StormStock Founder to Wrap on New Documentary about Storms

Filmmaker, and veteran storm chaser, Martin Lisius has announced that the sequel to his 1995 award-winning documentary “The Chasers of Tornado Alley” will be completed this year. Three years in the making, the doc (working title “TCOTA2”), will focus on the wonder of storms and the people who study them to improve public safety.
 
“It was twenty years ago that I began working on the original, and I felt it was time to produce a sequel to reflect on the changes we’ve seen in our discipline” Lisius said. “Both technology and the public’s perception of storm chasers have evolved significantly since the mid-1990’s. I want to reveal that despite the difference in how we handle data, the majority of the people behind it are the same; responsible and serious individuals dedicated to mitigating severe weather risks. If you told someone you’re a storm chaser in 2016, they would think you were a crazy, loud, reckless person. But, the reality is most storm chasers are not that way at all. And, many are making huge contributions to the community,” he said.
 
The new documentary is a production of Texas-based Prairie Pictures, and is being shot on DCI 4K. No specific distribution channel has been determined, but according to Lisius, a television, Internet or theatrical release are all options.

Framepool Celebrates Earth Day with Cheeky "Earth Porn" Video

Framepool, with help from ad agency McKinney, has produced the sexiest of natural landscape videos for Earth Day 2016 - featuring hard rocks, soaking wet water, lots of wood, and a '70s soundtrack by Beacon Street. 

"Earth Porn" ends the way you'd expect, with an eruption. But it also has a sexy message about conservation that ties into Framepool's business. All the footage comes from Framepool's collection, naturally. 

"This project is a perfect fit for us. Our archive of high-quality footage enables creative filmmakers to make their vision a reality without having to board a plane, rent a helicopter or hire a bus driver. We're committed to making low-emission projects possible and gorgeous. 'Earth Porn' proves both." 

"Earth porn has long been Earth lovers' term for topographic eye candy," added McKinney group creative director Stevie Archer. "On the one day of the year when the whole world is talking about loving the planet, it was logical to create an actual film that taps into that passion. We're enticing people with lust-worthy imagery, then reminding them that they can easily do something to help preserve it.

Reelin' in the Years' New Demo Reel Takes a Deep Dive into History, with Some Timely Treats

Reelin' in the Years' new demo reel, which went live on Footage.net last week, is a wonderful introduction to RITY's portfolio of deep historical collections, condensing into four minutes 20,000 hours of music history and 7,000 hours of interviews with the 20th century’s icons of film and television, politics, comedy, literature, art, science, fashion and Sports. Donald Trump's response to Rona Barrett's inquiry about a presidential run in 1980 is one of many gems. 

Reelin' in the Years' collection of interviews come primarily from the archives Of Sir David Frost, Merv Griffin Show, Brian Linehan's City Lights and Rona Barrett, all exclusively represented by Reelin' in the Years.

Check out Reelin' in the Years full collection at www.reelinintheyears.com.

StormStock Declares Itself "Not Microstock"

StormStock is a collection of premium weather footage that was founded in 1993 by Prairie Pictures, a Texas-based video production company. It was created by cinematographer Martin Lisius as a means to license footage he shot.

“StormStock was never meant to be a stock footage company, and certainly not microstock,” Lisius said. “It’s simply a collection and brand maintained by artists, by production people who truly understand photography, post-production and formats. There’s a big difference between us and microstock. StormStock is run by real, live people in Texas, not by servers and software. We can tell you which end of a camera to attach a lens, and we curate with the same human eyes that produce the content,” Lisius said.

To emphasize that point, the team has established an alternate web address. In addition to the usual www.stormstock.com, folks can now use www.notmicrostock.com to access an on-line sampling of StormStock’s legendary content.

Buckle Up for a Trip through History with Global ImageWorks and the King Rose Archive

Take a trip through automotive history with Global ImageWorks and the King Rose Archives.
Look back at the pioneers of the automotive industry such as Carroll Shelby, John Z. DeLorean, Henry Ford, and Enzo Ferrari and remember their fabulous creations.
 
Race along with superstars Mario Andretti, Louis Chevrolet, Mickey Thompson, Sir Malcolm Campbell, and John Force and motorsports celebrities including Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.
 
From Hot Rods to exotics and everything in between, this incomparable automotive archive features unique and historical American and European automotive racing, off-road desert racing, drag racing, sports cars, Formula One cars, and more. Click here to see the footage.
 
More Historical Travel Films Available in HD & 2K
 
For those of you who love our historic travel film collection, you'll be excited to learn even more Global ImageWorks footage is now available in HD.  
 
Travel across the US in the 1960s and explore the West Coast in colorful HD. Cruise the south seas and visit Hawaii, Tahiti, and Australia in 2K. Explore Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and all points in between! These and many more destinations have recently been converted to HD from 16mm or 35mm prints. Click here to sample GIW's historic travel films.

Speaking of Riots...FootageBank Adds Vivid HD Coverage of Public Protests

Civil dissent, disorganization, herd behavior, police snatch squads rushing the chaos, young vandals jumping on the roofs of cars, fires burning in the turbulent streets - FootageBank has added more footage of riots and public protests to its collection, all shot in vivid HD. The man-in-the-crowd material comes from an aggressive news stringer and adds to FootageBank’s highly sought after playback collection. Used by scripted television to add to monitors within scenes or by documentary productions looking for vérité, FootageBank is proud to offer this new footage exclusively.

Click here to check out some of these powerful images.

ContentMint, a new Online Footage Library Specializing in Wildlife and Natural History Footage, is Now Up and Running

ContentMint, formerly Absolutely Wild Visuals, is an online premium footage library from Wildbear Entertainment, specializing in wildlife and natural history stock footage. The site is in active development and their database of footage is continuously growing. From stunning aerial footage of pronghorns bounding across the American Prairies; to ritualized combats between gila monsters; to graceful manta rays gliding through the ocean; ContentMint features diverse and visually sumptuous footage captured in 4k and HD from across the world.

