Collections care during motion picture production

Many conservators are now faced with new challenges of having to
answer questions about the effect of movie special effects on
collections.  Movie locations are starting to move into museums,
galleries and historic sites and there is a lot of pressure by
museum directors to accommodate them because of the vast sums of
money they are willing to pay to use these venues. A student named
Andrea Mugnier from the Master of Arts in Museum Studies from John
F. Kennedy University in San Francisco has just completed her thesis
on this topic.  It is called "Coming Soon To A Museum Near You:
Collections Care During Film Production. "  I have had a copy of
this thesis for several months now and have found it incredibly
useful.  It describes the major special effects like fogging,mists,
explosions, blood and slime, etc. and she includes the MSDS sheets
from these commercially available products that movie crews use. She
also includes examples of film policies from several galleries and
museums.

Andrea Mugnier said that if anyone is interested in obtaining a copy
of her thesis to use for reference she can make it available.  It is
in two volumes.

The B.C. Film Commission has already ordered a copy of it for their
use.  You can contact her at amugnier<-a t->well< . >com

Val Thorp
Chief, Conservation Services
Royal British Columbia Museum
Victoria, B.C. Canada

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:84
                  Distributed: Friday, March 28, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-10-84-001
                                  ***