National Film Preservation Foundation Awards 36 Preservation Grants
posted June 13, 2017
The National Film Preservation Foundation has announced (13 June 2017) grants to save 57 films, including Code Blue (1972), a recruitment film aimed at bringing minorities into the medical field made by Henry Hampton’s Blackside Inc., the Emmy-winning producer of Eyes on the Prize, and Broken Barriers (1919), the first motion-picture adaptation of the Sholem Aleichem story that inspired Fiddler on the Roof.
Smile, You’re on a Police Body-Worn Camera
posted May 19, 2017
The advent of mass, filmed surveillance of public spaces might look like an unalloyed great idea to fans of police “reality” television shows. But it’s problematic in various ways. Among key challenges is to design and manage large, expensive, and vast archives of video footage — including, now, more and more of it from the body-worn cameras that police forces are adopting.
Online Field Guide to Sponsored Films launches
posted May 10, 2017
Few film fans would think to seek out films that corporations, schools, and religious and political organizations made to pitch their various causes and campaigns. And yet, as film collector and historian Rick Prelinger demonstrated in 2006 with his The Field Guide to Sponsored Films, such works can be of considerable historical, cultural, or artistic interest. Now an online companion to the Guide has been launched, the Online Field Guide to Sponsored Films.
Fixing Transcripts with the Crowd
posted April 24, 2017
A crowdsourcing project promises to demonstrate that when it comes to providing access to audiovisual archives, not only users with visual or hearing disabilities benefit. All users may.
The Curious Case of the Disappearing Video Archive
posted April 6, 2017
Nothing brings civic attitudes into sharper relief than a civil-rights test case. It doesn’t have to be about race — a case about the rights of people with disabilities serves just as well. Take the curious matter of the “disappearing” University of California at Berkeley videos.
Has the Video Essay Arrived?
posted March 15, 2017
Publications in both film criticism and academic film studies have historically been in writing, but as affordable lightweight cameras and digital film-editing tools increasingly have put video production into the hands of anyone, that has been changing.
The Soviet View: A Major Archive Comes Online
posted March 9, 2017
Through a communist lens, the 20th Century looked quite different than it did through the eyes of the West. The British Film Institute is collaborating with an imprint of SAGE Publishing to issue a three-“module” set of rare film footage, Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda.
How to Tweak Copyright Law?
posted February 24, 2017
Australian copyright law produces some curious outcomes. A national report says it also forces up the cost of access to information and cultural products, hobbles artistic creation and educational innovation, and hinders transition to a knowledge-based economy. It recommends adjustments, but lawmakers are under copyright-industry pressure to maintain a grudging status quo.
Trailers from Hell
posted January 26, 2017
Filmmaker Joe Dante has drafted friends and colleagues to make shorts about movie trailers. The result is an entertaining and informative website.
GIFs Pose the Question: How Did Buster Keaton Survive?
posted January 6, 2017
"I like to watch silent movies, and then make gifs from them," says Don McHoull of Toronto, Canada. He posts them on his Silent Movie Gifs feed on Twitter. Here's his selection of his favorites of 2016 – they provide opportunities to savor the extraordinary acting and film-making craft of shots and scenes in the silent era.