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

CHAPTER 2

What Are Archival Materials?

Archival filmmaking could not exist if archival materials—the source images and sounds—didn't exist. The range of materials to draw on is vast, including artwork, maps, and other items that predate the invention of still photography. For the purpose of this book, we'll generally focus on photographic images and recorded sound—more than 150 years of material.

Still Photography

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. The earliest known image that we think of as a “photograph” was created around 1826, when French inventor Nicéphore ...