Amalie R. Rothschild Music Photo Archive Now Available at Global ImageWorks

From 1968 to 1974, Amalie Rothschild was a freelance photographer based in New York City, specializing in music photography. She also worked with the Joshua Light Show at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East Theater where she was the unofficial house photographer. Her amazing collection of music photography is available now for licensing through Global ImageWorks.

She was on staff at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and photographed the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, the 1969 Newport Festival, Tanglewood 1969 and 1970, Bob Dylan and The Who at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, The Who's 1969 US premier of "Tommy," the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden 1969, Bob Dylan’s 1974 tour and many other music events.

Amalie's rock music photo archive of around 20,000 pictures remains a major part of her professional life through licensing for books, magazines, CD & music packaging, film, television, museum exhibits and other media.

To search Amalie’s photos visit: https://photos.globalimageworks.com and search for “Amalie.”

NBC News Archives Marks 50th Anniversary of Manson Family Murders

In August of 1969, members of the Manson Family would commit two of the most notorious murders of the 1960s.

On August 8, followers of Charles Manson set out for Beverly Hills, where they murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at her home on Cielo Drive. The next night, Manson and company set back out, killing Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Feliz.

Five months passed before the Manson Family was connected to the crimes. When the Tate-LaBianca trials finally began, the proceedings were marked by wild outbursts on the part of the Manson Family—followers camped outside the courtroom, shaved their heads, and carved Xs into their foreheads as an act of allegiance. Manson tried to attack the judge. Finally, after nine long months, all were convicted of their crimes.

In advance of the 50th anniversary of this infamous historical episode, NBC News Archives has assembled a collection of news coverage surrounding the event and subsequent trial.

LOLA Clips Expands Music Offerings with Eagle Vision Partnership

LOLA Clips has added a huge new catalogue to its rapidly growing slate of partnerships with Eagle Vision, part of the Universal Music Group. Eagle Vision is a leading producer and distributor of music based documentaries and high quality live concerts, covering all genres from Jazz, Blues and Soul to Pop and Rock.

"Eagle Vision is delighted to be collaborating with LOLA clips," said Eagle Vision's Harry Irving. " Sandra and Dom know the archive world inside out and their enthusiasm has been clear to see from the outset. In a fast developing market with a growing array of broadcast platforms providing new opportunities for film makers, we look forward to bringing our leading catalogue of Music related footage to new clients globally."

LOLA’s Sandra Coelho, who spearheaded the deal, said “I’ve wanted this catalogue for LOLA as it not only adds to our increasing music catalogue but it cements LOLA Clips as one pf the most comprehensive sources of rights managed content anywhere in the world. We love this industry and our goal is to provide the highest quality material to our new and extremely loyal clients alike, the best service, material and experience out there.”

LOLA, based in both London and Los Angeles, represents an expanding portfolio of footage collections, including StudioCanal, and, in North America, clips from the UK’s ITV.

Now Streaming: Studio 54

It’s hard to believe that Studio 54 was open for only 33 months. And that it’s founders, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, had almost no experience in the nightclub business when they launched their era-defining disco on the west side of Manhattan in 1977. Studio 54, from director Matt Tyrnauer, chronicles this brief but dazzling period when Studio 54 was the unrivaled superpower of New York’s nightlife scene and throngs of people waited outside every night, hoping to get past the velvet rope.

The story is told mainly from the perspective of Ian Schrager, the more introverted of the two partners, and fleshed out with archival footage, photos and print media elements from the time. The filmmakers cast a wide net for archival elements, with close to 100 archival sources credited, and made excellent use of never-before-seen archival footage shot by Susan Hillary Shapiro and Glenn Albin - both NYU film students at the time – who had shot footage inside Studio 54.

Both from Brooklyn, Schrager and Rubell met as undergrads at Syracuse University and recognized in each other a kindred spirit, forging a deep, lifelong bond based on their common roots and shared ambition. 

“From the beginning, they had this intuitive understanding that they were getting out,” said Norma Kamali, the fashion designer and Schrager’s former girlfriend. “And they were going to do something big together.”

The film, which marks the first time Schrager has spoken at length about his time at Studio 54, is very much about their friendship, and a certain kind of once-in-a-lifetime moment that they recognized and exploited. Rubell, who died of AIDS in 1989, is clearly missed. “I’m lucky that I had one of those friendships,” Schrager says toward the end of the film. “Not many people do.”

Though the pair had some experience running dance parties, Studio 54 was their first nightclub. But if Schrager, then 29, or Rubell, then 33, had any fear or hesitation about diving in, they didn’t show it. Once they found their venue, in an old theater in what was then a seedy part of Manhattan, they jumped headlong into renovations and were ready for business in six weeks. Unable to secure a liquor license prior to opening, they used a series of one day catering permits for most of the club’s first year.

