Preserving Motion Pictures Toolkit

1. Don’t throw away the original.

2. Don’t project the original unless it’s in good condition.

3. Make sure your hands are clean before handling film.

4. Store in a cool dry place, not in the attic, basement or garage.

• Care, Handling and Storage of Motion Picture Film

<www.loc.gov/preserv/care/film.html>: Guidelines from the Library of Congress’ Preservation Directorate.

• Digital Fridge

<www.digitalfridge.com>: Free online community to share your photographs and videos.

• Film Decay and How to Slow It

<www.filmpreservation.org/basics_decays.html>: Article from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

• General MacArthur’s Home Movies

<www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/sfeature/movies.html>: Watch the famous general’s family in action.

• Home Movies: The Family Historian’s Perspective

<www.marriott.u-net.com/film_history.htm>: Online history of home movies for genealogists.

• iclips.com

<www.iclips.com>: Share your videos online.

• Making Great Home Movies

<family.go.com/parties/events/feature/famf0400homovie>: Tips on how to make your home movies or videos more interesting.

• National Film Preservation Foundation

<www.filmpreservation.org/preserved/program_lab_00.html>: Film preservation information from professional conservators.

• Northeast Historic Film

<www.oldfilm.org/ed/essays.htm>: A New England-focused archive that collects movies and lends films.

• Preservation of Processed Film

<www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/h1/preservation.shtml>: How composition, processing and storage contribute to film’s life expectancy.

• Preserving Your Precious Home Videos

<genealogy.about.com/library/authors/ucmishkin4a.htm>: Find out how to care for the videos in your home collection.

• Saving Your Family Treasures: Home Movies

<www.myhistory.org/saving/homemovies.html>: Tips from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ My History Is America’s History project.

• Caring for Your Family Treasures by Jane S. Long and Richard W. Long (Heritage Preservation), with a chapter on home movies

• Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897-1979 by Alan Kattelle (self-published), <www.homemoviehistory.com>

• The Book of Film Care (Kodak Publication No. H-23) edited by Paul L. Gordon (Eastman Kodak Co.), order from (800) 847-8755

• The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides and Motion Pictures by Henry Wilhelm and Carol Brower (Preservation Publishing Co.)

1932

Kodak black-and-white standard 8 mm film first sold.

1933

RCA-Victor’s 16 mm sound-on-film camera can record the operator’s voice.

1934

Home Movies, a monthly magazine for amateurs, launched.

1938

Kodak publishes How to Make Good Movies, a guide for the home-movie enthusiast.

1954

Kodak agrees to stop selling its film with a processing charge included as part of an antitrust suit brought by the US government.

1963

Using a home-movie camera, Abraham Zapruder films the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

1965

Kodak introduces Super 8 color film and Fuji issues Single 8 color film. Sony makes a 30-pound video camera for amateur use.

1984