Rare turn of the century film footage
Jul 19, 2010 4:01:10 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jul 19, 2010 4:01:10 GMT
My sister used to work for the US Library of Congress in a program called American Memory which sought to digitize as many collections as possible. I remember her showing me some amazing old footage of a NYC building being dismantled, but hadn't thought of it in years, until I saw kerouac2's postings in the D e m o l i t i o n ! Image Bank thread.
I did a little searching and came up with this from the American Memory website (it's amazing that these films even exist more than 100 years later):
The Paper Print Film Collection
at the Library of Congress
Most of the films featured in the American Memory presentations are from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Because the copyright law did not cover motion pictures until 1912, early film producers who desired protection for their work sent paper contact prints of their motion pictures to the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. These paper prints were made using light-sensitive paper the same width and length as the film itself, and developed as though a still photograph. Some motion picture companies, such as the Edison Company and the Biograph Company, submitted entire motion pictures--frame by frame--as paper prints. Other producers submitted only illustrative sequences.
The Paper Print Collection contains more than 3,000 motion pictures. Most are American but many are from England, France, and Denmark. The extreme scarcity of early motion pictures makes these paper prints particularly valuable. In most instances they remain the only record of early films, providing a rare insight into America at the start of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the motion picture industry in America.
Go to:
memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/nychome.html
Click Search
Enter demolition in the search window, and watch a 2-minute clip of a time-lapse sequence of the Star Theatre in NYC being taken apart brick by brick. You can see the passage of days by the shadows moving across the buildings. The clip starts and ends with normal speed footage of the life in NY in 1902...
I wonder what else we can find on here?
I did a little searching and came up with this from the American Memory website (it's amazing that these films even exist more than 100 years later):
The Paper Print Film Collection
at the Library of Congress
Most of the films featured in the American Memory presentations are from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Because the copyright law did not cover motion pictures until 1912, early film producers who desired protection for their work sent paper contact prints of their motion pictures to the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. These paper prints were made using light-sensitive paper the same width and length as the film itself, and developed as though a still photograph. Some motion picture companies, such as the Edison Company and the Biograph Company, submitted entire motion pictures--frame by frame--as paper prints. Other producers submitted only illustrative sequences.
The Paper Print Collection contains more than 3,000 motion pictures. Most are American but many are from England, France, and Denmark. The extreme scarcity of early motion pictures makes these paper prints particularly valuable. In most instances they remain the only record of early films, providing a rare insight into America at the start of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the motion picture industry in America.
Go to:
memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/nychome.html
Click Search
Enter demolition in the search window, and watch a 2-minute clip of a time-lapse sequence of the Star Theatre in NYC being taken apart brick by brick. You can see the passage of days by the shadows moving across the buildings. The clip starts and ends with normal speed footage of the life in NY in 1902...
I wonder what else we can find on here?