Milt Shefter

Milton R. Shefter is a Los Angeles-based film and media-asset archivist and preservationist. He is best known for the creation, design, and management of the extensive Paramount Pictures Asset Protection Program, and for co-authoring the 2007 report from the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Digital Dilemma, as well as its 2012 followup, The Digital Dilemma 2.

Early life and career Shefter was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. He moved to California to work for Consolidated Film Industries, eventually becoming Vice President of CFI's Video Division. He then worked at Bonded Services, an international media storage and distribution company, Paramount recognized that it needed “asset protection” when it realized that "all its holdings were in Los Angeles, and if a big earthquake came along, it could lose everything." This was the very first motion picture studio worldwide with a total Asset Protection Program. which led to the formulation of the NFPB's National Film Preservation Plan. Shefter was also on the original design team for the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center of the Library of Congress, located in Culpeper, Virginia. According to his company website, he has also testified as an expert witness on nitrate film for the United States Department of Justice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. The Council created a Digital Motion Picture Archival Project, and appointed Shefter as its Lead. Together with Andy Maltz, Director of the Council, Shefter co-authored and co-edited The Digital Dilemma, the very first "white paper" from the Academy. As a result of The Digital Dilemma, the Academy partnered with the Library of Congress on the Digital Motion Picture Archive Framework Project.

In 2012, Shefter and Maltz co-authored a follow-up report, The Digital Dilemma 2, produced in partnership with the Academy and the Library of Congress, and focusing more on independent filmmakers and small archives.

Other achievements and awards

Shefter is a former Governor of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. In 1992, Shefter received SMPTE’s Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society. In 2013, he received The Archival Technology Medal from SMPTE "in recognition of his long-standing and continued leadership contributions to the motion picture and television industry in defining practices for the storage and archive of the industry’s film legacy and digital media content."

Shefter is a past President of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, and served as Chair of the International Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations. He is an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers, and directs and narrates their annual awards show. He is also a member of the Writers Guild of America and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.