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History of Film Keepers
- David Kiehn, Founder of Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Special Chaplin Presentation - Marc Wanamaker, Historian, Founder of the Bison Archives
Saturday August 15 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Buy tickets here – $25
MHAA members free – no ticket required
David Kiehn, Founder of Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum 2-3 pm
Charlie Chaplin in Niles: Films and Footsteps
Follow Charlie Chaplin’s Bay Area footsteps in Niles, where his 1915 work for Essanay helped propel him to international stardom. Film Historian David Kiehn and silent film museum board member Rena Kiehn will talk about the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company and then we will view a film-location presentation created by silent-cinema expert John Bengtson.
David Kiehn is the author of “Broncho Billy and the Essanay Film Company,” the definitive history of that pioneering film company, published in 2003. He is the historian and film programmer for the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, located at the historic Edison Theater in the Niles district of Fremont, California.
David Kiehn has generously loaned us their ultra rare 1902 Akeley “Pancake” 35mm silent film camera that was used to film most high action silent films including Sporting Youth and Fast and Furious. It will be on display in the theater and David will share details of it’s design and film history.
Marc Wanamaker, Historian, Founder of the Bison Archives 3-4 pm
A native of Los Angeles and lifelong resident of West Hollywood-Beverly Hills, Marc attended Beverly Hills and Los Angeles schools and graduated from Los Angeles City College, California State University Northridge and continued graduate work at UCLA and USC in the fields of Theatre, Music and History. For five years he was an instructor at UCLA Extension teaching the history of the Motion Picture Industry in the United States and lecturing internationally.
Marc established the Bison Archives in 1971 as a research and informational archives specializing at first on the history of the motion picture Industry. The archive focused on the motion picture studios and later expanded into the history of Southern California and Los Angeles. Within the archive is one of the most important and respected photographic collections on those subjects.
With over forty years of research experience after working at all the professional research libraries at the major motion picture studios during the 1980s and 1990s, Marc gained enormous experience with the history of the motion picture industry and California history and became a professional researcher and Los Angeles City historian having founded or co-founded several historical societies in the Los Angeles area primarily with the founding of Hollywood Heritage and establishing the Hollywood Heritage Museum.
Marc became a historical research consultant and technical advisor on many film productions both feature and documentary working with producers, writers, art directors, and major film studios. Over the decades, he became affiliated with museums, and archives specializing on the history of the motion picture and television industries. He is an associate historian with the Los Angeles County Museum, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, California State Library in Sacramento, the Getty Research Institute and the Los Angeles City and County Library systems.
He is also an author working freelance on book, newspaper, magazine projects amassing a body of work authoring over forty books and contributing to many others over the years. Examples of titles include; Star Profiles (1984), Reel Women (1991), Hollywood Handbook (1996), Hollywood Haunted (1999), Destined for Hollywood (2001), Hollywood Past and Present (2002), Los Angeles Past and Present (2004), Early Beverly Hills (2005), Early Hollywood (2007), Theatres in Los Angeles (2008), Westwood (2009), Early Warner Bros. Studios (2010), Location Filming in Los Angeles (2010), Griffith Park (2011), San Fernando Valley (2011), Malibu (2011), Movie Studios of Culver City, Early Paramount Studios (2013), Early Poverty Row Studios (2014), Max Factor and Hollywood (2017), Paramount City of Dreams (2017), The Cochranes and the founding of Universal Pictures (2018), Hollywood’s Lost Backlot-Culver Studios (2019) and Hollywood Trains and Trolleys (2020).
Marc is currently working on book and film projects and contributing historical materials and information to all media world-wide.
