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Documentary Productions, Licensing, The Right Footage

Fair Use in Documentary: Understanding the Costs


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‘Fair use’ is a term used in the media industries in many countries. However in the United States, ‘fair use’ refers to the doctrine in US copyright law allowing the use of short verbatim excerpts of copyrighted material for a range of “transformative” purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, research, and even parody without permission from the copyright holder. Countries such as the UK and France have their own fair use laws with specific language and guidelines, but these are ultimately quite similar in purpose to American fair use doctrine. In countries where fair use is permitted, this legal framework can be a valuable tool for filmmakers, especially fair use in documentary. However, in some cases, claiming fair use on footage used in a project can present editorial and aesthetic constraints, as well as pose a legal and financial burden to a production.

Here are a few things to remember when considering claiming fair use of copyrighted footage in film and television productions. (more…)

Archive Researchers, The Right Footage

Rare Archives Bring Ferrari Film to Life


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“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…)

The Right Footage

A “Long Strange Trip” with Archival Producers Annie Salsich & Jim McDonnell


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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…)

Archive Valley

“Josephine Baker: An American in Paris” wins Archive Valley Prize at #SSD17


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As this year’s edition of Sunny Side of the Doc came to a close, Archive Valley had the pleasure of presenting an award to one of the historical documentary projects pitched during the History Pitch Session.

The quality of the projects extremely high across the board, so we faced an extremely difficult choice. However, one project stuck out as we felt that not only did it approach its subject from a new angle, but the team is also undertaking extensive archive research that we felt was a great match to our community and the passion for archives we all share.  (more…)