Schrager and Rubell were prodigious promoters, sending out “thousands of invitations” and relentlessly working celebrity connections to build buzz in advance of opening. And it clearly paid off as the club was mobbed from the first night on.

“Something happened from that first night opening party,” says musician Nile Rogers in the film. “The message was sent out. It was like, boom. This was the spot.”

“They invited the people that everyone else wanted to be in a room with,” says Sandy Linter, a Studio 54 regular.

The pair seemed to understand the burgeoning obsession with celebrities in a way that few others did at the time.  They knew from the start that celebrities would bring publicity to the club. But what quickly became apparent was that Studio 54 could become an engine of celebrity culture, making everyone more famous, or at least feel that way, and feeding the insatiable appetite for celebrity news.

“There was this paradigm shift away from reading about crime and sports heroes and people became fascinated with celebrities. It was the beginning of the age of celebrity,” Schrager says. “We were there at the right time and we rode it for all that it was worth.”

Their gift for scene making, attracting celebrities and risk-taking propelled their meteoric rise and ultimately led to their downfall, which began with an IRS raid in 1978 and ended with convictions for tax evasion in 1979. While the initial tip to the IRS came from a disgruntled former employee, many people still believe that an ill-considered remark from Rubell in a New York magazine article, in which he said that “only the Mafia does better but don’t tell anybody,” attracted the attention of the feds. Either way, resentment against the club and its owners had been building since the club opened.

“They thought they were so important that they could do anything,” says Steven Grimes, a writer and Studio 54 regular. “But people started to get angrier and angrier at Steve Rubell and Studio 54 because they couldn’t get in.”

Though the two would serve only part of their sentence in federal prison, their incarceration marked the end of the Studio 54 era. Once out, they moved into the hotel business, becoming part owners in Morgans Hotel and the Royalton, both in Manhattan, and launched the 1980s nightlife institution, Palladium. The two are credited with originating the boutique hotel trend, which Schrager would build into a global empire following Rubell’s death.

Studio 54 is streaming now on Netflix.

Footage Industry Now a $570 Million Business, Says Newly Released ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies

Netflix, other Streaming Services Fund Footage-Rich Programming, Largest Source of New Revenue for Footage Licensors

Report Available Now

The fourth survey of the footage licensing business from ACSIL and Thriving Archives examines current business conditions, key trends and best practices within the footage industry. Results highlight market stability, confidence in future growth and shifts in customer demand.

The Association of Commercial Stock Image Licensors (ACSIL) and Thriving Archives announced today the release of the ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies 4 (AGS4). ACSIL and Thriving Archives have worked together to publish three previous AGS reports, achieving strong industry support and participation in each effort. Like it's predecessors, the AGS4 provides a snapshot of the global stock footage industry, tracks evolving trends and examines how footage companies operate, market and serve their customers, providing footage industry leaders with strategic, practical information to help them compete more effectively.

The AGS4 is now available to for $950. Click here to buy and download a copy. Click here to read the Executive Summary of the AGS4.

Assessing the overall health and well being of the footage industry has been a top research priority since the inception of the AGS series. Based on the performance of the 84 companies within the 2018 dataset, which represent 20% of the estimated 415 footage companies in operation currently, the footage industry is in solid shape, with total industry revenue now estimated at $570 million, a 3% increase over the 2015 estimate of $552 million.

“While we did not find significant growth in the dollar value of the overall industry, we did find that the mood had shifted on many key topics, and individual companies appear to be more stable, confident and optimistic,” said Matt White, ACSIL executive director.

Highlighting this sense of optimism, the majority of companies said that their revenues had increased over the last two years; that demand for footage was up; and that they expect their revenues to grow over the next several years. Conversely, only 37% believe that production budgets have gotten smaller. All of these findings represent improvements over previous years.

“Another key takeaway from our current survey is that while footage companies have rallied to integrate the tools and benefits of the digital revolution, many long-standing business practices have endured,” said David Seevers, president of Thriving Archives and the principal author of the AGS series. “And while online media marketplaces are now fixtures in the footage licensing business, they do not appear to have displaced the older, more traditional footage licensing operations, which seem to be co-existing with these technology driven powerhouses.”

While traditional buyers such as such as “independent producers” and “broadcast networks/commercial TV” remain leading customer types, newer categories such as “SVOD Services,” (which includes Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.) increased the most in terms of overall importance to 2018 companies’ billings, followed by “independent producers” and “ad-supported streaming services,” underscoring the growing importance of these newer streaming services, as well as their future potential.

