Preservation Panel 2026

Formerly Executive Vice President, Asset Restoration & Preservation at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Grover Crisp created and managed all facets of the restoration, preservation and digital mastering program for the Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures film and television libraries for SPE. His tenure at Columbia/Sony Pictures spanned 1984 to 2026. He oversaw the restoration and preservation of films such as “Easy Rider,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “In Cold Blood,” “Five Easy Pieces,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “On the Waterfront,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Taxi Driver,” and “From Here to Eternity,” and hundreds more. He continues to work independently supervising and consulting on a variety of restoration and preservation projects. He also directed the activities of the groundbreaking Sony Pictures Film Preservation Committee, whose members included the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, and the Academy Film Archive. Crisp currently serves as Chair of the National Film Preservation Foundation, has been a member of the National Film Preservation Board since 2010, and is a member of AMPAS, SMPTE, AMIA, and an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Arnold Leibovit is a producer-director and preservationist whose decades-long work has been devoted to restoring and celebrating the legacy of Academy Award-winning producer-director George Pal. With the encouragement and participation of Mrs. George Pal, Leibovit produced and directed the acclaimed documentary The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, which premiered at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. He later produced and directed The Puppetoon Movie, a feature-length tribute introducing new generations to Pal’s original Technicolor Puppetoons through restored prints and newly created stop-motion animation. Over the past several decades, Leibovit has continued to restore and preserve Pal’s surviving Puppetoon films from original elements, culminating in newly restored high-definition Bly-ray releases that make these historically significant works accessible to contemporary audiences. The Puppetoon Movie Volume 3 won The Rondo Hatton Award for Best Blu-ray Collection of the Year.

His career includes Executive Producing The Time Machine (2002) with Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros., co-directing Rascal Dazzle on the Our Gang Comedies hosted by Jerry Lewis, producing a restoration of the original motion picture score for The Time Machine, directing several award-winning short films and other projects. Across his career, Leibovit has received eleven awards, including the George Pal Memorial Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, CINE Golden Eagles, Awards of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board and other International Festival Awards. He continues to develop new film projects inspired by Pal’s legacy of imagination and innovation and controls the Puppetoon™ trademark. For more than four decades, Arnold Leibovit’s work has ensured that George Pal’s Puppetoons—and the spirit of imagination they embody—continue to inspire new generations of audiences.

Cassandra Moore is the Vice President of Mastering and Archive at NBCUniversal and has worked at the studio since 2004. She is a highly skilled professional in 4K DolbyVision & HDR Mastering, Feature Film Restoration, Production Management, and Process Improvement. Having worked for 30 years with top talent in the entertainment industry, she knows that ensuring films premiere in the best possible format with the highest quality images and sound is important to filmmakers, the industry, and the legacy of Universal Pictures. Restoring and Preserving NBCUniversal’s 112-year-old library is the great honor and passion of her career.

Kevin Schaeffer is the Director of Restoration and Library Management at the Walt Disney Studios and has been with the company over 30 years. He oversees the Film Archive as well as the Restoration group that preserves the film and restores the features and shorts for release. Kevin’s team’s recent work includes the critically acclaimed restorations of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), Blood and Sand (1941), Spellbound (1945), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and Pretty Woman (1990).

George Willeman is the nitrate Film Vault Leader at the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. He has been part of the nitrate preservation program for 42 years. He oversees the Library’s collection of over 148,000 reels of highly flammable nitrate motion picture film and works on its preservation and conservation. Some of the films under his care are the original negatives to Frankenstein and Dracula, 42nd Street, Top Hat, Fantasia, Birth of a Nation and The Great Train Robbery. George grew up in Springfield, Ohio where he first discovered his love for cinema from the 16mm films his dad would bring home from the library. He is still amazed at how blessed he is to get to work with all this cinematic history. An even greater blessing is his little family: wife Felicia and son James.