Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The Ralph and Gladys Boice film collection consists of more than 100 16mm films of snippets recording community affairs from 1937 to 1973.
They were donated to the Kosciusko County Historical Society in 1985.
Shortly after the donation, Ken Anderson Films copied them to Super VHS tapes and Jason Hostetler created a VHS tape program narrated by Don Frantz. The program served as a tribute to the Boices and their filmmaking.
In late 2003, the Society applied for grant funding to have a portion of the films professionally restored and preserved. The films selected were segments Ralph filmed of World War II-era draftees or volunteers with their families waiting to go off to military service. More than 1,300 men, mostly local, left Warsaw via train, bus or limo.
Scott Smerdon and Mondaco Film Labs in San Francisco, Calif., restored and reprocessed 22 reels of film.
The multi-spliced films were transferred to a digital format and preserved on a Digital BetaCam master tape.
At the same time, a set of VHS time-coded tapes was made and returned. The VHS tapes were reviewed and time codes of the draftee segments were compiled. Using those codes, the choice "selects" were then transferred to an "mpeg" video format. The mpeg files were then copied to a DVD.
With the help of a second grant in 2004, the Society prepared to make the film segments available for public viewing. Dave Heylinger of Rockey Mountain Multimedia was asked to design an interactive program, incorporating chosen film segments, to be displayed on a touch screen kiosk. Kiosk Information Systems offered several styles, complete with all features needed for Heylinger's program.
The Rocky Mountain-developed kiosk program incorporates the "mpegs," as well as the names and addresses of the draftees, gleaned from the Warsaw Daily Times pages, now known as the Times-Union. Although each person is not specifically identified on the films, the men are listed as being part of the group leaving Warsaw that day.
The films all will be individually packed in a special wrap meeting film preservation standards. There may be a time when other films will be digitized for future programs or viewing.
Major funding for the project was provided by the Esther Pfleiderer Charitable Trust.