Absolutely Wild Visuals was created by Bettina Dalton in 2000. Based in Australia, Absolutely Wild Visuals serviced a number of customers with footage both from Bettina’s own shows and with footage from expert cinematographers. When WildBear was formed in 2014, the Absolutely Wild Visuals library was rebranded and completely digitized to make it easily accessible and masters downloadable.

Currently featuring footage from more than fifty contributors, the ContentMint site will be updated in the next six months to include even more wildlife behavior footage in 4K and a new collection of historical reenactments. 

ContentMint caters to clients looking for one off clips, and to production companies looking to use ContentMint as a large contributor for their projects. Operating as a one-stop shop, clients are able to download low resolution files for offline editing; license; make payments; and download broadcast quality masters through the website.

If you are interested in having your footage represented by ContentMint, or for any sales enquiries, please contact sales@contentmint.com.au. 

Footage.net to Spotlight Stock Footage Partners at NAB 2016

Footage.net will feature a prestigious group of footage providers as part of its 2016 NAB exhibition, set to take place on April 18-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. With the NAB Show forecasted to draw large numbers, and Footage.net moving to a central position on the show floor, traffic is expected to be strong. 

“Introducing attendees to the world-class footage companies available through Footage.net is always a top priority for us at NAB,” said David Seevers, Footage.net CMO. “So our partner companies will be front and center at our NAB booth.” 

Footage.net partner companies set to participate include: ABCNEWS VideoSource, AP Archive, Bridgeman Footage, FootageBank, Framepool, Global ImageWorks, INA, Producers Library and Reelin’ in the Years Productions. These companies represent the key footage categories available for search and screening through Footage.net, including television news, premium stock footage, arts & entertainment, archival footage and historic music performance. 

As one of the world’s largest production shows, NAB brings together a huge number of production professionals, the vast majority of which are there to learn about production resources and make purchase plans and decisions. Of the 103,119 attendees at last years NAB Show, 69,325 were listed as buyers, of which 8.4% identified stock footage as a primary interest -- meaning 5,823 attendees expressed an interest in stock footage. Similar numbers are expected this year.

“Based on the huge turnout and the great demographic mix, NAB has historically been a very good show for us,” said David Seevers. “And we got very lucky with our booth position this year, which makes a huge difference. We have a corner spot at a high-traffic intersection at the end of a long, central corridor, providing an unobstructed line of sight from quite a distance. Being the right spot makes a huge difference at NAB so we are really looking forward to a great show.”

NAB attendees will be able to demo Footage.net’s search engine, view partner samples and delve into the ins and outs of particular collections. Anyone with particular footage needs can be matched up on the spot with specific footage or an individual provider. Please stop by the Footage.net booth for more information (Booth #SL 14,811).

Featured Footage Partners

ABCNEWS VideoSource is the content licensing division for ABCNEWS. The VideoSource collection spans from 1896 to the present and includes the collections of ABCNEWS and British Movietone News. 

The Associated Press is the definitive source for images and video, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. The AP has the industry’s most sophisticated digital photo network, a 24-hr continuously updated online, multimedia news service and an expansive film and video archive. AP’s video archive collection includes over 1.7 million global news and entertainment stories dating back to 1895, sourced both from AP’s own coverage and from their premium content partners. Hours of new footage including HD content is added daily with coverage from AP’s 80 international news bureaus. Learn more about archive video at aparchive.com. 

Bridgeman Footage is the premier destination for art, culture and historic footage. Bridgeman Footage is a division of Bridgeman Images, the art and history licensing specialists, distributing multi-media packages to creative professionals and TV broadcasters worldwide.  Bridgeman’s rights managed footage collection is comprised of new and exclusive films, including historical archive, artist profiles and biographies, archaeological sites, world travel and vintage animation. Two thirds of their collection is represented exclusively by Bridgeman Footage. They have recently implemented an advanced download feature that allows clients to explore the diversity within their archive at their own leisure. They’re adding new clips daily, with thousands of clips available offline and their expert research team is available and ready to help you tell your story.
 
FootageBank took the lead in large format stock clip licensing over a decade ago and now takes the lead again in licensing fully released location content for scripted programming. With over 100,000 clips available online to search, preview and download, FootageBank is committed to representing high-value footage creators, and preserving and promoting value in clip licensing.

Framepool shows the world as it is, how it was and how it might be. In the categories Creative, Editorial and History, Framepool offers material from over 700 filmmakers, media companies and producers from all continents. Footage on all subjects, from all perspectives. The world as Framepool sees it, focusing on the unique, unusual, unexpected, as we have never seen them before.

The Global ImageWorks (GIW) archive is a large curated collection of amazing footage created by award winning filmmakers, cinematographers, correspondents and production companies. 
The archive contains both deep content and stock shots. Their growing selection of online “Buy Now” royalty free and rights ready footage is another way they make unique, high quality footage available to each and every production. Global ImageWorks is the exclusive clip administrator for several highly acclaimed iconic television shows including Austin City Limits, Time Life’s History of Rock & Roll Interviews, The Dick Cavett Show and Omnibus. They also represent the visually captivating films and photos of Harold Lloyd. Global ImageWorks offers a variety of licensing options including rights-managed, royalty-free and rights-ready. Clients can access Global ImageWorks Premium Collection, flexible pricing and free In-house Research. Global ImageWorks has the stock shots & the deep content producers need to connect with their audience.  

INA is now one of the largest footage sources in the world. Since 1975, INA has worked to gather and conserve the images and sounds that underpin our collective memory, give them meaning and share them with the world. For their professional clients, the INAmediapro website provides free and immediate access to over 1.5 million hours of digitized video and audio treasures spanning a century of modern and international history. INA’s content includes exciting collections added daily.

Producers Library has been providing stock footage since 1957 and is still going strong.   Their new motto reads “I’D RATHER BE SCANNING”, for all the 16mm to 2K and 35mm to 4K DPX files they are capturing from gems dug out of their vault.  Eclectic barely describes their holdings – the short list includes feature out-takes, locations around the world, movie clips & trailers from all decades, 4K video, stills, vintage, playback and more.  Additionally the Producers Library archive features a unique specialty in motion picture history. You can see their treasures at www.producerslibrary.com.

Reelin’ In The Years Productions is the world’s premier source for footage of musical artists, entertainers & history makers. Reelin' In The Years archive holds over 20,000 hours from the last 90 years available for license to all forms of media. In addition to their world renown music footage library, they also exclusively represent the rights to The Merv Griffin Show, The Sir David Frost Archive, The Rona Barrett Archive and numerous other extensive libraries which contain over 6,000 hours of in-depth interviews with the 20th century’s icons of film and television, politics, comedy, literature, art, science, fashion and sports, filmed between 1962-2012. The archive is so vast that whether you're looking for music footage from The Beatles to Beyonce, entertainment from Bette Davis to Jerry Seinfeld, history makers from Dr. Martin Luther King to President Bill Clinton, Reelin' In The Years Productions will have the perfect footage for your project.

Come learn about these and the other great collections available through Footage.net at booth #SL14811.

Global ImageWorks has Breathtaking Footage of Rio de Janeiro, the "The Marvelous City".

Start warming up for the Olympic Summer Games with Global ImageWorks' incredible collection of historic and contemporary Rio footage. Explore Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s -1960s. Captured in rich, beautiful 16mm or 35mm film just waiting to be brought to life in your next production. Experience Carnival circa 1955. Immerse yourself in the sounds of Salsa music and watch as ornate floats cruise down the crowded streets.  Their contemporary Rio de Janeiro footage documents daily life in Rio and includes hundreds of HD, Royalty Free and Rights Ready clips. There are beautiful beach scenes and landscapes, famous landmarks like Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer, and aerials from all around Rio de Janeiro.

Film Archives Relaunches Mobile Friendly, Multi-Purpose Website

FILM Archives Inc.'s newly overhauled website showcases the company's core philosophy: “We've always endeavored to sweep away obstacles and put absolutely no daylight between our customers and our footage,” says Mark Trost, president and co-founder of the 30 year-old NYC stock house. That meant creating a sleek, deceptively simple home page designed with the search box front and center. Whether producers prefer quick keyword hits or the most complex search, FILM's highly upgraded custom video search engine can unearth precisely desired clips from among the thousands of existing vintage and contemporary library reels as well as new film footage screeners and HD news topics added daily.

Search results now appear in multiple sizes and formats, such as clipboard, list and film strip. Greatly enlarged thumbnail images and improved video quality makes for fast and easy screener review. Clips also play faster within most popular browsers. The site can be viewed on any desktop or mobile platform including iPad, iPhone, and Chromebook. Research is always free and watermarked clips may be downloaded to any device for playback and test edits.

Additionally, FILM's web designer Timothy McGlynn put all the need-to-know info about collections, rates, and sample licenses at users' fingertips. “The whole new look is fresh and uncluttered,” McGlynn says. Trost notes: “We've always received compliments on ease of use. This time we tested and retested to make certain the site is easier than ever to use, accessible to more platforms, and adapts well to users' preferred search and view methods.” FILM's recent clients include The Dr. Oz Show, Gotham, Captain America: 75 Heroic Years, Vanity Fair Confidential, and the upcoming History Channel Series,
Generation X.

Renowned Film Preservationist Robert Gitt to Receive FOCAL International's 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award

Film preservationist Robert Gitt is to receive the FOCAL International Award for Lifetime Achievement at the thirteenth annual FOCAL International Awards, to be presented in association with AP Archive on 26th May, 2016. This Award is a gift of the FOCAL International Executive and has been endorsed by many eminent people, amongst them Director Martin Scorsese.

“Bob Gitt has dedicated his life to film preservation, and in all honesty I can't think of anyone more deserving of FOCAL's Lifetime Achievement Award,” said Director Martin Scorsese.

In 1970, Gitt joined The American Film Institute in Washington, D.C., where he served initially as film booking and technical manager of the AFI Theater at the Kennedy Center. Three years later, he became AFI’s technical officer and began to work on film restoration projects, including Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937), which he completed at UCLA, and The Blot (1921), influential in cementing Lois Weber’s reputation as an important pioneer woman director.

In 1977, Robert Gitt began work at UCLA Film & Television Archive as its first preservation officer, where he was actively involved in the preservation and restoration of hundreds of classic Hollywood films, both silent and sound. Most recently he was asked by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker to supervise the digital restoration of perhaps the most beautiful Technicolor film of all time, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948), in collaboration with the BFI and ITV.
        
“Bob has led the preservation and restoration team at UCLA for many years and is one of the world's most admired and respected conservation and restoration experts,” said film historian Clyde Jeavons. “He has restored probably more important American movies - silent and sound, classic and obscure - than all the other US archivists put together, and has been a pioneer of techniques to recover early and late Technicolor and to restore the first Hollywood sound-on-disc systems, even working from cracked and broken shellac recordings. In short, he has helped to make available to the highest possible standards countless films threatened by loss and decay.”

“Bob Gitt set the standard for what we call film restoration,” said Grover Crisp, Sony Pictures EVP asset management, film restoration and digital mastering. “Film preservation existed prior to Bob Gitt, but the kind of restoration we know of today is the result of Bob’s standard setting work for almost forty years.”

Gitt has also specialized in resuscitating early sound films, including over one hundred 1926-1931 Vitaphone one reel short subjects, and has lectured widely on the subject of film and sound preservation. His latest project is Part II of his epic history of sound on film (A Century of Sound, 1933-1975) - described as "a gold mine for specialist researchers and technology buffs" - which was launched earlier this year on BluRay.

'It's great news that our FOCAL International Executive has voted to honor Bob Gitt in this way,' said FOCAL International's Chair Sue Malden, 'Bob has also accepted our invitation to present the Jane Mercer Memorial Lecture a few days prior to the Awards Ceremony on 26th May. It will be a wonderful bonus to a thrilling week of archive industry events.” 

