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Archival Storytelling: A Filmmaker's Guide to Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music

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Fully revised and updated, Archival Storytelling second edition is a timely, pragmatic look at the use of audiovisual materials available to filmmakers and scholars, from the earliest photographs of the 19th century to the work of media makers today.

Whether you're a top Hollywood filmmaker or a first-time documentarian, at some point you are going to want to find, use, and license third-party materials--images, audio, or music that you yourself did not create--to use them in your work. This book explains what's involved in researching and licensing visuals and music, and exactly what media makers need to know when filming in a world crowded with rights-protected images and sounds. Filled with insights from filmmakers, archivists, and intellectual property experts, this second edition defines key terms such as copyright, fair use, public domain, and orphan works. It guides readers through the complex archival process and challenges them to become not only archival users but also archival and copyright activists.

This book is an essential resource for both students and professionals, from seasoned filmmakers to those creating their first projects, offering practical advice for how to effectively and ethically draw on the wealth of cultural materials that surround us.

336 pages, Paperback

Published September 29, 2008

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About the author

Sheila Curran Bernard

15 books8 followers
Bernard, Sheila Curran (alphabetized under B)

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, author, and educator, with expertise in nonfiction narrative. Most recent book, "Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies” (Cambridge University Press, July 2024).

Previous books include "Documentary Storytelling: Creative Nonfiction on Screen," now in its 5th edition (2022) and available in seven languages; and, with Kenn Rabin, "Archival Storytelling: Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music," now in its 2nd edition (2020).

Films include "Slavery by Another Name" and the series "I'll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts" and "Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads," all broadcast nationally on PBS.

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Ietrio.
6,943 reviews24 followers
September 23, 2018
General useless information. It might be required reading in the bureaucrat mills of the 21st century. The text itself would be hilarious if not written in such a dull manner.

Chapter 2 starts with the not so obvious for Sheila Bernard:

> Archival film making could not exist if archival materials—the source images and sounds—didn’t exist.

Wow! I am speechless.

And one paragraph down:

> Archival researchers are often amused and/or frustrated when they’re asked (surprisingly often) to find photographic images of events that took place long before the invention of either still or motion picture photography.

Which translates that archival researchers are morons who can be surprised despite the repetition.

Sadly the funny parts and interspersed with the trivia academic paper pushers inject to make their blog posts book-size.

> The earliest known image that we think of as a “photograph” was created around 1826, when French inventor Nicéphore
Niépce made what he called a heliograph (“sun drawing”) of the roofs outside his garret window. The exposure took eight hours. Just over a decade later, in 1839, Niépce joined with Louis Daguerre to develop the daguerreotype.

Without this piece of knowledge an archival specialist would be a dentist, or god knows what else.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews