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Using Footage Without Permission: the Orphan Work Dilemma

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Using Footage Without Permission: the Orphan Works Dilemma

Using footage without permission is not a simple issue and can land filmmakers in very hot water.

Most documentary filmmakers want to find rare and never-before-seen footage, but things begin to get tricky when it’s time to seek permission to use it. Unless the copyright has expired and the creative work can be used freely as public domain footage, obtaining authorisation to use someone’s intellectual property is not optional. 

Now there is a term for this particular case where the rights-holder cannot be found but the footage is still protected by copyright: this is what we call an ‘orphan work.’ Encountering an orphan work causes that dilemma most documentary filmmakers face one day or another: should I persevere with using footage without permission or not? 

This is a real concern and a kind of grey area for many filmmakers. Let’s examine what an orphan work exactly is and the legislative framework around it, so you can better assess how to deal with orphan works, and how to get licensing when possible.

What is an ‘orphan work’?

An orphan work is a copyright-protected work for which one or more rights-holders (in the case of a collective work for instance) are indeterminate or cannot be located. 

Sometimes, it’s impossible to identify a right-holder of a piece of footage because the business who owned it no longer exists, or the rights-holder is deceased and has no heirs, or other reasons. 

Orphan works are everywhere, from flea markets to Youtube. A great number of presumed orphan works can also be found in archival collections since archives act as memory institutions.

According to a survey carried out in Europe in 2017 by EYE, the national film archive of the Netherlands: ‘21% of all film works held in the responding 24 film archives (who responded to the survey) may be considered orphans.’

Using footage without permission: the orphan works dilemma
The orphan works dilemma

What are the copyright and licensing issues with orphan works?

When a documentary filmmaker begins looking for archival footage they may stumble upon footage from all sorts of different online and physical sources, including found footage, amateur footage, and home-movies. 

It’s the filmmaker’s duty to make sure they can gain authorisation to use a piece of footage that is still protected by copyright, and generally speaking, there’s a compensation fee for that use.

Indeed, a copyrighted work can not be used by third-parties without the rights-holder’s consent. So what happens then when there’s no rights-holder associated with the work and you don’t know who or where to get licensing from?

Today, no technological solution exists to trace a work back to its rights-holder easily. This can lead to a very long quest in order to identify and locate the owner of the rights, especially if you lack data and info. 

If your search remains unsuccessful and you don’t want to give up on this perfect footage you find, your use of it in your documentary will be at your own risk.

Using footage without permission is not a decision to be made lightly. Basically, the risks are to be sued for copyright infringement, injunction and other damages – that could jeopardise the distribution of the documentary. 

That’s a big threat, which makes the IDA, the International Documentary Association, argue in 2012 before the United States Copyright Office and Library of Congress : « The orphan works problem remains a significant impediment to documentary and independent filmmaking today. »

 

Orphan works and Fair Use in the U.S.

For US-based filmmakers, there’s no such thing as orphan works exception, similar to the Fair Use exception, nor a statement of best practices to protect filmmakers, such as the fantastic Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use.

Therefore, independent filmmakers and documentary associations such as the IDA and Film Independent in the U.S. are lobbying the government to create legislation similar to that which is applied to Fair Use for orphaned works.

The IDA have worked extensively to create clearer regulation for identifying orphan works and using footage without permission in this context. They argue that flexibility is key when it comes to legislation around orphan works, and suggest modelling orphan work legislation on Fair use guidelines:

“We have suggested in previous comments and in the Orphan Works Roundtables that Congress and the Copyright Office should approach orphan works reform with fair use in mind. As with fair use, the orphan works problem affects every part of the copyright system, from libraries and archives, to public and private news outlets, to documentary and independent film”.

See here attorney Michael Donaldson presenting the orphan works issue to Congress.

 

How do orphaned works licensing laws vary around the world?

Copyright laws differ greatly from one country to another, so are the rules that have been adopted across the world to permit certain uses of orphaned works.

For example, countries such as Japan and South Korea have state guidelines for using footage without permission and orphan works.

Canada has created a supplemental licensing scheme, under Section 77 of its Copyright Act, that allows licenses for the use of published works to be issued by the Copyright Board of Canada on behalf of unlocatable rights holders, after a prospective licensor has made “reasonable efforts to locate [holders of] copyright”. We can read on Wikipedia that as of March 2019, the Board had issued 304 such licenses, and denied 24 applications.

Meanwhile UK copyright law is more broad, and cannot be applied for all orphaned works. In recent years the UK government has developed a register where filmmakers can submit orphan works and apply to use them, along with proof that due diligence searches have been fulfilled.

In most of the countries in continental Europe, the authors’ rights are maintained long after the author’s death and passed to family members.

EU has adopted the Directive 2012/28/EU that enables certain uses of orphan works. In particular, it addresses the challenges posed by orphan works where European archives are prevented from digitising their body of works and from making them accessible to the public without the rights-holder’s authorisation.

Available online, The Orphan Works Database is a great response to the orphan work issue in the EU. Here is a video explaining how it works.

 

 

Avoiding copyright infringement: 8 tips for documentary filmmakers

Deciding whether using or not using footage without permission in your documentary is not to be taken lightly. While many doc filmmakers are actively seeking orphan works because they are never-before-seen footage that can elevate their films, things need to be done properly in order to manage the risks and avoid legal actions for copyright infringement. 

Here are some tips to help you in your rights-clearance process:

1. Keep track of the rights-holders as you go

Use a good system like spreadsheets to keep track of crucial info during your archival research and licensing process. You don’t want to accidentally include footage from an unknown copyright holder just because you haven’t made proper note of it.

2. Allot time to find the rights-holders and get licensing when possible

Make sure you have the timeframe (and funds) to carry out a proper investigation. Obtaining authorization for the use of archival footage (or archival material) shall be a priority. Do not wait until post production to find the rights-holders, or you may find you have to discard the footage altogether.

3. Make sure the archival footage is truly an orphan work

Never assume that a video clip you found is orphaned before conducting an extensive research to locate the rights-holders.

If you’ve succeeded in locating and contacting a rights-holder but there’s no reply, that’s not an orphan work anymore; the rights-holders are not obliged to respond to your request, and it’s maybe wiser to find a footage alternative. 

4. Conduct a diligent search

There is no set procedure to conduct a diligent search and it all depends on the nature of the archival footage. A robust diligent search would imply checking multiple sources including professional associations, copyrights offices, obituaries and so on.

But it’s also like detective work, where you have to find clues and talk to many people, like archivists, to detect potential rights-holders. The provenance of the footage can provide crucial info too, and sometimes image recognition tools work like a charm.

5. Keep evidence of your rights-clearance process

A copyrights-owner can suddenly resurface. Being able to prove you’ve made your best efforts to find them and avoid using footage without permission is key to protecting yourself from copyright infringement. Keep track of all your correspondence and write a report so as to show your good faith.

6. Make sure you account for copyrights in your documentary budget

You must keep aside a reasonable amount of money for compensating a rights-holder who would resurface and claim licensing fees – and have proof that you have done so.

7. Hire an archive researcher

Archive researchers are like the detectives of the film world. If there is an unknown copyright holder, an archive researcher is your best bet for tracking it down. On Archive Valley, you’ll find a unique community of 500 professional archive researchers. 

8. Consult a copyright lawyer

Copyright lawyers are trained to decipher the complex laws surrounding issues such as orphan works. Make sure to consult a professional attorney specialised in intellectual property rights before deciding whether or not to use footage without permission.

 

Disclaimer: the information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. You should not act upon any such information without first seeking the advice of a professional attorney.


  

 

Documentary Productions, Uncategorized

A Look at Documentary Short Films & the Opportunities Out There

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Documentary Short Films : Why they are here to stay and how you can be a part of it.

Some people might think you need a full two-hour documentary to produce an award-winning, emotionally-charged, beautiful work exploring the nuances of the Second World War and its traumas. The must-see short doc Colette (2020) would prove them wrong, winning the 2021 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).

Directed by Anthony Giacchino and produced by Alice Doyard with The Guardian, it is only the most recent example of a new genre which continues to go from strength to strength with impactful stories that speak to the world.

The Rise of the Short Form Documentary

We often hear that we’re in the golden age of documentary filmmaking, and maybe it’s even more appropriate to say that we’re in the golden age of documentary shorts – as editor-in-chief of Nonfictionfilm.com Matthew Carey pointed out in 2016 yet. 

In the past decade, the short-form documentary has become more and more prominent. Two concurrent trends have facilitated the rise of this format: a widening of the avenues by which audiences consume digital content online, and a narrowing of consumer attention spans.

Indeed, short docs offer a chance to reach wider and younger audiences who are used to digesting shorter social media videos, but are still keen to immerse themselves into engaging stories which stay with them for a long time. 


As the Internet has become an increasingly prominent avenue for distribution for short films, there are a raft of new opportunities for filmmakers willing to make short docs and get them produced and seen, including archive-driven short docs. 

Jean Garner, Executive Producer and mentor for Global Short Docs Forum has argued ‘because the media world is exploding in terms of platforms, short form documentary is finding its home’. With short-docs rising in prominence on Netflix, Prime, Youtube, established news media websites and tailor-made platforms like Field of Vision, there is a vibrant short-doc ecosystem out there. 

While there are limitations that come with having to concentrate narratives into minutes rather than hours, this distillation can spark creative genius. On top of that, many documentaries are ideally suited to the short form, for its quicker production timeline enabling filmmakers to match the contemporary relevance of their story and the immediacy of their access. Sometimes, it’s all about the right time. 

Whether it be hard hitting social commentary like the Academy Award-winning Period. End of Sentence (2018, dir. by Rayka Zehtabchi), or archival-heavy work such as the dreamlike A Love Song For Latasha (2019, dir. by DOC NYC Directing Award-winner Sophia Nahli Allison) or the fascinating IDA Award-winner short John Was Trying to Contact Aliens (2020, dir. by Matthew Killip) – all available on Netflix – the short documentary is here to stay as a key landmark on the media landscape.

3 must-know platforms that help documentary shorts to come to life

To help you best navigate the short-doc world and the opportunities it offers to both experienced and emerging filmmakers, we’ve selected three of the most interesting platforms available to you to fund, distribute and promote your documentary short films.

1. Short form documentaries on The Guardian

In 2016, the UK-based Guardian relaunched its Guardian Documentaries series, commissioning and curating short documentaries from around the world.

Head of Video at The Guardian, Charlie Phillips, who previously worked as deputy director at Sheffield Doc/Fest, describes their process: “we make films of 15-30 minutes – comparatively long for an online video – that take us in-depth into untold stories about real people.”

The Guardian works hands-on with filmmakers of all experience levels and backgrounds from across the world, acting as executive producers in a process which can take up to a year (with an average of 3-6 months). In terms of viewers, the documentaries released by The Guardian reach large online audiences globally, as The Guardian News & Media website network attracts 140 million monthly browsers.

For Charlie Phillips, telling impactful stories to their audience is the main priority, and takes precedence over thinking about film festivals. That said, several of their short docs have also won critical acclaim. Two of the works produced by The Guardian illustrate this brilliantly.

Firstly, there is Black Sheep (2018), directed by Ed Perkins. It is a poignant exploration of identity, racism and violence, which blurred the boundaries between documentary and fiction. Black Sheep went on to win Best Short Documentary at Sheffield Doc/Fest, and was also nominated at the 2019 Oscars.

Secondly, there is Colette (2020). While succeeding in capturing people’s hearts and minds with its unique approach bridging the past and the present, the short doc film went one step further this year as it has been declared the Oscar winner 2021 in the category Best Documentary Short Subject.

Black Sheep and Colette are just two films in a diverse range of Guardian documentaries, sharing a common interest in unique creative visions. They work with filmmakers of all experience levels and backgrounds from across the world, and could be the perfect partner for your docu-short! 

Don’t hesitate to submit your documentary short ideas to them here. 

2. Short documentaries on The New York Times’ Op-Docs

On the other side of the Atlantic, there is another newspaper with global reach churning-out top-quality video content – The New York Times’s Op-Docs.

Begun in 2011, Op-Docs is a series of award-winning documentary shorts made by independent filmmakers. Op-Docs former producer and curator Kathleen Lingo explains in Documentary Magazine (IDA) that their mission is “to provide a platform for voices from outside The New York Times to give their point of view on issues of the day”.

In the past decade they have helped make around 300 short, interactive and VR documentaries, with a broad range of styles and subject-matters. They help with publicity, distribution, funding and archival footage and music access. 

Each Op-Doc is generally 5-10 minutes in length, although some are noticeably longer, depicting a unique story to spark conversations across the globe. They say they consider “written pitches (…) as well as completed videos” but cannot consider film trailers or videos which have already been posted online. Short-pieces adapted from longer works in progress are also eligible.

Like The Guardian, they strongly encourage a diverse range of directors from all over the world, and they work with first-time doc-makers as well as with established contributors.

Op-Docs collaborates with festivals such as Sundance and have gone on to gain widespread critical acclaim, picking up official selections at leading film festivals, Emmy nominations, News and Documentary Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, and Oscar nominations. As an example, the vibrant and intimate A concerto is a Conversation (2020) directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers was nominated this year. 

Op-Docs have also gone on to form the basis for later feature films. One notable example is Time (2020) by director Garrett Bradley.

The factual film followed a prisoner’s wife fighting for the release of her husband, who Bradley met when working on her Op-Doc Alone in 2016. Time was meant to be another short film, but the last day of filming, central character Rich Fox gave Bradley an incredible archive of home video footage! The 81 minute film won the Documentary Directing Award at both the Sundance Film Festival and the IDA Documentary Awards, and it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Time is streaming now on Amazon Prime.

If you think Op-Docs is the right platform for your short docs, you can submit your pitches through this form or contact: opinion.video@nytimes.com.

3. Documentary short films on Field of Vision

When it comes to short-documentary specialists, Field of Vision are some of the best in the game. Co-created by the Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras who directed Citizenfour and Risk, they describe themselves as a ‘filmmaker-driven documentary unit that commissions, creates and supports original’ projects (shorts, features and episodes).

According to their submission guidelines, they seek to support work that ‘uses innovative and artistic ways to explore contemporary global issues through a cinematic lens’. They look for work which pushes boundaries, offers unique access or new perspectives on the world, and they support independent filmmakers who are often taking risks with their investigative and journalistic work.

Field of Vision commissions filmmakers to develop stories they have already identified, but many of the films are cold submissions. To apply, you need to fill in their online form.

Of the many notable successes that have come from Field of Vision, Do Not Split (2020, dir. by Anders Hammer) is particularly exciting. The film documents many landmark events in the Hong Kong protest movement, and it received the DOC NYC “Courage Under Fire” award. It was also an Oscar contender for Best Documentary Short Subject this year. 

Since July 2020, Field of Vision has also included IF/Then – previously a part of the Tribeca Film Institute. This is a mentorship programme for underrepresented filmmakers making world-class short docs that ‘break barriers to access’. 2021 is the inaugural year of IF/Then’s partnership with Hulu, where winners will receive mentoring and $25,000 in funding. While applications have closed for 2021, watch them carefully for future announcements! 

Pitching your short documentary ideas in 2021 and beyond

Whether it’s the funding, distribution or mentorship opportunities, that appeal to you most – you need to nail your short documentary application if you want your short documentary project to find success with some of these brilliant platforms. 

With all of them there are some core elements which they will want to see :

  • A one-page proposal : Can you articulate a compelling, timely and original story in a concise way? Did you think about the narrative arc and story structure of your documentary?
  • A rough budget: Have you carefully thought through the costs, taking time to estimate the budget needed to produce your short doc – including potential licensing fees of archival material?
  • Visual elements: How will the story translate cinematically, what is your filmmaking approach to it? Mood boards and 1-minute trailers are great tools to convey the look and feel of your short doc project.
  • Unique access: Why are you the right person to tell this factual story? Who is your main subject or character and what access do you have that others don’t to tell a great investigative or character-driven story ?

Whether you want your short doc to be led by observational material or archival footage – or a mix of both – make sure your story feels like it speaks to the present. All of the platforms above support short documentary ideas motivated by a concern for the contemporary world. 

While there are similarities between the requirements of all the nonfiction video platforms we’ve discussed, not to mention the many other fantastic opportunities out there, make sure you take the time to carefully research each one, ascertain your eligibility and dig around in their FAQ sections. 

There are other opportunities for documentary short films to pitch or submit at festivals, and we’ll make sure to talk about this in an upcoming Archive Valley‘s article focusing on documentary film festivals – so stay tuned! 

Archive Researchers, Documentary Festivals, Documentary Productions, Our Blog, Uncategorized

“Finding Sally”: Exploring Ethiopian Archives on a Personal Quest.

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“Finding Sally”: Exploring Ethiopian Archives on a Personal Quest.

An Interview with Director Tamara Dawit

This month, we were lucky enough to exchange with the Canadian-Ethiopian director Tamara Dawit about her new documentary “Finding Sally” that premiered on the Hot Docs 2020 selection for CBC Canada in the middle of the COVID crisis.

In “Finding Sally“, Tamara Dawit explores the sudden disappearance of her aunt Sally in the summer 1973, after Sally became a communist rebel with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and subsequently topped the Ethiopian government’s most wanted list. How did this young girl from an upperclass family get caught up in her country’s revolutionary fervor? How does a family process surviving the loss of someone without knowing what really happened to her?

Tamara Dawit

Going beyond the family’s quest for answers, Dawit’s film raises important questions about identity, idealism, engagement and belonging, and contributes to broadening the dialogue about this tragic time in Ethiopian History.

Thanks to a creative patchwork of family pictures and footage especially from Ethiopian Archives, Dawit paints a sensitive portrait of Ethiopia during the Red Terror in which personal trajectory meets collective history. Archive Valley was delighted to interview her about her work and her use of Ethiopian archives to tell her story.

First of all, congratulations about your film “Finding Sally”. Could you tell us about the story of your aunt Sally? Why did it remain a family secret for so long?

TD : “Finding Sally” is my investigation into the life of an aunt I didn’t know existed and 1970s Revolutionary Ethiopia the period she vanished in. Sally was a young woman who came from a privileged upper-class family who became a communist rebel with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party. Idealistic and in love, Sally got caught up in her country’s revolutionary fervour and landed on the military government’s most wanted list. She went underground and her family never saw her again.

I don’t think Sally’s existence was kept secret from me on purpose I think it was due to the pain and trauma attached with remembering her. When things are painful you can often subconsciously suppress them and in Ethiopia there is very much collective silence about what happened to many people during the revolution.

A film produced by Catbird Productions / Gobez Media

Why do you think it was the right time to tell her story and open the dialogue about this tragic time of Ethiopian collective memory?  

TD : It is important for Ethiopian audiences to release this film now especially as Ethiopia prepares for a federal election. I want to use the film as a conversation started (between generations) to reflect on the past and to learn from the past in order to move forward.

Many Ethiopian families, not only my own lost relatives who were killed, jailed or tortured under the Derg leadership and thus carry painful baggage attached to that period. In Ethiopia we need more content and discussion and remembrance to contribute to the national healing.

By doing this documentary film, what did you learn about your country and its people?

TD : I spent a lot of time researching the Ethiopian revolution and the Red Terror (period of sustained state killings) that included reading any books, reports I could find. As well as talking to many people especially those who knew my aunt or where connected to the communist group she had joined.
As a result of this I learned about the ideology of the student movement, the role of women, the gruesome details of the Red Terror, the political maneuvering of the Derg junta and also about the lasting impacts of that period today on Ethiopians and Eritreans.

Could you share some insights into how you got the film funded?

TD : The film was funded entirely in Canada via mostly broadcaster and federal film funds. In any case financing a film is a long and slow process. But I spent the time before pitching producers and applying to funds to do the full research on the films period, storyline and also available archives in order to have a clear package on how the story would be told visually.

The film shows a beautiful and realistic picture of life in Ethiopia back in the 70’s. How did you manage to visually recreate that ?

TD : In this respect I think I was lucky to have a large family archive of photos to draw upon and well a good amount of footage in the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation archives and some international sources to draw on.

For much of the film archive in the film we did have to work closely to in some cases totally rebuild the sound design to improve the quality of the experience. As well a lot of the Ethiopian archive is not the raw file but clips which are set against music or with voiceover which is also why we had to rebuild the sound.

Did you work with an archive researcher? Could you tell us about the collaboration between the two of you?

TD : Yes, I worked with an archive researcher in Canada to search internationally for archives and to license some of the international archives that I was already aware of. I handled the sourcing of archives from within Ethiopia. I gave the archivist a list of key date, events and images that I knew or thought may exists to search for.

Strangely the hardest archive to source diverse images of was actually Ottawa, Canada I in the late 1960s early 1970s.

How did you use archives and more specifically Ethiopian archives to bring Sally to life?

TD : We used film archives to illustrate both Ethiopia and Canada in the 1970s. This enables viewer to see the time and places that Sally lived in. I think also for many viewers this is their first time seeing such extensive images of Ethiopia in this period.

I really aimed to show how modern Addis Ababa was in the 1960s/1970s before the revolution in many cases I think looking similar to many European cities in that era. Additionally, I careful used archives to bring the viewer into the room to see the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie and the rule of the military junta which followed.

I also used photo archives to show Sally’s family life and childhood prior to becoming a revolutionary (after which as she lived in hiding there are no images of her) and photo to show the brutality of the state sponsored killings in Ethiopia.

You pointed the fact that it was important for you to preserve an Ethiopian point of view. Did you managed to gather all the archival material you needed in Ethiopian archives? Where did you dig?

TD : Yes, the entire film is told through the POV of Ethiopian characters and more specifically women. This is because we don’t often hear from women when telling the history of Africa and we do often hear about African history from white academics.

The situation and upkeep of Ethiopian archives is something that needs support, similar to many other African nations. We have a lot of photo, film and radio archives but the material is not well sorted, preserved or digitized. So this made for a slow process to access materials for this film but I was able to work directly with the state TV and press agency archives to gather the content which originated from Ethiopian sources.

Again like a lot of African archives it is often housed in Europe as the footage was collected by foreign governments and stringers.

Now that the documentary has been premiered, how do you plan to reach the Ethiopian audience?

TD : I am setting up a large impact campaign to support the release of the film to Ethiopian audiences in Ethiopia and in the diaspora. The film will have a short theatrical run in Ethiopia, tied to discussions and a national tv broadcast.

Part of this work is also to dub the film into more Ethiopian languages to make the film more accessible for school screenings (with a discussion guide), community group screenings and tv broadcasts in Ethiopia on regional broadcasters.

Archive Valley’s community boasts 500+ talented archive researchers in over 60 countries. If your production needs an archival researcher/producer, you can sign up and find the right person for the job in just a couple of easy steps.

