AMIA Newsbriefs

Homebrew Kodachrome factory

"This DIY Kodachrome machine (the "Filminator") was created to produce more film stock after the company discontinued productions. Michael, the creator, notes, 'Plastic and goop go in one end, and camera film comes out the other end. This is not a trivial undertaking.'"

Read the story here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/08/homebrew-kodachrome.html

With its real-time search, Google is creating an archive of the present

Over the next few days Google search results will be complemented with up-to-the-minute tweets, social network updates and blogposts for certain topical searches as Google revamps its search engine and refreshes its results with real-time data.

This archive of the present is a very powerful thing. It provides the public, with a more direct voice and it will change journalism profoundly because it adds another possibility to research - verifying real-time results will become an important issue. This leaves us, of course, with new problems and questions: What can be found? What is hidden?

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Screen Search Fashion from Screen Archive South East

This online resource provides a thematic guide to aspects of 1920s and 1930s fashion and dress as depicted in film from Screen Archive South East’s (SASE) collections. The selected themes guide you through the collections, using stills and clips from the archive.  These enable you to discover more about the different types of clothing worn, and their historical and design contexts. This resource is the result of a year long, CETLD-funded project, carried out at the Royal College of Art and Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton.

Visit website here

State of the Archives Address by David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States

"I am excited about the work all of you do, and eager to learn firsthand what you need to get that work done. I know the challenges facing NARA are daunting, but I am convinced that your talents and skills are up to the tasks ahead. I am absolutely committed to carrying out my responsibilities in a professional, non-partisan, and collegial manner."

Read speech here

Trust folds, puts Canuck film, music in peril

This week the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust announced that it was closing its operations (based in Ottawa) after working since 1996 to preserve, restore and enhance awareness of iconic treasures in our cultural past.

"We just ran out of funding," says David Novek, president of the AV Trust, "so we're going out of business. We'll surrender our charter."

Read more here

Rick Prelinger Presents Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4

Rick Prelinger, a guerrilla archivist who collects the uncollected and makes it accessible, presents the fourth of his annual Lost Landscapes of San Francisco screenings. As in past years, Lost Landscapes 4 will be an eclectic montage of rediscovered and rarely-seen film clips showing life, landscapes, labor and leisure in a vanished San Francisco as captured by amateurs, newsreel cameramen and industrial filmmakers.

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Hong Kong: Film Archive to hold conference on history of early Chinese cinema

Is 2009 the 100th anniversary of the Hong Kong cinema? Is the short film Stealing a Roast Duck, which was made in 1909, the first film in Hong Kong? What constitutes a Hong Kong film and how to define first film? Until recently, little effort had been made on the preservation of film. As such, many early films, records and related documents were lost, making an understanding of early Chinese cinema extremely difficult.

To encourage a better understanding of Hong Kong cinemas early history and its relationship with Chinese cinema, the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA) will stage a conference entitled History of Early Chinese Cinema(s) Revisited.

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In Old Clips, a Paradise Found and Lost

“To make a film,” Jean-Luc Godard once memorably said, “all you need is a girl and a gun.” (A little money helps.) In “Film Ist. a Girl & a Gun,” the Austrian director Gustav Deutsch complicates this witty, deceptively simple formula with a wealth of found footage (material shot by others for other purposes) borrowed from film archives from around the world. Using material gathered from the likes of the Imperial War Museum (in Britain) and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, he has fashioned something of an origin story about cinema itself.

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French minister urges EU not to abandon digital archive market to US

France's culture minister has urged Europe not to abandon the market for digital archives to U.S. companies, such as Google Inc. Mitterrand, who is the son of former French President Francois Mitterrand, made his remarks in answer to a question about whether European ministers have a favorable view of Google's plans to build a global digital library.

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Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer at the Whitney

This is the first comprehensive retrospective of the films of Alice Guy Blaché (1873–1968), a key but unsung figure of the early years of cinema, the first woman director, and the first woman to establish and preside over her own film studio. The exhibition is organized by Whitney curator-at-large Joan Simon. It is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, published by Yale University Press in association with the Whitney, with contributions by noted film scholars Jane Gaines, Alison McMahan, Charles Musser, Alan Williams, film historian and preservationist Kim Tomadjoglou, and the show’s organizer, Joan Simon.

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Overwhelmed archive eyes state-of-art storage

The New Zealand Film Archive is launching a fundraising drive to build an international-standard coolstore to house its collection, after running out of space for its 300,000 cans, reels and cassettes of video and film.

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Archives probing Watergate notes for hidden clues

One of the enduring mysteries from the scandal that consumed Richard Nixon's presidency is coming under renewed scrutiny from forensic scientists gathered by the National Archives

Read the story here:  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j6JO2LfPNTkdJO6Ch76d0oGiESSAD9C2FQ9G0

Collection of FDR papers soon to become public

The last great archives of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency may soon be available to researchers and the public — 14 boxes of handwritten notes, gifts and correspondence, including a letter from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini congratulating him on his 1933 inauguration.

Read the story here:  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ivU2y7sOoBL7-jjAUSNANslokWKAD9C0T2UG0

Museums and broadcasters must work together, says Tate Media's Gompertz

Incoming BBC News arts editor Will Gompertz encourages co-operation between diverse kinds of cultural institution

Museums and galleries should work with broadcasters to create public service media, the future BBC  News arts editor - currently director of Tate Media - has said.

Read the story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/nov/19/media-festival-manchester-publicservicemedia

Film uses N. Texas media coverage to tell story of Kennedy assassination

The National Geographic Channel film pulled footage from hundreds of hours of material from the archives of the Sixth Floor Museum.

"And a lot of that material really has not been seen," said Gary Mack, the Sixth Floor Museum's curator. "Some of it hasn't been seen since it actually happened."

Read the story here:  http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Documentary-uses-N-Texas-media-coverage-to-tell-story-of-Kennedy-assassination-70446392.html