The AGS4 is based on an anonymous 47-question survey completed by a group of 84 stock footage companies, launched in mid-July 2018 and running through late September 2018. During this roughly two-month period, multiple attempts were made to contact as many footage providers as possible and make the existence of this survey known to the industry at large.

The 191-page report includes 85 pages of detailed analysis and 90 full-color charts visualizing results from the 47 questions asked in the survey. The report covers 11 separate categories, including: Business Conditions; Company Types; Footage Holdings; Headcount; Ecommerce & Order Processing; Order Volume; Pricing; Licensing Practices; Customer Types; Marketing, Customer Development & Growth; and Threats & Opportunities.

The AGS4 is now available to for $950. Click here to buy and download a copy. Click here to read the Executive Summary of the AGS4.

About ACSIL

The Association of Commercial Stock Image Licensors (ACSIL) is a not-for-profit trade association representing the interests of the stock footage community. Our members are the world's leading providers of stock and archival footage. ACSIL members represent and license high quality clips and unique deep content. We service traditional markets such as advertising, film, television and home entertainment while also working with a full spectrum of non-traditional, new and reinventing markets like book publishing, museums, educational vendors, video gaming, internet apps and beyond. Since its inception in 2003, ACSIL has focused on developing a professional network for its stock footage library members as well as negotiating benefits on our members' behalf. ACSIL sponsors multiple stock footage based initiatives including: gathering data on the global stock footage market, forming a Code of Practices committee to lead discussions about new licensing paradigms and monitoring shifts in domestic and international copyright law. ACSIL also reaches out to meet the needs of the production community. We sponsor events, host panel discussions and present seminars on a wide range of footage industry subjects. Whether it's sharing best practices for footage research or talks about licensing and rights clearances, ACSIL is there to support the production community. If you are interested in having ACSIL speak to your group or organization, please contact us so we can make the necessary arrangements.

About Thriving Archives

Thriving Archives works with footage companies to develop and execute marketing and business development strategies. Thriving Archives also produces market research reports on the global footage licensing industry and partners with companies providing services to the stock footage industry. In partnership with ACSIL, Thriving Archives has produced the ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies 2007 (AGS1), 2011 (AGS2) and 2015 (AGS3). In 2009, Thriving Archives published the Footage Customer Survey: Non-Fiction USA, an in-depth study of the attitudes and perceptions of footage customers from the documentary film/non-fiction program making community in the United States.

Press Contacts:

Matt White

Executive Director

ACSIL

matt@acsil.org

(301) 920-4054

David W. Seevers

President

Thriving Archives

davidwseevers@gmail.com

(415) 609-7642

Elizabeth Klinck Receives Academy Board Tribute for Achievements in Archival Research

Janice Tufford and Elizabeth Klinck at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Awards in March.

Archive researcher and producer Elizabeth Klinck received an Academy Board of Directors Tribute at the 2019 Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Awards at the end of March.

“Elizabeth Klinck is the filmmaker’s secret weapon",” said producer Janice Tufford in her introduction at the awards ceremony. “In her role as Archive Producer, she’s worked on hundreds of films. She’s renowned for her ability to forage in the far corners of the world to find just the perfect image or piece of music. The directors and producers who come calling for her services -- everyone from Sarah Polley to Werner Herzog -- attest that their films are incomplete without her presence.”

Some of notable projects Klinck has worked on over her thirty year career include Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno; Thorsten Schütte's Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words; Barry Arvich's Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story; Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell; Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir's Innsaei; and Neil Diamond's Reel Injun.

Klinck has has contributed to Emmy, Peabody and Academy Award-winning films and has herself been nominated for an Emmy Award in the craft of research. She has won the 2014, 2015 and 2017 Barbara Sears Award for Best Visual Research from the Canadian Screen Awards. In 2015 she won a Prix Gemeaux for her work on Apocalypse World One and in 2010 she won a Gemini for Best Visual Research for her work on Reel Injun. She has also won a Yorkton Golden Sheaf, been nominated on three occasions for Best Visual Researcher at the FOCAL Awards in the United Kingdom and was honored with the FOCAL International Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. She is also the founding chairperson of the Visual Researchers' Society of Canada.

“Elizabeth is one of the unsung heroes of Canada’s screen industry,” said Tufford. “Because of her tireless work, her legendary skills and her courtesies to all, she is respected and adored by countless colleagues in this country and throughout the world. She’s a stellar human being and quite simply ‘a national treasure’.”

Bill Banks's Hollywood Stills Available at Producers Library

Back in Hollywood's heyday of the 50s and 60s, legendary photographer and cinematographer Bill Banks captured all the glitz and glamor of the stars at their premieres, industry events, and all-night parties. Producers Library exclusively represents Banks's collection and is now making more than 1,000 still photographs of Hollywood available for licensing. Banks's work is brimming with candid shots showing Jerry Lewis cracking up Frank Sinatra, Richard Nixon and Bob Hope comparing noses, and Don Rickles hamming it up.

In addition to those funnymen, Banks managed to capture Jayne Mansfield in her usual stunning form and comically chowing down on a slice of pizza, along with the odd couple of Kim Novak and Vampira dining together at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Banks also shot numerous photos of beloved African-American entertainers such as Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Pearl Bailey, Louis Armstrong, and Lionel Hampton palling around with guests. Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, JFK, Anthony Quinn, Doris Day, John Wayne, Liberace, Conrad Hilton, Charlton Heston, Robert Wagner... the list of celebrities that Bill Banks photographed is seemingly endless.

Whether it was snapping photos of the 30th annual Academy Awards arrivals at the Pantages Theater in the heart of Hollywood, the world premiere of Peyton Place at the Beverly Theater or wild partygoers in garish costumes at the annual Halloween bash thrown by Sy Devore, "the man who dressed the Rat Pack", Banks documented everything the era had to offer.

The black and white and color negatives have been digitized to 1200 DPI and now join Producers Library’s vast archives of Hollywood and entertainment history.

For information on licensing, pricing and to view the clips, contact via research@producerslibrary.com or 818 752 9097.

Reelin' in the Years Moves Into Photos

Pete Townsend

After decades of exclusively dealing with footage, Reelin’ in the Years has expanded their business to include photos (strictly pertaining to music-related artists). While opportunities to rep music-related photos have come up throughout their 20-year history, RITY always turned them down, opting to focus on footage. Their views changed recently when they were offered a number of stunning photo archives to represent, and, based on their vast knowledge of music and the size of their existing footage archive, they realized that they were in a unique place to offer both footage and photos.

Currently, the RITY photo archive is quite extensive, spanning the 1950s - 2000s, and will be growing rapidly as they are add more and more images from world-class photographers. Additionally, they’re working on launching an online database where customers will be able to view and download low-res photos. In the meantime, please send requests for projects directly to nnn. If they have photos that fit your needs they will send you lo-res watermarked copies free of charge. Stay tuned for more news over the next few weeks.

Now Streaming: The Inventor - Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, premiered on HBO this past Monday, March 18. The film, produced and directed by Alex Gibney, tracks the rise and fall of the biomedical company Theranos and its charismatic founder Elizabeth Holmes, who sold the world on the idea that hundreds of tests could be performed on a single drop of blood, taken painlessly by finger stick and analyzed automatically using a proprietary testing device called the Edison.

About the size of a microwave oven, the Edison was designed to be deployed locally to pharmacies, doctors' offices, and, ultimately, private homes, allowing people to obtain regular, low-cost screenings for all manner of disease. Theranos would upend the medical testing industry and become the Apple of health screening. It was an audacious plan with a huge potential upside.

With this story in hand, Holmes secured nearly $900 million in venture capital and packed her board with big names like Henry Kissenger, George Shultz and General Jim Mattis. By 2014, the company had grown to 800 employees and reached a value of nearly $9 billion, making Holmes, its largest shareholder, the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

The only problem was that the Edison never really worked and, following the publication of John Carreyou’s investigative report in the Wall Street Journal in October 2015, the company’s failures, and Holmes’s elaborate efforts to hide them, were becoming widely known. By 2018, Theranos was out of business and Holmes, along with Sunny Balwani, the former president of Theranos and Holmes’s boyfriend, were charged with multiple counts of fraud by the Department of Justice.

Gibney makes excellent use of existing footage of Holmes prowling the halls of Theranos’s glass-walled office building, as well as clips from her countless public appearances. Again and again, we hear her lay out her vision for the company - from the TED stage, in media appearances, in corporate pep-talks, even sitting for a promotional video directed by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, in which she quotes Yoda - “there is no try, there is only do.”

Throughout the film Holmes remains a mystery. Was she a true believer in over her head? Is she pathological liar? A sociopath? An old-school scammer dressed up in a Steve Jobs costume? Regardless of her motivations and mental condition, she was clearly able to pull a whole lot of people at the highest levels of finance, government and business into her vision. As Gibney says in a voiceover early in the film, “to understand what happened, it pays to look past the price of the stock to the value of the story. This compelling tale of divining hundreds of diseases from a drop of blood was a testament to the imagination of the inventor.” And the credulity of everyone else , he might have added.

Georgina Angless Joins British Pathe as Business Development Exec for North and South America

British Pathe has appointed Georgina Angless to oversee its North American licensing service. She takes over from Richard Goldthorpe, who had handled North American enquiries since British Pathe launched there in 2015. She will also act as British Pathe's first business development executive for South America as the company looks to explore that untapped market.

