It might not be until after you’re done in the field and have wrapped your interviews that you realize you’ll need some extra footage you just can’t capture yourself. Want shots of a bustling street in downtown Detroit during the 1950s? Need some footage of women playing golf in college in the 1930s? With a little digging, odds are that you can find someone who has already shot those images. So off we go to the archives! But where to start? And how to find the right archive for your project? With resources available everywhere from university libraries to small town basements, finding those
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Stephen Parr, founder of Oddball Film & Video. Courtesy of Stephen Parr Perhaps the most notable changes in film archives and stock footage libraries over the last quarter-century mirror the changes in other retail businesses. The mom-and-pop stores have mostly vanished or consolidated. But there are a host of small "boutique" archives out there that can offer a more personal user experience, with each collection reflecting the personality and personal interests of the archivist. Oddball Film & Video, as its name suggests, specializes in offbeat, rare and eclectic footage. The San Francisco
What draws acclaim to the prize-winning documentary In Good Conscience: Sister Jeannine Gramick's Journey of Faith is not so much its surface anti-Catholicism as the realization that the protagonist of the film is a proponent of mankind in the new millennium. Veteran broadcast journalist Barbara Rick, who has earned a Peabody and Emmy Award over the years, was initially motivated to make the film having read a news story about a nun who ministered to gays and lesbians and was being silenced by the Roman Catholic Church. As a Catholic woman, Rick had often felt like a second-class citizen in
A review of the book 'Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1985 to the Present'
From 99%—The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film. Photo: Alex Franklin. Courtesy ov Sundance Film Festival Toward the end of 2012, the documentary community heard a number of major announcements coming out of the television space that raised hopes that the independent documentary would have more homes, beyond the august stalwarts HBO and PBS. In short order, CNN announced the launch of CNN Films; Participant Media acquired The Documentary Channel and Halogen TV, with the intent of creating a TV presence; Al Jazeera acquired Current TV, thereby gaining a valuable foothold in the US market
All of us at the IDA are thrilled to have FirstCom Music and Brooks Institute as sponsors of our newest program, the IDA Documentary Screening Series, launching this Fall at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles, CA. The IDA Documentary Screening Series is invitation-only screenings of fifteen documentary features that will take place annually between September and January. "At Brooks Institute, we provide a learning experience that attracts a diverse student body of aspiring professionals with one common goal: to pursue careers in the visual, new media, and communication arts," explains Gail
"Students who enter the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Documentary Program are students who understand that they have a love for nonfiction, no matter if they work in print, radio, television, documentary or new media," says Berkeley Professor and Director of the Documentary Program Jon Else. This is echoed by alumnus filmmaker Sam Green (Class of 1993), producer and director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Weather Underground: "I went to Berkeley to write for a national magazine and I fell in love with making documentaries." Other students join
Fahrenheit 9/11. Photo: Dog Eat Dog Films" src="http://www.documentary.org/images/magazine/2004/Farenheit911_Nov2004.jpg" style="width: 647px; height: 411px;"> "Can it be that it was all just a dream?" So opens Michael Moore's blockbuster documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. For the documentary world, that question hangs in the air. It wasn't that long ago that Bowling for Columbine had documentary filmmakers heralding the new "golden age" of docs. Now that Fahrenheit 9/11 has hit center stage, it seems that documentary is ready to take a significant place both economically and editorially in the
"The American television and video heritage is now at a crossroads. One direction leads toward catastrophic losses of film and videotape...Another direction leads toward the managed preservation of extant television and video materials that bear an important relationship to American history and culture regardless of their re-use potential or monetary value." Library of Congress Report, Television and Video Preservation 1997 The International Documentary Association sponsored the seminar "Are We Preserving Our Heritage for Posterity?" at Cine Gear Expo, held on the Universal Studios lot in Los
Time Indefinite" src="http://www.documentary.org/images/magazine/2005/TimeIndefinite_Jan2005.jpg" style="width: 647px; height: 411px;"> Ross McElwee admits, "I am a camera." In Time Indefinite, he rolls the camera himself; he even shoots himself in front of his camera. Wherever McElwee goes, there is little space for a crew. He films his family, his girlfriend, the wedding, the arrival of the baby, and even rolls the camera when he moves boxes into his new house. His wife jokingly reminds him, "If you would put that camera down, you could help..." Time Indefinite looks like a home movie but is