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Poster:
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 Rick Prelinger |
Date:
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June 17, 2012 09:26:14pm |
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Forum:
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prelinger
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Subject:
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Not all of our films are meant to entertain |
Not all films in our collection are release prints (prints manufactured to run through projectors). Many are original or preprint material, and some are A&B rolls (see below). I tried hard to collect original materials and printing elements so that we could protect the highest-quality materials possible. We transferred some to video and are now scanning others, and are starting to make them available so that people can make use of the excellent image quality that first-generation material offers.
For years I avoided uploading A&B materials and most unedited footage because I was afraid people would find them confusing. Recently I changed my mind because i did not want to withhold imagery that some people might find useful or interesting.
Now I'm seeing that some find this confusing. Please understand that we are trying to make a very broad cross-section of our archives available for any and all uses. I want to emphasize that entertainment value is not a primary criterion for choosing what we make available. Many of our films are deadly dull but constitute valuable evidence of places, practices, behavior and everyday events. We are sharing just about everything we can online. Some of it may not be entertaining, and some of it may not look much like the movies we are accustomed to, but I feel it will all be useful in some way.
Here again is a definition of A&B rolls, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-roll
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