Georgina has a background in photography, studying the art form at the Edinburgh College of Art and contributing to Elle Magazine and Culture Label, among others. From there, she expanded into image licensing, acting as a Key Account Manager at Getty Images, a Picture Researcher at the Tate, and Head of UK Commercial Image Sales at Bridgeman Images.

"Georgina will be crucial to solidifying British Pathe's presence in North America, a market we're still relatively new to," says Alastair White, CEO of British Pathe. "But she will be building our South America strategy from scratch."

He continues: "Georgina has extensive experience in all aspects of the industry, from archive research to managing a licensing sales team to having her own photographs licensed. She can offer a fresh perspective on our activities with an aim to establishing British Pathe as the go-to resource for anyone in the Americas in need of archive footage. We're very happy to welcome Georgina to our team."

For her part, Georgina is excited about the challenge that lies ahead of her. "I am delighted to be taking care of British Pathe's clients in North and South America and I look forward to meeting producers, broadcasters and researchers in the industry there. I believe my background in licensing puts me in good stead to deal with client requests and I can't wait to delve further into the British Pathe archive to see what it has to offer."

For further information, please contact British Pathe on +44 (0)20 7665 8343 or email georgina@britishpathe.com.

The British Pathe archive is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in historical and cultural significance. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage from around the globe of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, science and culture. It is an invaluable resource for broadcasters, documentary producers and archive researchers worldwide. British Pathe also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 120,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1979.

NBC Looks Back at Evolution of Civil Rights Movement

In honor of Black History Month, NBC News Archives is taking a look at the evolution of civil rights in America. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 to the Black Lives Matter movement of today, NBC News has followed history as it has unfolded. Our new collection, Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, highlights interviews with crusaders from the 1950s and 1960s and emphasizes the ongoing nature of the struggle.

In 2013, Jesse Jackson reflected on the ongoing relevance of the Civil Rights Movement. “There is an unfinished task of searching for equality,” he said. “We’ll go back to work. That’s all. I mean, it’s the struggle that’s come full circle.” This interview with Jackson is one of over a hundred firsthand accounts collected for Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, a multimedia project of Comcast NBCUniversal and the Equal Justice Initiative. Voices captures their unique perspective as eyewitnesses to both the Civil Rights Movement and its ongoing legacy, who see today’s fight for civil rights within the context of a much longer battle.

Now Streaming: Conversations with a Killer - The Ted Bundy Tapes

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes premiered on Netflix on January 24, 2019, 30 years to the day after Bundy was executed in Florida. Directed by Joe Berlinger, the four-part series, which consists primarily of archival footage and interviews with key players in the investigation and media coverage at the time, is anchored by excerpts from a series of taped interviews that journalist Stephen Michaud conducted with Bundy in 1980 while he waited on death row. Bundy, who maintained his innocence until shortly before his execution, was initially evasive in the interviews. Desperate for a breakthrough, Michaud suggested that Bundy approach their conversations as something of an “expert witness,” encouraging him to tell his story in the third person. “It was like I had unlocked an avenue for him to finally tell this story, without saying anything that could be taken to court,” Michaud says in the film. “And off he went.”

The series positions Bundy within the shifting social currents of the 1970s, when violent crime was on the rise, the concept of a serial killer was new and mass-murderers like Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) terrorized the nation.

“In the 1970s, the phenomenon of serial murdering was brand new and absolutely frightening,” says Michaud. “The term serial killer didn’t exist. The fact that somebody could murder and murder and murder and could get away with it for a long time and be undetected, it really unnerved people.”

And nobody was more unnerving than Bundy. “Ted stands out because he was an enigma,” says Michaud. “Clean cut, good looking, articulate, very intelligent. Just a handsome young mild-mannered law student. He did not look like anyone’s notion of somebody who could tear apart young girls.”

"Ted Bundy is the quintessential American enigma," Berlinger said in an interview with Refinery29. "He taps into our most primal fear: that you don't know, and can't trust, the person sleeping next to you. People want to think those who do evil are easily identifiable. Bundy tells us that those who do evil are those who often people we know and trust the most."

Berlinger makes excellent use of archival footage, immersing the viewer in time and place, capturing the growing dread as Bundy’s killing spree continues unabated and illustrating Bundy’s increasingly fevered mindset.

The film also succeeds in showing what the country was like before the advent of modern news-gathering, communication and law enforcement technologies. With little ability to share information and collaborate, even neighboring police jurisdictions were left to pursue their investigations in relative isolation, a gap Bundy understood and exploited as he made his way across the country.

An Interview with Westdoc Online Founder Chuck Braverman

Veteran film and TV producer Chuck Braverman was kind enough to chat with us recently about Westdoc Online, his year-old online interview show. Over the course 22 episodes, he's spoken with many leading filmmakers, including Tim Wardle, Anna Zameka and Steve James, and covered a wide range of topics of interest to the documentary film community. Episode #5, in which he delves into the nitty-gritty of footage licensing, should be of particular interest readers of this site.

Westdoc Online founder chuck braverman.

Footage.net: Please introduce yourself and tell us what you’re working on.

Chuck Braverman: I am a long time filmmaker having directed dozens of episodic shows, some movies for television, a feature film, and many non-fiction documentaries. For years I had my own production company in Los Angeles, and we produced a large variety of films for tv networks, corporate clients, commercials, and docs. I am currently working part time teaching an advanced filmmaking class at Cal State University Northridge, and have half a dozen eclectic projects in different stages of development

FN: When did Westdoc launch?

 CB: The original Westdoc Conference was started in 2010 with my friend and business partner (producer/distributor) Richard Propper. We produced the live conference in Santa Monica and then L.A. for six years for non-fiction and reality filmmakers. I launched Westdoc Online in December of 2017 as an experiment to see if I could take some of the best elements of our original conference concept online live to interview and discuss non-fiction filmmaking with participants around the world. This would be live and available free to everyone.

FN: What are your goals for the project?

CB: I want to stimulate more thought and conversation about documentaries with the people who produce, direct, and distribute the docs and everyone who love movies. I would like to achieve a critical mass audience that makes this concept commercially viable.

 FN: Who is your target audience and what will they learn from watching your interviews?

CB: The target audience includes filmmakers and the people who watch documentaries and other forms of non-fiction. I hope this will help to open up the world of non-fiction and will stimulate more interest in documentaries. I believe that of the 500 or so feature films that were released this year in the states, some of the very best were docs that could compete on every media platform with the better known and publicized studio and indie fiction films.  Four of this years short listed Oscar docs grossed over ten million each at the theatrical box office.

FN: What have you learned about the documentary business from doing these interviews?

CB: I have learned that documentary filmmakers are eager and open to discussing their films and how they were produced. It also seems to be the best of times, and the worst of times for docs. The big players are commissioning more and more with fewer producers. This is a pattern that I have seen before and the first time filmmaker has a higher bar to jump over.

 FN: How do you pick your interview subjects?

CB: I pick my subjects by what interests me and what I think will interest others. I have a very strong sense of curiosity and want to know everything I can about docs and the people that make them. Of the 160 feature docs that were submitted to the Academy this year, I had three of the 15 films and the directors that made the short list on my series and could have had a couple more, but I wasn’t that crazy about some of the favorites.

 FN: How many episodes have you produced?

 CB: To date I have produced 22 episodes and they are all available online for free on the WestdocOnline.com site.

FN: In one of your interviews, Ondi Timoner said that this is the “golden age of documentary.” Do you agree? Why/Why not? What is driving the interest?

 CB: I agree with Ondi and the reason is simple. Some of the docs being made today are every bit as good as any 50 million dollar fiction feature film. The audience doesn’t care if it is a doc as long as it is a good story, and entertains.

FN: What are some of the biggest challenges your subjects are facing today?

 CB: Today, as always, getting financed is the biggest challenge for most filmmakers. Should this film be commissioned by a network (with all the accompanying challenges, or acquired (probably for less money and a risk), or a co-pro which means you have to sell it the film more than once with no guarantees.

 FN: Who are some of the filmmakers you have interviewed so far? Any favorite episodes/interviews?

CB: My favorites so far include Tim Wardle, the director of the Oscar short listed Three Identical Strangers; Anna Zameka, director of the short listed Communion; RaMell Ross, director of the short listed Hale County, This Morning, This Evening; Frank Stiefel, Oscar winner for the doc short Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405; Marina Zenovich, director of Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind; and Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams and the Oscar nominated Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.

FN: What are some of the best documentaries you have seen lately?

 CB: The Last Race directed by first timer Michael Dweck is stunner. Beautifully shot and very immersive. Disappointing that his distributor didn’t get into the Oscar race sooner and with more of a push to get this film noticed. (That is a whole other topic of discussion about promoting docs for the awards circuit.) Hale County, This Morning, This Evening is an art film/doc masterpiece. A different kind of doc. They Shall Not Grow Old from Peter Jackson is an incredible breakthrough in technology and a surprisingly emotional experience. And Three Identical Strangers tells a great story in dramatic and compelling format.

 FN: What makes for a great documentary film?

 CB: The three most important elements are; story, story, and story.

 FN: We are of course very interested in the role of archival footage in documentary filmmaking. Have any of the filmmakers you’ve interviewed talked about their use of archival footage?

 CB: Episode #5 was all about licensing clips and archival footage. It featured a stock footage house, producer, the head of stock footage association, and an IP attorney. I believe that archival footage is a very important part of documentary filmmaking and the more knowledge we have about licensing footage from various sources, the better.

 FN: How has Westdoc evolved over time?

CB: In the beginning of Westdoc Online was more about multiple people from different locations live on the web. Over time, I have concentrated more on one on one interviews and less have been live. From a technical point of view, I have learned more about live streaming and the hardware and software needed to put on a professional series.

FN: What’s next? Where would you like to go from here?

CB: I am planning a pilot experiment producing an episode with myself and a guest reviewing docs that are available online. We’ll see what happens.

New 4K Collections at Global ImageWorks

Global ImageWorks has a variety of new 4K footage in stock, including gritty “breaking-news” style footage of riots, disasters and accidents; spellbinding footage of world cities, aviation, NASA, and much more from the 1950s onward, all transferred from the original film to 4K; and historic travel footage now available in 4K from the original film print, including footage of world destinations as they were decades ago. For authentic footage of points around the globe, this collection is a trip back in time. For more information, please contact GIW's in-house collection expert, Morgan Strong, at morgan@globalimageworks.com.

British Pathe Launches New Site for VOD Service

British Pathé has this week launched a new website for its online video-on-demand service “British Pathé TV”. The channel has been completely redesigned for 2019 and features additional content. British Pathé TV targets viewers other streaming services can’t cater for, focusing on specialist audiences such as history buffs, royal watchers, cinema aficionados and train enthusiasts. It is designed to complement the existing British Pathé newsreel archive (which remains free-to-view on the main British Pathé website). Visit www.britishpathe.tv to explore the full-length documentaries, interviews and classic movies that the revamped subscription service has to offer.

Rare Grace Kelly Footage Uncovered at Producers Library

The 1955 world premiere of To Catch a Thief and other black and white candid footage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier was uncovered at Producers Library this month. The footage shows a stunning Grace Kelly with Prince Rainier III in 1955 and 1956.

Producers Library owner Jeff Goodman describes the surprise discovery: “While organizing one of our film vaults we came upon a box of film sitting on a shelf that was separated years ago from an already catalogued collection of Grace Kelly footage shot by the legendary Bill Banks. There is an amazing bit of sound in this find from an interview where the Prince is asked about the filming of their wedding and admits he would have preferred an intimate wedding in a small town.”

Other rare Grace Kelly footage at Producers Library includes the 1955 Beverly Hills post- Academy Awards party where Bob Hope jokingly grabs her Oscar. She and Prince Rainier can also be seen at a 1963 Philadelphia reception with distinguished guests including their greeting of singer Eddie Fisher. The collection is rounded out with news footage and stills, as well as her movie trailers.

This newly discovered 16mm footage has been scanned at 2K resolution and now joins Producers Library’s vast archives of Hollywood and entertainment history.

For information on licensing, pricing and to view the clips, visit www.producerslibrary.com or contact Producers Library at research@producerslibrary.com, or call them at 818 752 9097.

Ina Commemorates 55th Anniversary of JFK's Assassination

November 22, 2018 will mark the 55th anniversary of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination. A mythical figure in American history, Kennedy served from January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963. His short period in office was marked by the Bay of Pigs, a series of Cold War-related crises and the fight against racial segregation.

To honor the memory of this pivotal leader and help producers develop new projects, Ina has assembled an extensive collection of more than 800 clips and programs dedicated to commemorating the 55th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination on Ina MEDIAPRO.

Ina offers you also a calendar with a rich selection of key events and anniversary dates with videos to help clients plan ahead on all their projects. All footage research needs can be fulfilled online: search, create and download low-res clips and find footage with guaranteed rights. 

Ina is one of the largest footage sources in the world. For their professional clients, the Ina MEDIAPRO website provides a free access to over 1.7 million hours of digitized video and audio “treasures”.

ACSIL Announces Final Panel & Exhibitor Line-Up for West Coast Meet Up

ACSIL has announced it’s final slate of panels and exhibitors for it’s upcoming West Coast Meet Up, set for Saturday, October 20th in Los Angeles. The event, which will take place at Getty Images’ LA facility, will include three panels focused on the contemporary footage trade, an exhibition featuring 16 leading footage archives and a networking reception.

