When the former Pittsburgh Filmmakers sold the Regent Square Theater in 2018, Steve Haines found himself in possession of boxes of films. Most of them were 35 mm movie trailers from the 1990s and 2000s, but one unlabeled reel prompted further inspection. What Haines held was a nearly 100-year-old silent film, a (motion) picture into Pittsburgh’s past.
Discovering the film was not remarkable — Haines, the co-founder and director of programming for nonprofit film preservation and screening group Pittsburgh Sound + Image, finds new films every day — but the film itself is.
“I immediately said, ‘Oh, this is significant and important!’” Haines says. “I did a little bit of research, and could tell that it was incredibly rare, if not entirely unique. But then I just set it aside, because I knew I wasn’t going to project it, and I knew I didn’t have the money to digitize it. I put it in the back of my mind as a project for the right grant opportunity.”
The film, titled “Spang’s First Century,” depicts labor in the Etna-based Spang, Chalfant and Company iron and steel manufacturing factory. It paints portraits of labor and reveals an industrial form that doesn’t exist anymore, Haines says.
“Pittsburgh as a city built on labor and industry is a universally recognized archetype,” Haines says. “While the types of labor have changed dramatically since the time ‘Spang’s First Century’ was made, I think there’s still a pretty widespread understanding of the history of Pittsburgh as ‘The Smoky City.’ ‘Spang’ takes us behind the smoke, so to speak, by recognizing the people, places, and processes that were the backbone to our city once upon a time.”
Preserving a film is an expensive process, Haines says. In 2022, Pittsburgh Sound + Image secured a $20,000 grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation for work on “Spang’s First Century.” Still, it was $3,000 short and turned to community support through a Kickstarter campaign.
“The Kickstarter went live on July 11,” Felix says. “10 hours later, we had surpassed our goal. It showed there is a lot of support for what we’re doing. We’re really grateful for that and are going to keep doing it.”
Pittsburgh Sound + Image raised $5,000 beyond their initial goal, which was used to commission local musicians to adopt and score the seven, 10-minute-long reels of the film.
Reel one features Hezreel Robertson’s take on novelty piano — a style synonymous with the 1920s — complete with oscillating high notes seemingly reminiscent of the Mister Rogers theme, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
Other artists take more liberty with the score. In reel three, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh accentuates the act of pipe-making with a muted cacophony of clanking pipes and shifting liquids. The industrial sound is off-putting and accentuates the precarious labor of the steelworkers.
The other five reels are scored by Bri Dominique, Trē Seguritan Abalos, Margaret Cox, Bryce Rabideau and INEZ respectively.
Now, the film is complete and will screen for the first time at a sold-out Thursday, Dec. 7, showing at the Harris Theater. A second screening on Sunday, Dec. 10, is already scheduled, with tickets available through the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s website.
The film has been reprinted onto 35 mm film for the screening, but will also be available online to view for free on the organization’s Vimeo.
Haines explains that, luckily, “Spang’s First Century” was found in good condition for a nearly-100 year 100-year-old film, allowing for higher quality copies. Normally, film is chemically copied, which can lead to minor degradations. Pittsburgh Sound + Image opted to digitally scan the film with a 4k resolution camera and then have it reprinted onto film.
“99.999% of people will see no difference between this and the original,” Haines says.
Creating and storing a 16 mm copy of the film is both more cost-effective and permanent, as each new electronic storage technology necessitates another purchase and time spent on transferring the data. Hard drives themselves do not store well, Haines adds, and their data is easily corruptible.
“Every time I hear someone say that ‘It’s on the internet forever,’ I cringe,” Haines says. “People don’t understand how fragile the internet is.”
Film, on the other hand, simply requires a dry, cool space and will remain in pristine condition.
“This film even existing is proof of that,” Haines says.
Pittsburgh Sound + Image took up the torch of creating a community for Pittsburgh film buffs and makers in 2021.
At least once a month, Pittsburgh Sound + Image screens films by individual, often marginalized filmmakers to crowds of 40-50 people at Eberle Studios in Homestead. They often sell out, Haines explains.
The preservation and screening of “Spang’s First Century” is a perfect fit for the type of public service Pittsburgh Sound + Image provides, according to Executive Director Steve Felix.
“The film’s focus on process dovetails with a theme of what we’re doing with our shows — bringing the human labor and process of film handling back into practice and view after so much of it has been squeezed out of the film industry,” Felix says.
Its programming promotes the accessibility of video archives and theaters and introduces the region to both local and global artists, intentions that, according to Haines, have not been prevalent in the city since Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ decline.
“In the 1970s, Pittsburgh was seen as a ‘third city’ for avant-garde film, coming in behind New York and Los Angeles,” Haines says. “Pittsburgh Filmmakers was a big part of that, but they sadly closed their doors just shy of 50 years.”
Aside from Filmmakers, part of what made Pittsburgh’s film scene so impressive was the Carnegie Film Series, which screened the works of local, independent filmmakers from 1972 to 2003.
Around the same time as the sale of the Regent Square Theater in 2018, the Hollywood Theater in Dormont, which was “another of the city’s most important hangouts for film folks,” according to Haines, changed ownership.
Haines says that the film community moves in waves and the community found itself in a downward spiral after years of marked success.
“It really felt like rock bottom. And then Covid hit a little over a year later,” Haines says. “From there, I suppose there was nowhere to go but up.”
Pittsburgh Sound + Image held its first event in May 2022. A year later, the Carnegie Museum of Art announced the return of its film series for the first time in 20 years, which will run through December 2023.
Amid the current upswing, Haines and Felix hope Pittsburgh Sound + Image remains a positive force in the Pittsburgh film community. Roused by the success of the Kickstarter, the two hope the nonprofit can eventually construct its own theater, one that can host screenings, provide a workspace for local filmmakers and act as an archive for enthusiasts, historians or anyone who is interested.
“That’s not within this year,” Felix says.
Pittsburgh Sound + Image can be supported through a monthly subscription to its Patreon page, which earns supporters free screening tickets.