Preserving our film heritage

though difficult to imagine today there was a time in the not-too-distant past when no movie program was complete without a newsreel before the onslaught of television the standard movie theater program comprised two features previews of coming attractions and always the newsreel the subjects covered were all encompassing politics and politicians of the day sports heroes and movie stars news events and not so newsworthy events disasters and always between its premiere in 1919 and its demise in 1963 over 5,000 newsreel programmes were produced by Fox Movietone news in order to assemble this extraordinary historical record more than 1,000 cameramen shot over 100 million feet of film throughout the world this priceless collection of irreplaceable and unique newsreel material was the starting point for what has become one of the most significant academically housed archival news film libraries in the United States in a historic 1980 donation the 20th Century Fox Film corporation selected the University of South Carolina to receive a portion of the Fox Movietone news news reel collection documentation years 1903 the surviving Fox Movietone news reels and their associated outtakes constitute an estimated 75 million feet of motion picture film and maybe the best existing record of such material produced in the United States the USC donation included all existing outtakes from 1919 through 1934 as well as the complete newsreel collection also included were all associated outtakes from the important world - period of September 1942 through August 1944 together totaling over 16 million feet of film the USC film library began its stewardship of this collection with two goals in mind preserving the collection and making the resource more available to the public the preservation effort presented a formidable problem large portions of the collection were photographed on nitrate based film stock this film stock is highly unstable and deteriorates over time the damage is irreversible the preservation process involves first cleaning and conditioning the damaged film then transferring the film to an archival a stable film stock the process is slow laborious and very expensive providing increased public access to the collection presented its own unique challenges it began with a huge task of first assessing what the collection included the original cataloging system was a card catalog of 5x8 typed cards the original newbie tone Story numbering system was retained and the available written information was laborious Lee entered into a searchable computer database a process that began in 1981 and continues to today currently the film library is moving its catalog to a web-based search engine to permit the public to search the archive unaided anywhere at anytime despite the computerization of the collection access has been limited largely because viewing the film's requires the laborious and time-consuming use of film editing and video equipment the only practical means of screening the collection has been through video cassettes containing the specific material requested by each interested party the cost of this service generally limited the use of the film library to television producers as greater Internet bandwidth becomes available and computer memory costs are reduced the film library will be able to deliver broadcast quality images to end-users via electronic means rather than videotape long-range goals are to enable academic researchers students and commercial clients to search access and download images for use in documentaries entertainment programming and education it is hoped that the enhanced acts - the Fox Movietone news collection will offer other dividends as well increased use of the collection by researchers and producers will help generate additional funding these funds can be directed to the ongoing conservation efforts of the film library preserving on film that history and happenings of the 20th century you