The event will kick off at 2pm with an hour devoted to exhibitors, where attendees can meet the archives in person. Exhibitors will include Adobe, Bridgeman Images, Footage.net, Getty Images, Global ImageWorks, Huntley Film Archives, INA, NBC News Archives, Prairie Pictures, Inc., Reelin' In The Years Productions, RockHouse Images, Vimeo, Inc., WGBH Educational Foundation and WNET.

The first panel, presented by the IDA, begins at 3pm and will explore How Documentary Filmmakers Work with Archival Footage to tell innovative stories and make history come alive in the present. Moderated by Clarie Aguilar, Director of Programming and Policy at the IDA, this panel, will look at the archival production process from the filmmaker's perspective. Panelists will include Laurens Grant (The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution; Jesse Owens); Lyn Goldfarb (Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race; California and the American Dream); and Johanna Demetrakas (FEMINISTS: What Were They Thinking?; Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche).

The second panel, presented by CLEAR, will include a wide-ranging discussion of The Pros & Cons of Searching Stock Websites, Script Clearance and Fair Use. The panelists, whose combined experience in entertainment exceeds 100 years, are all seasoned veterans in their respective specialties and are sure to bring deep insights to this lively talk. Panelists will include Suzy Vaughn, Esq., who has been involved with research and legal rights clearance since 1981; Gregory Fein, who has worked steadily throughout his career on shows like, Sightings, Real TV, World’s Most Amazing Videos, The Showbiz Show with David Spade, and managing the rights and clearances for 10 seasons of Comedy Central’s TOSH.0; and Roger Memos, who has worked in the television industry as an archival researcher, clearance specialist and producer for over 30 years.

The third panel, presented by ACSIL, will provide a Sneak Preview of the ACSIL Global Survey 4 (AGS4), the fourth in a series of footage industry reports produced by ACSIL and Thriving Archives, aimed at helping leaders in the footage industry make critical decisions year-on-year. The AGS4 has just closed and the results will be published as part of ACSIL’s kick off in 2019. But you don’t have to wait that long for a snapshot of the global footage industry! The panel will be moderated by Matthew White, Executive Director of ACSIL, who will discuss the report with David Seevers, president of Thriving Archives and the principal author of the ACSIL Global Survey series.

ACSIL’s West Coast Footage Meet-Up will take place on Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Getty Images, Los Angeles 6300 Wilshire Blvd, 16th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90048.

If you're in LA this weekend, we hope you'll come by. Attendance for footage buyers, producers, filmmakers and researchers is free, but registration is required.

FootageBank Introduces Online Licensing!

TA-DA! After nine months of development, fine tuning, and testing, FootageBank has launched its e-commerce site. (See below for a celebratory 10% coupon for loyal Footage.Net readers.)

FootageBank pulled the new site together primarily with its team of three, and an off-site developer. Carol Martin led as Project Manager and Information Architect. Erik Dahlgren acted as Usability Lead and Content Delivery Manager. Paula Lumbard, President of FootageBank, filled the role of Checkbook Chair.

Clients can now license FootageBank’s diverse collection of rights-managed footage with a few clicks. However, offline ordering will still always be welcome, as customer service is one strength the small but mighty FootageBank is renowned for. So come silently or come loudly, just come visit www.footagebank.com and see for yourself.

COUPON ALERT! Reference Coupon Code: FootageNet upon checkout and receive a 10% discount off all clips licensed through the end of October.

Jonestown 40th Anniversary at NBC News Archives

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the tragedy at Jonestown. Officially called “The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project,” it was a settlement established by Reverend Jim Jones in the 1970s. Jones had started the Peoples Temple in the 1950s, a religious group concerned with racial equality and social justice. The settlement in Guyana was meant to be the beginning of their socialist utopia. However, conditions were brutally harsh at Jonestown and followers were forced to work long days with little food. Jones grew controlling and paranoid that the CIA was trying to sabotage his dream.

In November of 1978, California Congressman Leo Ryan flew to Guyana to investigate claims of abuse at Jonestown. Nine journalists accompanied Congressman Ryan, but NBC News owned the only camera allowed on the trip. The exclusive footage they captured provides a glimpse of what life was like on that last day at Jonestown. In just 24 hours, nearly everybody on the tape would be dead.

After touring the settlement, Ryan and company returned to the Port Kaituma airstrip with 16 defectors in tow. One of those defectors was secretly a Jones loyalist and opened fire on the group. All in all, five people were killed on the airstrip, including Congressman Ryan, NBC News cameraman Bob Brown, and NBC News correspondent Don Harris.

Back at the compound, Jones gathered his congregation in the pavilion, where followers were made to drink a mixture of Flavor Aid and cyanide. By the end of November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people had died in Guyana.

Join NBC News Archives in remembering 40 years since the Jonestown massacre at NBCNewsArchivesXpress.com.