Legendary comedian Jerry Lewis, famous for roles in early color comedies such as The Nutty Professor and The Bellboy passed away August 20, 2017 at the age of 91. While well-known for his slap-stick style of Comedy and upbeat, larger-than-life persona, many are unfamiliar with Lewis’ involvement in an unreleased motion picture which he both directed and starred in. While known by an auteur by many, portraying complete control over the many collaborative projects he signed his name onto, this is one aspect of Lewis’ career that remains a mystery to many. (more…)
Archive Industry Insight from the 2017 DMLA Conference in New York
At the Digital Media Licensing Association conference we got to take the pulse of the licensing business and hear from footage research and licensing professionals about the specific challenges we face in our industry and some tips for effective licensing. Though professional archive researchers for the film and TV industry have connections with footage libraries they’ve built over the years, directors are relying more and more on YouTube links, and not all productions have access to professional researchers. A panel discussion led by FOCAL International‘s Mary Egan gave some industry pros a chance to share their thoughts. (more…)
Rare Archives Bring Ferrari Film to Life
“The Universal documentary feature ‘Ferrari: Race To Immortality‘ revolves around five Formula 1 drivers of the late 1950s (Eugenio Castellotti, the Marquis Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn) who all, extraordinarily, died tragically within just twenty-two months of each other,” archive researcher Richard Wiseman says. “Four of the five died at the steering-wheel of a Ferrari, whilst the fifth was killed on the public road, having just won a World Championship for the Scuderia. Individually and collectively, their life-stories are overwhelmingly unknown to 21st century audiences, and one of the reasons for this is that very little footage of them on film was thought to exist.” (more…)
‘footage berlin’: Bridging East and West, Past and Present through Archives
Can you share a little bit of history about rbb and the ‘footage berlin‘ collection? How does its history set it apart from some of the other major collections in Germany?
rbb media is the commercial side of Berlin-Brandenburg’s broadcasting arm, and we feature collections of tv programs from three archives:
The first is the rbb television archive with material from the city of Berlin and the region of Brandenburg, including TV programs from the former SFB (Radio Free Berlin) in (West) Berlin from 1955 to 2003, and from ORB, the East German broadcaster in Brandenburg after reunification from 1991 – 2003. rbb emerged from the merger of these two broadcasters in 2003 – a bridge between East and West. (more…)
A “Long Strange Trip” with Archival Producers Annie Salsich & Jim McDonnell
Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia recording an early album in 1966. Photo courtesy of Roberto Rabanne.
The summer of 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of “The Summer of Love,” when over 100,000 people, largely consisting of post-beat-generation youth who came to be known as “hippies,” converged on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood. The summer came to be defined by experimental rhetoric against the government, experimental drugs consumed by fans and musicians alike, and experimental music, performed at festivals like the now-legendary Monterey Pop Festival by groups like The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Animals, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. The 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love also coincides with the Anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s exponential rise to fame, as masterfully portrayed in Amir Bar-Lev’s six-part documentary on the band, “Long Strange Trip,” executive produced by Martin Scorsese and released in January 2017. (more…)