Old Film Archive-Whats out there?

and, it must be said that nowadays most of the established ‘archives’ want to charge a FORTUNE for repro-rights – we know, we’ve looked into it – to give an indication, it’s $10s per second – and that’s not counting the cost of getting it digitised in the first place!

We have got the entire 19 hours worth of footage that William Wyler shot for his Memphis Belle movie – he was working as a Major (as was his staff) for FMPU USAAF, therefore that makes the material public domain, but the archive that has it wants to charge professional digitising and repro rights for anything other than personal use – We’ve spent the last two years trying to interest TV companies to work with us on it and are still ‘in negotiation’ but at the moment no-one seems interested, and – at over $70K – we cannot afford to do it ourselves!

It’s pristine colour, 18 hours worth I doubt has ever been seen before – apart from B-17s, it shows B-24s, the US Bond Tour, formation, take-off and landing shots… numerous UK bases in 1943, Cambridge, Royston, London… We’ve ID’d the aircraft, Groups and most of the locations… Sad to say – but it’s like a lot of the footage in Pathé, IWM and the RAFM – not gonna be seen in anything like the quality it deserves and by the people who would appreciate it!

Hi Graham
Don’t want to ‘take advantage’ of your knowledge of contents of Wyler footage, (I do really) – BUT do you recall any of the 92BG B-17E’s at Bovingdon, or indeed any shots of Bovingdon apart from those I’ve seen on the Memphis Belle DVD’s. — Or when the aircraft were with the 97BG.

Regards Dave & Mike
(15 years into research on Definitive History of Bovingdon – Station 112)
See thread ‘Bovingdon – Station 112’

I managed this very poor screenshot of the ‘Marlborough’ – what are those fins from? (apologies to HM Crown copyright etc etc!)

Don’t worry HM Crown copyright has expired for WWII material 😎

Have been watching one of the wartime information films – think it was called something along the lines of ‘pieces of our aircraft are missing’ – highlighting the problems of kids taking souvenirs from crash sites – the aircraft (wreck) used being a Blenheim, seemingly fitted with tailplane parts possibly from a DH Albatross (!) and called the ‘Marlborough’ ……

I managed this very poor screenshot of the ‘Marlborough’ – what are those fins from? (apologies to HM Crown copyright etc etc!)

Archived film footage

OOaagghhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙁

Thanks Graham and John for rapid replies, at least we know where we stand with these control freak organisations, sorry it has to be this way though, such a shame, much like a certain childrens Loco owner Company, —–milk it for all you can get / dog -in-the manger approach../ squeeze till the pips squeak. Fun, what’s that got to do with it. 😀
Oh well, such is life.
Bill T.

Sadly, I seem to recall that the cost of licensing for all the film clips used was what has kept Spitfire Ace off DVD. In general terms that’s a pity because they seemed t find a lot of clips that I wasn’t familiar with.

It’s a particular pity to me as I jumped off my seat when I realised that one two-second clip was of the wreck of a KG2 Dornier at Seasalter after the Eastchurch raid of August 13th, 1940. I’d love to see the whole of that bit of film.

Until then, I guess we just watch the poor sod in the Arado 96 getting the chop for the umpteenth time…

Adrian

I had a conversation at a Cross and Cockade gathering some years ago, with Brad King of the IWM (The author of RNAS (Hikoki Press)etc). He had showed us some film of Felixstowe ( flying boats) in 1918 and he remarked that the amount of film they had to sift through would literally and with no exaggeration would take at least 10 years or longer.

I was quite disappointed to learn that the Flight photographic achive is now in private commecial hands and when given specific magazine, date, page, details they could not trace the negative.

John

and, it must be said that nowadays most of the established ‘archives’ want to charge a FORTUNE for repro-rights – we know, we’ve looked into it – to give an indication, it’s $10s per second – and that’s not counting the cost of getting it digitised in the first place!

We have got the entire 19 hours worth of footage that William Wyler shot for his Memphis Belle movie – he was working as a Major (as was his staff) for FMPU USAAF, therefore that makes the material public domain, but the archive that has it wants to charge professional digitising and repro rights for anything other than personal use – We’ve spent the last two years trying to interest TV companies to work with us on it and are still ‘in negotiation’ but at the moment no-one seems interested, and – at over $70K – we cannot afford to do it ourselves!

