“Sound is that squeaky little thing that accompanies the picture.”

Frederick Irving “Rick” Chace 1947 – 1992

The Rick Chace Foundation was formed in 2002 to commemorate the untimely passing of Chace Production’s founder and owner, Rick Chace and to continue his mission to “break the silence on the history, art and technology of motion picture sound.”

Rick Chace, who died in 1992 at the age of 45, was a technologist and visionary entrepreneur who pioneered in the new field of motion picture sound preservation and restoration.  While Chace was a recognized talent for his audio engineering expertise restoring films such as Gone With the Wind, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and On the Waterfront, he was also an early champion for educating his client’s on the need for sound preservation practices.

The educational components of the foundation’s activities have been front and center since its formation. For the past 14 consecutive years The Rick Chace Foundation has awarded a $4,000 scholarship for advance study in moving image preservation, administered by the Education Committee of the Association of Moving Images Archivists (AMIA). Chace scholars have excelled in their scholastic endeavors with graduates at the Packard Campus of the Library of Congress, as educators at the university level and in private industry.

Another educational effort and “keystone” project of The Rick Chace Foundation has been the Century of Sound DVD and Blu-ray disc series. Produced in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the comprehensive program by Bob Gitt, Preservation Officer Emeritus, at UCLA has been recognized internationally as the “de facto” resource on the history of motion picture sound technology.

Finally the foundation has taken a position as a founding member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Museum of Motion Pictures. The foundation plans to be working with museum designers and programmers as an advocate to ensure that the history, art and technology of motion picture sound is well represented.

The board of directors of The Rick Chace Foundation encourages anyone who shares our enthusiasm and passion for film sound preservation and education activities to contact us.