Detecting the History of Sound-on-Film
posted August 24, 2010
Twenty-four frames of one of the earliest surviving recordings of sound-on-film, a test strip that Eugene Lauste made between 1910 and 1912, merely hints at the revolution that was to come. Only 24 frames long, it belongs to a Florida collector who bought it at an estate sale along with other items from Lauste’s obscure career. Alongside the frames, which show nondescript images of plants, lies a series of black squiggles that encode sound – perhaps the first sound ever simultaneously reproduced with images on film.
Going Dutch on a Moving Image Archiving Degree
posted August 17, 2010
If you’re contemplating completing a master’s degree in moving-image archiving, you could hardly find a more appealing place to do so than Amsterdam. Apart from everything else – bike-friendly, crisscrossed with scenic canals, liberal beyond American dreams – it is home to world-class film collections and institutions that excel in restoration, research, and educational programs, and several of those have been involved in the University of Amsterdam’s archiving program since its inception in 2003. The program, in its seventh year, boasts an impressive record of combining solid schooling in the skills of the trade with a firm grounding in film history and related subjects. In Amsterdam’s master’s-degree program in the preservation and presentation of the moving image...
Identifying a Trove of Films in Jordan
posted June 27, 2010
By Matthew Epler Aqaba, Jordan – Almost 900 mysteries wait to be solved at the Royal Film Commission in Amman, Jordan. They are film cans stacked in a garage facing a busy and popular street lined with small markets, workshops, and restaurants. Each day, locals and tourists pass them by without the slightest notion that
Peter Clifton Finds His Lost Easybeats Film
posted June 20, 2010
At the beginning of his career in making films about music, Australian director and producer Peter Clifton created a documentary about the 1967 tour of England by The Easybeats, a fabled fivesome who put an Antipodean spin on the British Invasion bands of the era. The Easybeats’ claims to fame include being the first Australian rock-and-roll group to score an international rock hit. They did that with their 1966 single "Friday on My Mind."
The American Indian Film Gallery Retrieves Images from 20th Century Life
posted May 22, 2010
A Hollywood staple, for decades, was Indians yelping from pinto ponies, brandishing tomahawks with bloodcurdling cries, and plummeting rifle-shot from rocky outcrops.
Home Movie Day
posted May 4, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010, is this year’s “Home Movie Day” an annual event that celebrates amateur films and filmmaking. It takes place at local venues, worldwide, to encourage owners of home movies to share their footage with family members, friends, and neighbors. Events at the many local sites include instruction on how to care for home movies.
Blood, Guts, Gore – and More
posted May 4, 2010
Film buffs who attended this year’s Medical Film Symposium, held over four days in January, may by now be able to sleep, and wake, without being haunted by the images they viewed there.