Session 9 - Promoting Archive Collections to Documentary Filmmakers
This session will offer practical advice on how to promote your collection of archive of cultural materials to film producers. Documentary filmmakers choose non-fiction subject matter they are passionate about. Truth is often more interesting and compelling than fiction. Many filmmakers are realizing that non-fiction narratives are valuable to the documentary storytelling space. Archives have become a valuable resource for students, filmmaker, scholars, and historians who want to tell visual stories. How do Archivists promote there visual and photographic collections to get the hidden gems out in the public where film producers and directors can find them. “It is easy to forget that archives are living things,” says Caitlin Margaret Kelly, curator of the Duke archive. “Too often we see them as containing objects of the past, but what an archive really includes is the ability to revisit that past, to offer new insight, understanding, and reckoning." Archivists are sitting on a vast archive of film and photographic image history that would make compelling visuals for today's producers of documentaries. Perhaps, even become producers of documentaries themselves.
Filmmakers want to find, use, and license third-party materials, such as film, video, or photographic images, from archives in their work. This session will summarize what’s involved in promoting content to producers and what Archivists need to know to protect their copyright, fair use, public domain, orphan works, and arranging a fee schedule.
Target Audiences: Federal, State/Tribal, Local, Public Institutions of Higher Learning
Focus Areas: Archives, Technology/Tools
Presenter: Andrew duFresne, CEO, Producer, Director, Lake Erie TV