Is Nitrate Film Really Dangerous? Nitrate film is a material we don’t often encounter at the National Archives for obvious reasons. After the devastating 1978 nitrate vault fire, the agency quickly copied any remaining nitrate to acetate or polyester safety film and disposed of the original reels. When we do come across a reel in … Continue reading Film Preservation 101: Is Nitrate Film Really Dangerous?
This Veterans Day, November 11th, is the 100th anniversary of the armistice of World War I. The armistice was not an official surrender by Germany, which would come several months later with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, but was essentially the beginning of the end of the war. The Great War, as it is … Continue reading Captured on Film: Armistice Day 1918
Earlier we wrote about an Oscar-nominated film preserved at the National Archives (NARA) called Jenny is a Good Thing. It was produced in 1969 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, but for a long time we didn’t know where the original film reels were stored. In 2007, NARA archivists rescued over 3,000 government … Continue reading Film Preservation 201: Exploring A&B Rolls with “Jenny is a Good Thing”
This post was written by Criss Kovac. Criss Kovac is the supervisor of the Motion Picture Preservation Lab at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It’s not uncommon for NARA to receive less-than-perfect material for films created by federal agencies. One of the types of elements we sometimes receive is called a workprint. Workprints … Continue reading When a Workprint is the Only Print
This post was written by Criss Kovac. Criss is the supervisor of the National Archives Motion Picture Preservation Lab. The Restoration Nine From Little Rock (Local Identifier: 306.5160) was commissioned by George Stevens, Jr., head of the United States Information Agency (USIA), and directed by Charles Guggenheim. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary … Continue reading Restoring Nine from Little Rock
How to Succeed with Brunettes (1967) and Return of Count Spirochete (1973): The Motion Picture Preservation Lab’s Favorite Titles from the DVIC Accession Sure, the National Archives holds films a lot of really important historical films. Beautifully made educational films about government programs during the Great Depression? Yeah, we’ve got that. Millions of feet of … Continue reading Don’t Shut Your Date in the Door: Military Dating Dos and Don’ts