Kate Adie OBE, the former Chief News Reporter for the BBC and current presenter of From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 will host the gala FOCAL International Awards Ceremony on 26th May at the Lancaster London Hotel. Apart from the Lifetime Achievement Award, sixteen further awards will be presented on 26th May to celebrate achievement by producers and directors in the creative use of footage in all variety of genres, across all media platforms plus the contribution made to the global production industry by archivists, film libraries, researchers and technicians, as well as the work done to restore and preserve these irreplaceable assets.

Organizer of the Awards competition Julie Lewis went on, 'It's going to be another gripping competition. We received 191 submissions to the FOCAL International Awards 2016 from 17 countries - amazing archive heavy productions featuring, for example, Amy Winehouse, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando and Kurt Cobain all vying for a place in the final nominations - and that is just in the Cinema category! We also have an unprecedented 12 nominations for the Jane Mercer Footage Researcher of the Year Award so it’s going to be a very tight race in all 16 Award categories. Our amazing team of over 50 international jurors are already stuck into viewing their respective submissions and we will be announcing the final shortlist in the second week of March.'

Tickets for the Gala Awards Ceremony 26th May go on sale today, so you'll need to hurry if you want to book a table. 

Dramatic and Vivid 4K News Stringer Footage Adds to FootageBank’s Well Known Playback Collection

News stringers ride the knife-edge of cinematography and live action reporting. Rather than planning out shoots, they listen to police scanners and drop everything to document human events in real time. Shot in vivid 4K, FootageBank has added news stringer footage to its highly sought after playback collection. The stringer material currently includes crime scenes and investigations, car and pedestrian accident scenes, bomb scares, hazmat teams, and fires. Riots and civil unrest coverage will be added by Valentine’s Day. Known for their playback material - used by scripted television to add to monitors within scenes – FootageBank is proud to offer this new footage exclusively.

Click here to see sample clips.

Producers Library to Make Available 1956 Color Footage of Isfahan and Teheran

PLS is in the process of scanning over one hundred-forty shots of 35mm color out-takes from a never released re-make of the famous 1925 silent ethnographic film Grass. 
The original b&w documentary was highly successful, produced by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Marguerite E. Harrison. The country was then called Persia; the name was changed to Iran in the mid-thirties.  (Cooper and Schoedsack went on to direct the 1933 King Kong).

 In 1956 Hollywood’s C. V. Whitney Productions tapped Cooper as executive producer and sent a fifteen member Hollywood crew to Iran. The film held by PLS covers aerials of Isfahan , moving povs of crowded street scenes, a train station, university buildings, rug making, a polo match, hospital scenes, Mosques and a handful of shots depicting tribes and their herds crossing the mountains.  A forty minute fund raising version with narration and music failed to pique enough interest and the re-make was never finished; perhaps the only surviving scenes are these out-takes.

WGBH Launches New Re-Designed Stock Footage Website

WGBH Stock Sales announces the launch of its newly updated and redesigned stock footage and licensing website: www.wgbhstocksales.org.  The new site allows the researcher to search and find footage clips, browse selected digitized interviews, discover online educational content and even search the entire catalog of WGBH programs. 

WGBH produces more programming for the PBS system than any other PBS station with an archive that dates back to 1955.  Series such as NOVA, Frontline, American Experience, and Antiques Roadshow comprise some of the footage collection, with an emphasis on science, current affairs and history.   One of the unique holdings of the archive are the numerous interviews which have been shot over the years for the many public television series WGBH produced.  These interviews range from world leaders (Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright) to policy makers, notable personalities (Steve Jobs), academics, scientists, historians, artists, musicians and experts in all fields spanning the time period from the 1950’s to 2015.   One of the treasures
of the archive is Eleanor Roosevelt hosting her own public affairs talk show in the 1950’s.  (She interviews JFK, among others!) 

In addition to new HD clips, the redesigned site includes twelve curated collections for the visitor to browse and explore.  Surprises include the WGBH Music collection (early soul and rock and roll), the Sports Collection (WGBH was the first television station to broadcast tennis), and more.  There is a Julia Child collection and a collection of WGBH mini-series, and of course a Boston Collection.  The site provides links to the WGBH collection in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and to the WGBH Archives sister site “Open Vault,” where a number of the digitized interviews can be screened.

“We hope that the redesigned and reorganized site will help viewers find WGBH content in all the various places it lives”, says Alison Smith, who heads up WGBH Stock Sales.  
The site also highlights and provides links to educational on-line materials on WGBH’s websites such as timelines, interactives and short videos which may also be licensed. 

WGBH’s goal with the redesigned website is to guide the viewer to find the wealth and variety of content available, particularly since only a small portion of the collection is clipped and digitized.  The sites online clip collection offers a simple pricing system of $180 for SD clips and $250 for HD clips.    Watermarked clips can be downloaded to the viewers desktop.   WGBH hopes to add e-commerce to the site in the near future. 

Explore Cuba with Global ImageWorks

Walk down the colorful streets of present-day Havana, marvel at the classic American cars still in use and experience the vibrant Cuban culture. This beautifully shot HD tour of Cuba also includes interior shots of Ernest Hemingway's legendary home Finca Vigia in San Francisco de Paula and the eclectic home of Cuban artist Jose Fuster.

Spectacular archival footage of Cuba in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s shows Havana as a tourist destination for wealthy Americans with scenes of lively nightlife, parades, and the magnificent neon that colored this cosmopolitan city. This footage is film backed and upon request, can be transferred to HD.

New INA Mediapro Site Provides Simplified User Experience

With new graphic design and ergonomics, and more intuitive navigation,  the new INA Mediapro website offers a simplified user experience to explore collections from INA and its partners more easily than before.

10 Editorial Paths Facilitate Content Exploration
Navigation is facilitated through INA's wide-ranging content collections thanks to 10 "themes" with links to more than 570 video and audio files: Art and Culture, the Economy, History, Media, Politics and Geopolitics, Science and the Environment, Society, Sports, Shows and Personalities.

INA MEDIAPRO, a Working Tool to Offer Made-to-Measure Solutions
A wide range of functions are available to expedite and refine footage searches. All the clips on offer can be time-coded, cut, shared, annotated, saved and downloaded. More than just an on-line database, INA MEDIAPRO is a dynamic working tool for professionals to assist them with all their audio-visual projects.

Click here for more information.

WGBH Boston and Reelin’ In The Years Productions Partner to License Music Footage

WGBH, the largest producer of content for public television, and Reelin’ In The Years Productions, the world’s premier footage source for musical artists and entertainers, have announced an exclusive licensing representation deal for WGBH’s music-related footage.

The deal will include more than four decades of material produced by WGBH between 1968 and 1995, much of which has not been seen since its original broadcast. The footage is part of the WGBH Media Library and Archives and will be made available through Reelin’ In The Years Productions (RITY).

“We are excited to have our music collection represented by such an experienced and trusted music licensing service,” says Alison Smith, associate director of the WGBH Media Library and Archives. “Reelin’ in the Years Productions recognizes the historic value of this footage and how to bring it forward to new audiences.”

Since its first television broadcast in 1955, WGBH has been the source of hundreds of award-winning news, documentary and drama programs, many of them featuring popular music. Perhaps best known is the James Brown concert at the Boston Garden in 1968, the day after Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. was killed. WGBH filmed and broadcast the three- hour performance live at the request of Boston Mayor Kevin White in the hope of keeping residents at home and the city calm. It is credited with helping prevent riots which other cities were experiencing.

Other notable performances that will now be available through RITY, feature soul music artists who appeared live on WGBH’s public affairs TV series Say Brother (now Basic Black), including Gladys Knight & The Pips, David Ruffin, Earth, Wind & Fire, Carla Thomas, Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, Smokey Robinson, Sly & The Family Stone, Isley Brothers and The Parliaments (featuring the earliest known footage of George Clinton). Other unique programs in the archive feature performances and interviews with artists such as James Taylor, Buddy Guy, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Big Mama Thornton, Taj Mahal, Bobby Blue Bland, George Thorogood, New Edition, Nancy Wilson, Eartha Kitt, B.B. King, J. Geils Band, Frank Zappa, and Tony Bennett.

In 1993, WGBH produced, in association with the BBC, a 10-part documentary mini-series series called Rock & Roll which traced the history and evolution of rock and roll music, from its rhythm and blues, country, gospel and jazz roots in the early 1950s, through the advent of folk, rock, soul, heavy metal, glam, funk, punk, and reggae, to the emergence of rap in the 1980s. WGBH saved and preserved all 80 of the raw interviews they filmed (ranging from 45-90 minutes in length). The archive contains a “who’s who” of notable artists being interviewed including songwriters and producers who rarely sat down for interviews. Artists include Little Richard, Ike Turner, Scotty Moore & DJ Fontana, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, George Clinton, Wilson Pickett, Robbie Robertson, Jerry Lee Lewis and producers such as Berry Gordy, Jerry Wexler, Lieber & Stoller, Rick Hall, George Martin, Gamble & Huff, Phil & Marshall Chess, Tom Dowd and Jeff Barry. Sadly, many of these great artists are no longer alive, but thanks to this archive the stories of their significant contribution to the history of popular music can be seen and heard.

“To represent the performances and interviews from this major archive is truly a great honor,” says RITY founder and president David Peck. “The WGBH holdings feature many one-of-a-kind performances and interviews -- it’s the rediscovery of a great American treasure.”

RITY has begun the process of cataloguing the WGBH music footage and making it available for clips to be used in documentary productions.

Using SD Footage in an HD Production

Using standard definition footage in a high-definition production poses special challenges. But with so much irreplaceable SD footage out there, it's a puzzle producers must solve regularly. We talked with some of our friends on the archive side, including experts from FootageBank, Framepool, Global ImageWorks, INA and NBC News Archives to get their perspective on how they manage client requests for SD footage. Here's what we learned: 

Aspect Ratio is the Biggest Hurdle
Most clients these days understand and accept that SD footage will be lower res than HD. However, a more significant obstacle is the size and shape of the SD frame. With an aspect ratio of 4:3, the SD frame is smaller and nearly square, so conforming an SD shot to the larger, more rectangular dimensions of a 16:9 HD frame is the more vexing issue. As Sandrine Sacarrere of INA puts it, "aspect ratio may be the easiest setting to illustrate the differences between 4:3 and 16:9, especially with its consequences on anamorphosis or cropping." 
 
Upscale Options
While these issues are generally understood by clients, our panelists make sure to remind them that SD clips will have to be upscaled. The most common upscaling methods are pillarboxing, wherein the image is scaled up until the top and bottom borders of the SD image align with the HD frame, leaving black space on either side of the image (pillars); cropping; or, in some cases, stretching the images. 

Go Native
Most of our panelists agree that it's better to deliver SD footage in its native format and let the clients handle the upscaling work on their own. As Paula Lumbard of FootageBank puts it, "we have found it works best for a client to convert on their end so they have control over what part of the frame is lost, whether it's the top or bottom." Jessica Berman-Bogdan at at Global ImageWorks takes a similar view: "in my experience, most editors/post supervisors want to control SD to HD upconverts so that the look and feel to the footage is consistent with the overall look and feel of the film. I have seen the successful results of following this policy on many a film. Therefore, Global ImageWorks encourages our clients to let us deliver the most native format and for them to do their own upconverts." 

Pillarbox, Don't Stretch
If they do perform the upconversion, most of our panelists agree that pillarboxing is the best method and image stretching is not an ideal solution. "The pillarbox process is the right way to upscale as the frames remain intact," says Stephen Bleek of Framepool. "If the clients need a crop to 16:9 full frame he/she can do that afterwards with the up-resed pillarbox version on his/her editing system. This way the client can choose exactly the crop he/she wishes." At NBC, "some clients ask us to up-convert SD footage," says Luis Aristondo, Operations Manager for NBC News Archives. "Most requests are for pillared and very few are for stretched." For Paula Lumbard, image "stretching is not an option. No matter what, the human eye can tell an object is stretched, even a flower let alone a face or animal." 
 
For Best Results, Start with Film
Of all the SD formats, 35mm film offers the best source material for an upconversion. "When it comes to film, 16mm is considered SD and 35mm is considered HD," says to Luis Aristondo at NBC. Stephen Bleek at Framepool puts it this way: "35mm still offers a great resolution, even up to 4K. But some film scans need de-graining in addition to match nowadays guidelines. The resolution of 16mm is too low to get really good HD results. But if you have archival images shot on 16mm it is better than nothing." According to INA, "scanners can transfer 16 mm films in DPX files in SD, HD or 2K. 35 mm can be scanned up to 4K and even 8K, but it is still rare. We consider 2K as the good resolution for remastering our collection. But 4K is on its way..." 
 
Proactive Upscaling
Consequently, most of our panelists do some proactive upscaling of film elements to HD. For example, Framepool "is constantly scanning archival film reels to HD formats." At NBC News, "new content being digitized by the network archives department from tape is being ingested as up-converted pillared." 
 
There Are No Magic Tools
At the moment, there do not appear to be any real alternative ways to scale up SD footage so that no data is lost, cropped or and the image is not stretched. As Stephen Bleek at Framepool puts it, "there are no magic tools that can produce detailed and realistic looking additional resolution. But in some cases an upres can look quite okay. Especially close-ups since they contain fewer details than wide shots."

Montage of Heck: An Innovative Documentary Born from the Archives of Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck traces the life of the Nirvana frontman from his early childhood in Aberdeen, Washington to his death by suicide at the age of 27. Challenged from the start by the relative dearth of archival footage of Cobain, director Brett Morgen utilized a variety of innovative visual and audio elements to convey the essential themes of Cobain’s short life and powerful artistic output. “Based on art, music, journals, super 8 films and audio montages provided by the family of Kurt Cobain,” the film captures his raw creative energy; the tension between his driving ambition and unease with fame; his alienation from his family; and, ultimately, his self destruction.

As with his past films, including The Kid Stays in the Picture, Chicago 10 and Crossfire Hurricane, Morgen’s experience with the archival source material was fundamental to the development of the film’s narrative structure. 

“I always write the scripts after I’ve evaluated all the material I have to work with,” said Morgen. “With a film like Montage of Heck, the bulk of the material came from Kurt’s storage facility. And when I went in to evaluate it, I had no idea what story I was going to tell. I knew I was doing a Kurt Cobain film and I knew it would sort of take place within the context of his life, but I didn’t know what that story would be. And the story emerged from, revealed itself through my experience with the archives.”

For Morgen, documentary filmmaking and archival research are interdependent skills. 

“I’ve made five or six films that are entirely archive based, and when working in that realm, you’re really limited by what material you’re able to collect,” he said. “And so I look at each piece of archival material as a letter, and a couple of pieces as a word and several pieces make a sentence. My ability to successfully direct a film can’t be separated from my ability to track down archival. It’s one and the same for me.”

But while Cobain’s private archive proved to be a rich trove of source materials, there turned out to be relatively little archival footage of Cobain himself to work with, a significant challenge for a film of this nature.

“There is almost no verite footage in existence of Kurt Cobain,” said Morgen. “In fact, outside of the material we found in Kurt’s storage facility, I would go so far as to say that there probably is none. He never participated in any sort of cinema verite documentary. And he never allowed any news crews to follow him around…and he was around in the pre-paparazzi days. So there’s a scattering of interviews with Kurt and performance footage and that’s it. There is nothing else.”

Additionally, Cobain was generally a reluctant interview subject. 

“When Montage started, I thought that Kurt would be narrating the film, but I didn’t think there would be any on camera interviews,” said Morgen. “I figured it would be Kurt’s art, which I would contextualize through with pre-existing archival interviews with Kurt. And it was after I had secured and listened to all the existing Cobain interviews I decided to not use him in that role. And to employ his family to be the sort of Greek chorus if you will. And that decision was based on the fact that…I found Kurt to be so expressive and articulate in his art and in all these other mediums, but in interviews it felt like it was painful for him and so rather than have him do the heavy lifting, and have to deal with the monotony of getting from A to B, I figured let’s have these other people” play that role.
 
And while the lack of archival footage of Cobain was initially daunting, Morgen and his crew responded with creativity and innovation. 
 
“It’s important to remember when you’re making these kinds of films, that often times that which you do not have can be a blessing, rather than a curse,” said Morgen. “When you don’t have material, it sort of forces us to find of creative ways to present those ideas, or that narrative information we’re missing. And I think that’s where a lot of the innovation in the documentary realm over the last fifteen or twenty years has come from.”
 
Morgen did catch one very big break in the making of the film, when he discovered a large cache of audiotapes in Cobain’s storage facility. 

“I was aware that [the storage facility] housed his art and his other content but no one had informed me that there were 200 hours of unreleased audio that were housed there as well,” said Morgen. “And that audio ran the gamut of Nirvana rehearsals to spoken word poetry, sound collages, sound design, films scores, just a plethora of material, that would both inform Montage of Heck aesthetically as well as narratively. And I would say that that finding probably had the greatest impact on the film.”
 
Morgen worked with Stefan Nadelman and Hisko Hulsing to create animated sequences to accompany the archival audio and, as a result, was “able to build 47 minutes of the film with nothing but audio. And I’m not saying with audio interviews, but random pieces of audio, Kurt’s sound collages or music or spoken word.”  

Having the animation to support the archival audio allowed Morgen to include lengthy audio clips in their entirety. In one extended sequence, single cell animation is used to fully illustrate a story “in which [Cobain] talks about losing his virginity.” The story “was something that [Kurt] had recorded, and I have yet to find anyone who had ever heard it, so for all practical purposes I know he recorded this tape, threw it into a box and there it sat until 2013 when we came across it,” said Morgen.
 
“This is archaeology work,” he said. “And part of the joy of doing a film like Montage of Heck is discovering this material that people haven’t heard in eons and sharing it with the world.”
 
The scarcity of archival footage of Cobain himself notwithstanding, Montage of Heck turned out to be an extremely complex archival project for both Morgen and Jessica Berman-Bogdan, who served as archival producer on the film. 
 
“For a band whose commercial lifespan really only lasted four years, it was amazing to see how much material was available,” said Berman-Bogdan. “We collected a staggering amount of footage and photos. In the end we ended up using materials from over 100 different sources.”
 
Joining the project in its early stages, Berman-Bogdan was able to conduct an especially deep and comprehensive archival excavation, mining both the big commercial archives as well as private collections, and assembling the bulk of the film’s internal archive in advance of Morgen’s production work.  
 
“Fortunately, Brett understands the research process,” said Berman-Bogdan. “I was brought on in pre-production and by the time the production team was fully assembled we had amassed a ton of footage and photos.” 
 
“My goal was to contact every single journalist/reporter who ever interviewed Kurt and see if they still had their original audiotapes,” she said.  “Surprisingly, many of these individuals still had this material.”
 
Because much of the archival material was in the hands of individuals, many of whom had close personal ties with Cobain, “the issue of trust was unique to this film,” said Berman-Bogdan. “A good deal of archival footage and photos came from people who had personal video or photos of Nirvana from back in the day.  My biggest challenge was not only to locate these individuals but more importantly to gain their trust. It was amazing and somewhat unexpected to see how protective everyone was of Kurt.  Most people felt Kurt had been so wronged in some way, especially in the media, and they had to be convinced that Montage of Heck was going to be different and treat Kurt fairly.”
 
“With films like Chicago 10, and Crossfire Hurricane, and more so with Montage of Heck, Jessica and I take a two tiered approach [to archival research],” said Morgen. “Which is, there’s the mainstream archives, then there’s the grassroots archives.  It’s like an air war and a ground war.  And obviously the air war is much easier to navigate then the ground war.”
 
Morgen and Berman-Bogdan have worked together on archive-based films since 2002, and their strong working relationship was essential to the success of an archival research project of this scope. Assembling the films complete internal archive was critical to Morgen’s production process, because he typically won’t start screening the archival materials until everything is in place.  
 
As archival producer, “it’s my job to make sure Brett gets everything he needs and asks for,” said Berman-Bogdan. “The best way to do that is to understand what’s driving the film creatively and to have a firm grasp on the production’s time line.  Let’s not underestimate the value of a long-term relationship. I’ve worked with Brett since The Kid Stays in the Picture back in 2002. By now I have a feel for how he works and what he expects. Staying ahead of, or at least on top of his expectations is key.” 
 
“On Montage of Heck I had Jessica come on board almost a year before we were planning to start screening,” said Morgen. “And then I usually take six to nine months to collect material, and once it’s collected it goes to the assistant editor who gets it into the system. Once everything is in the system then I sit down with the editor and we screen material chronologically. I find when you screen chronologically, certain themes get eliminated and reveal themselves. And I sort of refuse to start screening until I know everything is in there. It frustrates me to no end if I start screening and suddenly new footage comes in from a date which I’ve already passed and cleared. I’m very literal minded in that way.” 
 
Access to archival material has become something of a prerequisite for Morgen when he is considering a new documentary project.
 
“Over the course of the last fifteen years I’ve gotten to the point where when I’m approached about a subject, and generally these are high-profile subjects, I won’t engage in any meaningful conversations until I’ve done my own sort of initial footage search,” said Morgen. “To see what’s out there in the mainstream, the air war if you will. And then obviously in my initial meetings I’m inquiring about what material we will have to build this film from.”
 
One of the biggest shifts for Morgen’s archival filmmaking practice was the emergence of YouTube as an archival research tool. 
 
“My relationship with archive has changed since the advent of YouTube,” he said. “I started making archival films pre-YouTube.  And I think that it really changed the game quite a bit.”
 
“I look at YouTube in a way as a kind of lowest common denominator, meaning it's a great place to look when you are starting a project to see what’s out there” he said. “And I would say that probably without digging hard, you know 80% of what you’re ultimately going to find on a general subject you’re going to find on YouTube. Depending on the subject, but with entertainment subjects it’s crazy how much stuff is out there. And what it’s also useful for is when I get to a certain stage it is almost a way for me to do checks and balances with Jessica [Berman-Bogdan], where I can go and say okay did we make sure we located this piece? You’re able to become aware of its existence, and make sure that you’ve tracked it all down.”
 
That said, the presence of so much archival footage on sites like YouTube means that very little footage remains rare or unreleased - a real problem for a documentary filmmaker as “there is still an inherent pressure on a filmmaker to deliver new material when you are doing any sort of definitive portrait of a subject,” said Morgen.
 
“We were fortunate enough with Montage of Heck that most of the material came from Kurt’s own storage facility. And the bulk of that hadn’t been seen so it wasn’t as much of an issue for us as it was on Crossfire Hurricane,” Morgen’s portrait of the Rolling Stones.
 
Overall, this process of discovery, or media archaeology, is fundamental to Morgen’s passion for his work.
 
“I can’t think of a better job, because in essence as documentary filmmakers, as archivists, we have a sort of all access pass to these cultures, societies and events that we are personally so fascinated by. As I said, I grew up as a fan of the Rolling Stones, and next thing I know I’m holding [the master recording of] Brown Sugar in my hand. I never lose sight of the fact that we are incredibly privileged to work in this field and go off on these expeditions.”
 

A Conversation with Kate Griffiths, Winner of the Jane Mercer Footage Researcher of the Year Award

Kate Griffiths, the winner of FOCAL's 2015 Jane Mercer Footage Researcher of the Year Award, has developed something of a specialty in music-related projects over the course of her 27-year career in archival production and research. So it's fitting that she won this year's Jane Mercer award for her work on Soul Boys of the Western World, a critically acclaimed archival documentary about the British New Romantic band Spandau Ballet. We had the chance to speak with Kate recently about her work on Soul Boys and her experience as an archival producer.

Footage.net: Congratulations on winning the Jane Mercer Award. Can you say a little bit about what it means to you to win this award? 

Kate Griffiths: It's a huge honor and means an enormous amount to me. I've been judged by my peers and colleagues in the industry and they have acknowledged and appreciated my work.

FN: You won the Jan Mercer award for your work on Soul Boys of the Western World. Can you tell us about the experience of working on this film? 

KG: It was a fantastic film to work on not least because I was given the time and space to really go in-depth and seek out every bit of relevant material. I first met with [producer] Scott Millaney and Steve Dagger (the Band's manager and Exec Producer) and we agreed they were only going to do this once so it needed to be tackled properly. I began by reading the Bands' various biographies plus the film's preliminary script, making notes about key clips and following leads. Steve also gave me their wish list of archive to find. I spoke to others that were on the scene around that time as well as fans and visited Dame Alice Owens School (where the Band met and formed) to research their archives for early photos and stories. I scoured every part of the globe, pursued many leads, discovered some fantastic new sources and established and nurtured some great archive relationships. What was truly wonderful was the level of good will. There was a genuine affection for the Band and most people were extremely co-operative. 

FN: Soul Boys sounds like an enormous archival undertaking. Was this one of the more complex projects you've worked on? 

KG: Yes certainly, being that it was an archive-only film, they were relying on me finding everything they needed to tell the story. The different subject matters, sources and footage had to be comprehensively researched, catalogued, cleared and delivered to the highest specifications. 

FN: Scott Millaney is quoted as saying that your "role went well beyond the definition of archive producer as [you] were involved with meetings at an early stage with band members, writers and the two directors that were retained on the film." Is this a typical assignment for you?

KG: I've never had an assignment quite like this before - for a start in the beginning it was a very small production team - just myself, the producer and the original director who was also the editor. Normally I'm used to getting ongoing and specific archive requests as the project progresses but the amount of footage I was unearthing and delivering seemed more than adequate for them.  We then had a change of director and she (George Hencken) needed to catch up fast. Fortunately I had created a very detailed archive log (running over 230 pages) describing every bit of footage and organized under many different headings/keywords with unique reference numbers for each clip to make them identifiable in the EDL.   I delivered the archive on two drives and over 6 weeks she watched every frame.  There was supplementary material needed later on but the archive she needed to create the Band's story was all there.  

FN: Talk about your approach/process to archival research. For example, how do you identify the sources? How do you manage the workflow? How do you keep all this material and information organized?

KG: For Soul Boys I began by reading the Band's biographies and film script and drew up a time-line of key names, dates and places. I also had a wish list of archive from the producers. First of all I targeted the commercial archives around the world. Then I tracked down individuals who were witness to key events and might have filmed/recorded or know who would. I also spoke to fans thorough Spandau's official site as well as fan forums. I mainly worked from home, which meant I worked pretty much 24/7 and could deal with archives on different time zones. I created a detailed Master Archive Log with unique EDL reference numbers, shot descriptions, dates, places, people, quality and master issues (everything you'd need to know really). The archive screeners and masters were all digitized on drives and filed/labelled to correlate with the log. Once the clips were edited into the film, the EDL would tell me exactly what shots were used. 

FN: Are you typically in charge of managing your budget? 

KG: I'm usually told what the budget is and I try to come in on it, however, it's often under calculated so some sacrifices may be needed. With the Spandau film, however, I was consulted from the start and we set a realistic budget...which I'm proud to say we came in under. 

FN: Was there a big "eureka" moment in the Soul Boys research process where you found a really special shot? 

KG: There were quite a few actually! In my first meeting with Steve he gave me a list of important clips to find including the HMS Belfast concert and the New York interview. It took three years to track these down - one was discovered in a kitchen drawer in London, the other in a lock up in Queens. Also the Nationwide rushes were a great find - Steve remembered that he'd been given this big film can at the time of filming (1981) and for three years I searched and searched - eventually finding it in one of their storage facilities, in a flight case under some stage clothing where it had been sitting since 1986. Then there was Gary Kemp's first ever TV music performance at the age of 14, performing a song with Phil Daniels. He talked about the performance in his book saying..."Somewhere in the basement of a TV studio lies a tape of a boy who would eventually star in the movie 'Quadrophenia' and his mate...hopefully that tape will never be found!" Well of course I had to find this tape! I knew the show was filmed by Thames so would be in the Fremantle archives, but they had no listing of the performance, so I called in every episode of the show and searched through until I discovered it and Gary was rather glad I did! During the course of researching at Fremantle we also found a film can marked Beat Club...which turned out not to be the German TV program, but a piece on the London club 'Beat Route' including a great early interview with the Band. One of my particular favorites was the Birmingham NEC backstage rushes which I discovered at NEFA. The Band had never seen them and had no idea they still existed - thankfully due to David Parsons who kept the cans even though he was told to throw them away a few years earlier. Its beautiful pristine film footage of Spandau Ballet at their peak and the camaraderie and exuberance of the Band on the road is clear to see. 

FN: Did archival discoveries influence the film's narrative? If so, can you give us a good example?

KG: Absolutely - there were various Spandau Ballet interviews that seemed innocent at the time but when you knew the back-story they took on new meaning and you could then recognize the tensions and conflicts (e.g. the MTV Europe and US interviews which were being conducted oblivious to the fact that the band had split). 

FN: Much has improved in the world of footage archives over the last few years. That said, I am sure there are still some pretty big obstacles when working with archives. Can you talk a little bit about what has gotten better and what has not, or maybe what has gotten worse?

KG: A huge amount of archives now have an online presence and they are constantly working to improve their websites - to be able to instantly search, view, share, cost and download content has completely transformed the way I research and deliver archive material. The numerous digital formats, aspect ratios, frame rates, specs and codec's can be challenging, though. 

FN: So are you still a big fan of Spandau Ballet?

KG: I was at the time and I'm an even bigger fan now!