Licensing, The Right Footage

The Ups and Downs of Finding Footage from YouTube for Your Productions

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The Ups and Downs of Finding Footage from YouTube for Your Productions

For amateur and professional filmmakers and content producers alike, YouTube has become for many, the first place to go when looking for footage of a range of topics past and present.

The sheer volume of material uploaded to YouTube, as well as the perception ease-of-use offered by the search engine interface, have changed the way we think about finding visual material both for consumption as well as professional productions.

However, for filmmakers seeking to use material found on YouTube in their final cut, here are a few of the ‘ups and downs’ of researching on the world’s most popular video platform. (more…)

Documentary Festivals, Documentary Productions, Uncategorized

Sunny Side of the Doc 2018: ​Archives & new storytelling, a history of love

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Sunny Side of the Doc 2018: ​Archives & new storytelling, a history of love

Let’s forget about OTT and TV screens for a minute, because history is not anymore intended to be told only through flat and linear contents. New ways of archival storytelling at the crossroad of the documentary and digital scenes are popping up all over the internet, driven by a desire to embark the youngest audience on more engaging experiences of the past. This craze became “the occasion” for this year’s Sunny Side of the Doc breakfast discussion « Archives & new storytelling, a history of love ». The panel was moderated by the producer Laurent Duret (Bachibouzouk) and as one of the invited panelists, Archive Valley is happy to share with you some insights into this new exciting trend.

Laurent Duret – producer Bachibouzouk, Bruno Masi – Author filmmaker, Amandine Collinet – chief editor digital productions INA, Yoann Gantch – BnF – Partenariat, Mikhail Zygar & Karen Shainyan – founders Future History, Our CEO Melanie Rosencwajg 

We see today a growing number of content creators investing the infinite channels and media offered by the digital world with new types of archive-driven narratives, largely stimulated by the rise of the short-doc form. And when it comes to short form, the influence of Twitter cannot be neglected.

Already in 2011 while being busy blending archive and innovation at studio ArtchiviumLab, we’ve happily discovered the new-born twitter account @HistoryInPics, managed by two teenagers with one clear ambition: creating the buzz out of entertaining and powerful historical photographs picked on the internet and supercharged with a dramatic storytelling. While one can argue that historical truth and data accuracy were not really their point of concern when it all started, the duo’s first tweets went quickly viral, and as a result, we saw an invasion of archival content in the social media. Eventually, none of the myriads of similar twitter accounts created on the same model could compete with the team’ s great sense of spectacle, neither reproduce their huge success: the still-active account @HistoryInPics boasts today more than 4 million followers.

Similarly, the blog project “Retronaut” (See the past like you wouldn’t believe) started in 2010 with WolgangWild’s idea to share his fascination for the nostalgia by showcasing and curating his own collection of odd and eccentric old photographs in so-called ‘capsules’ of time. Three weeks after the launch, the site got 30,000 hits in one day thanks to a post celebrating wonderful Kodachrome color photographs of 1949’s London. In 2014, the blog’ success led to an exclusive partnership with Mashable and Retronaut’s content became the most shared and viewed piece on the whole website. By now more than 40,000 Retronautic photographs were published, each one carefully chosen for its power « to disrupt the viewers’ sense of the past » and to generate a viral hit, based on what Wild established as the S.P.E.E.D. formula: a unique approach for predicting any archival photograph’s potential for drawing an enormous audience.

Most importantly, a great appetite for archival storytelling (when done right) emerged, and thanks to all the disruption in the way content is being distributed, the rise of social media and cross-media made it work even better. Filmmakers and content creators, as well as newspapers and even archival sources, quickly grabbed that unique opportunity to reach a global audience. Let’s shade a light on some of those standout projects that bring archives and history even closer to the contemporary audience.

As a former journalist seeking for new territories apart from the traditional press and the linear documentary, Bruno Masi is one of the pioneers of the web documentary form with his interactive project “La Zone”(2011), revealing the Chernobyl aftermath. A couple of years later on the occasion of the centenary of the WWI, he creates the project ‘1914 Dernières Nouvelles’(co-produced by Arte and Bachibouzouk), an online newspaper that will set a daily appointment with the contemporary audience. In an attempt to immerse the audience into the daily life and escalating dangers of this crucial year, through the use of a pseudo-live temporality, the project displays one archival photograph per day during eight months, together with press articles and additional textual information that help to bring context in some sort of « popcorn narration ». As a partnership between TV channel Arte and newspaper Liberation, the project has been displayed in different channels and platforms simultaneously in order to multiply the impact of the project.

The author’s latest experimental project “Barricade“(co-produced by INA, Bachibouzouk, and Liberation.fr) is based on a similar process, with a web-series of 20 episodes, 20 minutes each, telling hour by hour May 1968’s most violent day. Based on archival footage from INA’s collections, the series aims to respect the historical chronology of the events while the unusual use of voices inputs a fictional and cinematographic storytelling approach to the narration. Should we refer to it as docu-fiction? Not really. Instead, chief editor at digital productions INA Amandine Collinet is more likely to speak about « documented fiction », a new sophisticated form of storytelling where archives are treated as a pure material of fiction.

“La Grande Explication” is another project recently initiated by the French archive INA together with RTS in resonance with anniversary dates which appear to be the most rewarding strategy to drive audience. Dedicated for a youth target audience mainly active on Facebook, this 10 episodes web-series aims at deciphering ten major historical events, from Hiroshima bombing to Nelson Mandela election, while overlaying the archive clips with modern graphics such as text message bubbles inspired by the smartphone aesthetic in order to «dynamize and desacralize the archives ».

Yet, speaking about repackaging the archives using the technologies of today, a special mention needs to go out to 1968.DIGITAL, the first-ever mobile documentary series. Specially tailored for smartphone screens, this ongoing project takes up the challenge of revisiting the story of one heroic character per week through the lens of their iPhone and the various apps they could have owned in 1968; viewers witness the Beatles exchanging via a WhatsApp chat, Andy Warhol sharing photos on Instagram, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writing in Notes, and Martin Luther King’s funeral is announced via a Facebook’s event reminder.

Created and produced by Russian independent journalists and cofounders of Future History studio, Mikhail Zygar and Karen Shainyan, this project is the result of a prior effort to bring primary sources to the forefront with “Project1917“, a web-project relying on Facebook daily posting style to immerse the audience into the making of the Russian Revolution. In addition to providing a fresh experience of the past, Future History’s projects rely on a very specific mission statement: showing how major events shaped the culture and the society of nowadays while revealing patterns of similarities and clear influences between people across the world, both in the present and the past.

A social media phenomenon, “1968.DIGITAL“(The Year that created the world as we know it) has so far reached millions of views thanks to a smart distribution strategy based on partnerships with different news media, maximizing the chance to disseminate the content across a wide variety of channels and platforms… and to multiply the views. The project was initially designed as a three-episode series untitled “Future History: 1968,” which was premiered by BuzzFeed News, the millennial-focused site, and it was released exclusively on Apple News before going to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Soon additional news publishers have joined the project such as “Liberation.fr” for producing a French version of the series.


All this is actually very representative of what’s going on today with news businesses: they are in a frenzy for original, fresh and higher-quality video content to license or produce, and especially for short docs aiming to recap historical moments while providing context to nowadays world Another great example is The New York Times ‘partnership with the news organization Retro Report, which has produced more than 125 short docs, combining investigative journalism and narrative storytelling to tell the audience the history behind the news.

A mix of digital creatives and journalists, all those highly-engaged creators  are not only working on adding a modern twist to archival storytelling but they are also giving a fresh and unprecedented access to history and archives to the youngest generations via unique video experiences delivered directly to their doors: in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Mashable, BuzzFeed etc. What an exciting and optimistic time for archival storytelling.