessed.