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Posted by: Mike Mashon
So let’s do the math. If a picture is worth a thousand words and a 100 minute film, at 24 frames-per-second, has 144,000 pictures, that means a movie is worth 144 million words, or more than 26 copies of War and Peace. Ah, the joys of false equivalency. Literary adaptations have been on my mind …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures, National Film Registry
Posted by: Mike Mashon
A constant theme of “Now See Hear!” is the amazing variety of moving images and sound recordings in the Library’s collections. I confess that I am especially fond of educational, industrial, and promotional films like Facts About Film or Blame It on Love, and so will regularly write about those. The Ordeal of Thomas Moon …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures
Posted by: Mike Mashon
In a collection of 1.4 million film and video items, there are bound to be a more than a few oddities, those moments when your head tilts and eyebrows arch into that universal gesture of puzzlement and wonder. It happens a lot around here; rare is the week I don’t hear somebody talking about an …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures
Posted by: Mike Mashon
I know lots of people whose passion for collecting films—and by that I mean good old fashioned celluloid reels—was inextricably linked to their passion for sharing them with friends and family. We usually associate “living room cinema” with home movies, but back in the day there were also countless numbers of junior impresarios presenting programs …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
This post was co-written by Karen Fishman and Mike Mashon. Here are some selections from the film and audio collection to help you celebrate The Fourth of July. The audio comes from the Library’s National Jukebox which includes over 10,000 streaming recordings dating from 1900 to 1925, a time when patriotic music was extremely …
Posted in: Film/Video, Jukebox, Motion Pictures, Paper Prints, Recorded Sound
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Last week my colleague Daniel Blazek told the interesting story of how the Library came to acquire audio transcription discs of 1960s-era Tonight Show broadcasts via the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Of course, the very existence of these discs is, to say the least, unexpected—record discs of TV show audio?—and given the preservation …
Posted in: Copyright, Film/Video, Television
Posted by: Mike Mashon
Silent films were never silent. From their earliest days as an exhibition attraction, motion pictures were accompanied by some form of music–typically a piano, a musical combo in more modest sized houses, and sometimes an entire orchestra in movie palaces. In some instances, the pianist was joined by a drummer employing sound effects, something I’ve …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures, Paper Prints
Posted by: Mike Mashon
The Library’s moving image collections are large (1.4 million film reels and videotapes with more arriving every day) and almost unimaginably diverse. We may not have every film or television show ever produced, but it’s a rare occurrence when Moving Image Research Center staff can’t help a patron find at least a little something related …
Posted in: Film/Video, LGBTQ, Motion Pictures
Posted by: Mike Mashon
The Great Train Robbery. Casablanca. Star Wars. 12 Years a Slave. I Love Lucy. All in the Family. Seinfeld. Game of Thrones. These well-known films and television shows are all part of the Library’s moving image collection. And so are How Buttons Got Even With the Butler (American Mutoscope & Biograph, 1903), Daily Report of …
Posted in: Film/Video, Motion Pictures