ARCHIVE

Personal Histories – (Auto) Biography - Use of personal archives in documentary film

The following films are documentary films that can also be considered biographies or autobiographies most of which are built around archive film, click on the film title for more details and articles relating to the films. Pick one to watch in full and research more about adding this to your Documentary research blog/ folder.

Music / Artist Docs

MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. - Available on DVD in UCW Library

Cobain: Montage of Heck - Available on DVD in UCW Library

The Velvet Underground (2021) Dir. Todd Haynes

‘The Velvet Underground. A hypnotic new documentary and the first major film to tell the band’s legendary story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage. ‘

The film looks great, superb editing using split screen and much of Andy Warhol's films from the period. The film is as much about the experimental art/ film scene as well as the music and band. Featuring interviews with film maker Jonas Mekas too.

‘The Beatles: Get Back is an upcoming three-part documentary series directed and produced by Peter Jackson. It covers the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be, which had the working title of Get Back, and draws from material originally captured for Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary of the album.’ Wiki

Personal Archives

Tarnation (2003) Jonathan Caouette 

I for India - Sandhya Suri (2005) - Available on DVD in UCW Library

Directed By: Kirsten Johnson Cameraperson Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Documentary Exposing her role behind the camera, Kirsten Johnson reaches into the vast ...

Also take a look at ‘My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes’, a great short film by Charlie Tyrell.


"Honest, funny, nostalgic and incredibly inventive, the recipient of the the Vimeo Staff Pick Award at the 2018 Ottawa International Animation Festival, tells the story of a young man sifting through his late father’s belongings in an attempt to uncover the intimate details of his life. A perfectly arranged menagerie of old film footage, audio recordings, and meticulously crafted stop motion animation, it is a beautiful tribute to a complicated but devoted father-son relationship." - Vimeo Curation

Archives for Education

The Archives for Education and Make Film History projects make available 146 films from the BFI National Archive, BBC Archive, Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive, the IFI Irish Film Archive and the London Community Video Archive for creative reuse by young filmmakers in schools, film training and higher education across the UK and Ireland. Showreels featuring short clips of some of the films available can be viewed below.

Following a successful pilot at Kingston University in 2017 led by filmmaker and academic Dr. Shane O’Sullivan, these films are now available to young filmmakers and educators in the UK and Ireland through educational licensing agreements with our project partners.

UCW has joined this project. To access archive see notes in the Archives for Education folder within FdA Film course drop box (on UCW Macs).

The Archives for Education website has a wealth of information and resources, see links below:

UPDATE - 3/5/22

‘We're very pleased to announce the launch of our new free 40-page guide to the creative reuse of archive film for young filmmakers and educators. You can download a copy from our website, and we also have some printed copies if you'd like one for your institution.

This brings together all our work on the recent Make Film History research network project funded by AHRC and the Irish Research Council, with the support of our archive partners. My colleagues on the project team are Dr Ciara Chambers at University College Cork and Dr Colm McAuliffe.

We're also pleased to announce that Make Film History has been selected as one of seven projects to be funded by AHRC to engage the public with research about the BBC to mark its centenary year, supported by BBC Archive: https://www.ukri.org/news/ahrc-announces-activities-to-mark-bbcs-centenary/

This new project will start in June and give you access to 80 more films from BBC Archive on the themes of the environment, mental health and neurodiversity, and cultural diversity through our delivery platform. We will send out more details shortly.’ -

Shane O'Sullivan - BA PhD SFHEA, Associate Professor and Principal Investigator, Make Film History

Dr. Shane O’Sullivan recently ran a workshop for Bertha Dochouse on how to make short archive-based documentaries. You can watch it below and download the presentation here.

We know it's not easy to go out and make a film safely at the moment, so as part of our 'New Reveries: The Power of Archive Now' competition, we're inviting people from all round the world to spark a golden age of archive documentaries from home. But before you get started, if you'd like to know more about where to find digital archive material, how to make sure you're using material legally, and some pointers on how to get creative with what you find too, then this workshop is for you! This workshop will be led by Dr. Shane O'Sullivan, a senior lecturer in filmmaking at the Kingston School of Art, who is currently leading an innovative scheme supported by the BFI and BBC that gives student filmmakers across the UK access to archive material for creative, course-related projects. Visit the Archives for Education website to find out more about the project that Dr. O'Sullivan is leading on here.

Free Music for Independent filmmakers by Moby

If you are looking for music for any of your projects, you could take a look at Moby's collection at:

Adobe Premiere Intro & Edit Workshop

We used some of the clips from archive (see downloaded films folder in Archives for Education folder on FdA Film course drop box) to use in an edit workshop

Please use this footage to get to know Adobe Premiere.

Making your own notes as discussed and see tutorials via link below and within Adobe Premiere itself (see learning tab, within software).

ADOBE PREMIERE INTRO Workshop Notes

On Mac

Create a folder on your external hard drive (ideally) or on desktop

o   VIDEO PROJECTS

o   Create folder within this

o   i.e. ARCHIVE EDIT

Drag footage from Course Drop box/ FdA Film/ Archives for Education/ Downloaded Films/ BBC / Seaside to your Archive edit folder.

Open Adobe Premiere

o   New Project

o   Save this as Archive Test Edit Your Name, in your folder (i.e. Desktop/ Video Projects/ Archive Edit/ Archive Test Edit Rich)

It’s important to keep all your footage and edit materials in this folder. Work locally, save back up on network and/ or other hard drive….

Keyboard Shortcuts i.e

PLAY/ PAUSE - SPACE

JKL - Shuttle J- PLAY BACKWARDS K - PAUSE - L PLAY FORWARDS

I - IN

o = OUT

, = Insert clip

. = overwrite clip

See full list via link below