It’s pristine colour, 18 hours worth I doubt has ever been seen before – apart from B-17s, it shows B-24s, the US Bond Tour, formation, take-off and landing shots… numerous UK bases in 1943, Cambridge, Royston, London… We’ve ID’d the aircraft, Groups and most of the locations… Sad to say – but it’s like a lot of the footage in Pathé, IWM and the RAFM – not gonna be seen in anything like the quality it deserves and by the people who would appreciate it!

Magpie Vulcan Film made 1972-Goose Bay, by ITV.

😀

Hi Pogno,

Back in 1972, I was an RAF, sgt-Airframes stationed in Goose Bay, Labrador with the Goose RAF Support Unit. We looked after visiting Vulcans, Victors on ” Goose “and other “Rangers. Vulcans staying with us , a week at a time, this was on the Old War-time -Civil Area of Goose, ( The best place by far ). We operated out of One big hanger and the various event’s that happened there are well recorded on this forum.

However, one event happened there that no one else seems aware of.

Around winter 71 / 72 ( Can’t remember exact date, but I suspect it was March 72 time,) a complete film Unit from ITV turned up to film a ” Magpie” childrens programme -Special on our work there.

Susan Stranks and a tall male ?? were the presenters and all these folk lived and breathed “Goose-RAF Style” for about a week. They were everywhere, filming, in the canteen eating , Sgt’s mess drinking ( laughs galore ) and took loads of footage of the Vulcans ,crews, groundcrews, facilities and generally had a good time and certainly enjoy’d themselves.:rolleyes:

One incident was a filming in the safety Equip Section of these 2 Presenters putting on the full RAF issue, Goose winters Kit, Considering this stuff was so out of date, ( even then ) and it was more aligned with the gear “Scott” of the Antartic wore, they looked a sight when fully dressed, It was all on the Final film too-LOL ). The local Canadians just slipped in and out of Modern “Snow suits” and we were the object of much derision with our ancient kit, but then again, as visitors we were allowed into the USAF Base Exchange for full discounted purchases, wheras they were not. ( You win some / you lose some )

We had a special screening of the programme, presented by them at end of week and although I’ve never seen or heard of this programme since, it came across as excellent,— lovely telephoto shots of Vulcans blasting over Air Base and I think one of the Vulcans favourite tricks at ” Goose”, which was to blast ,low along main runaway and go into a vertical climb, right up high into a big wing over at top. They did this after a “Mission” return when they were very light on fuel and that always stopped Goose bay.

I think I got my pic. under one of Vulcans during Morning Mission prep, but was duffled up because of sub-zero cold.

On their last working day with us, the “Magpie” team made a special presentation around a Vulcan out on our Flight Line and slapped a dirty great big Vinyl ” Magpie” Badge onto the lower Fin of this Vulcan, which subsequently flew back home to Waddington or Scampton.

I cannot remember the No. of this Vulcan, so wonder if any ex-Scampton or Waddington Aircrew, Crew Chiefs–Ground crew can remember this.

My question is,:- does anyone out there know of this films existence in ITV archives, as it is really worth watching, especially some 35 years on.

Don’t Confuse this with ” Goose Bay” where the Big Birds fly, which I have a rather washed out copy of, ——–that was filmed in 73 after the RAF moved over to the vacated USAF side of Goose and is quite ” Antiseptic” and full of ridiculous Rythym Drumming and plum in the mouth commentary. It gives no true hint of what Goose Bay was like in those days, wheras the “Magpie” film does.

Love to locate that film, so would you folks. 🙂

Bill T.

Goldmine.

www.britishpathe.com

There are more WWII film footage (thats the actual term) that you could even begin to imagine. The problem might be, that its mostly unedited and uncategorised, so users have to trawl through hours upon hours of these films in order to find a useful clip.

Documentaries, like alomst everything else, are made on a budget that don’t support this kind of research, so they often use known clips.

Hopefully we will soon see these libraries online, so enthusiasts can help in categorising the content. Thus making them more useful for documentary makers.

Have been watching one of the wartime information films – think it was called something along the lines of ‘pieces of our aircraft are missing’ – highlighting the problems of kids taking souvenirs from crash sites – the aircraft (wreck) used being a Blenheim, seemingly fitted with tailplane parts possibly from a DH Albatross (!) and called the ‘Marlborough’ ……