Top of page
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Here at the Library, we’re dedicated to the acquisition, description, preservation and accessibility of our film, video, and sound recording collections regardless of perceived “worth.” We really do want to make it all available for future generations ̶ so we don’t necessarily prioritize beloved classics over a refrigerator ad or the song “Fido is a …
Posted in: Motion Pictures
Posted by: Mike Mashon
One of our very earliest Now See Hear! posts was about our wonderful collection of the copyright descriptions that accompanied films submitted for registration starting in 1912. At the very end we noted “several years ago we digitized many hundreds of the microfilm reels onto which the descriptions were originally transferred, and we’re looking for …
Posted in: Copyright
Posted by: Mike Mashon
All of us at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center are teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’re still getting a lot done. Copyright and gift collections are being processed and catalog records created or enhanced. We’re writing quality control reports and documenting Standard Operating Procedures. We’re doing research for film restoration projects and creating new …
Posted in: Staff Profile
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Yesterday was a pretty momentous day in America, and not just because so many of us got a head start on breaking New Year’s resolutions. It also was a significant milestone in the history of intellectual property rights for a variety of expressive works, including motion pictures. Put simply, motion pictures with renewed copyrights published …
Posted in: Copyright, Film/Video
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Rarely has the arrival of a film at the Packard Campus occasioned as much anticipation as the day in April 2015 when the sole surviving nitrate print of the first cinematic adaptation of Frankenstein (Edison Manufacturing Company, 1910) was accessioned into our collection. It’s not because the film is all that revelatory—it’s most decidedly not—or …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center
Posted by: Mike Mashon
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus. Thursday, September 6 (7:30 p.m.) The Maltese Falcon (Warner Bros., 1941) After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett’s detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally captured the true essence of Hammett’s story in 1941 by wisely adhering to the original …
Posted in: Motion Pictures, Musical Theater, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, National Film Registry, Packard Campus Theater
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Back when we were planning the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation, one mantra we always kept foremost in our minds was “preservation for access.” It’s a simple concept and self-explanatory, but it also pithily illustrates an important guiding principle. Nearly every activity in this facility is in the service of access, be it acquisition, …
Posted in: Film Loans, Motion Pictures
Posted by: Mike Mashon
This guest post was written by Amy Jo Stanfill, Processing Technician in the Moving Image Section and coordinator of the Silent Film Project. RKO’s St. Louis Blues, directed by Dudley Murphy and starring Bessie Smith, was named to the National Film Registry in 2006. This two-reel early sound short premiered in New York before the …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures, National Film Registry
Posted by: Mike Mashon
I spent a good deal of early 2016 planning for the Orphan Film Symposium, reviewing proposals with my co-programmer Dan Streible. Since we already knew that the theme would be Sound, I also started spelunking our collection for films about sound in all its many aspects that could either be screened at Orphans, blogged about, …
Posted in: Film/Video, Orphan Film Symposium, Radio