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Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger,[1] is a film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited time.[2] Many of the films are also orphan works since they lack copyright owners or active custodians to guarantee their long-term preservation.

Types of sponsored film

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The genre is composed of advertising films, educational films, industrial videos, industrial musicals, training films, social guidance films, and government-produced films.[3][4]

While some may borrow themes from well-known film genres such as western film, musicals, and comedies, what defines them is a sponsored rhetoric to achieve the sponsor's goals, rather than those of the creative artist.

Sponsored films in 16mm were loaned at no cost, except sometimes postage, to clubs, schools, and other groups.[5] America's largest companies - AT&T, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Republic Steel, Standard Oil, and Westinghouse Electric Company - were for decades active sponsored film producers and distributors; others included airlines who offered travelogues on their destinations.

In the early years of commercial television, local television stations often used sponsored films as "filler" programming. Specialized distributing agents packaged films from various sponsors into TV programs with titles like Compass, Color Camera, Ladies' Day, and Adventures In Living.

In the 1950s, almost every American city of any size had at least one sponsored film studio. Cleveland, Ohio, for example, was home to over a dozen sponsored film studios.[6] From 1951 to 1973 Business Screen magazine listed U.S.-based sponsored film studios by city and region.[7]

Theatrical film studios in "Hollywood" produced sponsored films along with hundreds of studios that specialized in the genre, including the Jam Handy Organization in Detroit, Michigan, Wilding Picture Productions in Chicago, Illinois, the Calvin Company in Kansas City, Missouri, and Cinécraft Productions, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio.

Importance

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The 1948 Cleveland Film Festival was the first American film festival dedicated to recognizing the importance of sponsored films.[8] By 1956, dozens of cities and organizations were running sponsored film festivals, and the organizers of the Cleveland Film Festival stopped running the festival. Sponsored film festivals continued on but never regained their popularity or influence. [9]

Sponsored films have won Academy Awards and been included in the National Film Registry. [10]

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Film title Film type Year of release Year of induction Resources
A Time for Burning Documentary 1966 2005 [11]
All My Babies Educational film 1952 2002 [12]
Louisiana Story Documentary 1948 1994 [13]
Master Hands Documentary short 1936 1999 [14]
Powers of Ten Short documentary 1977 1998 [15]
The City Short documentary 1939 1998 [16]
The Forgotten Frontier Documentary 1939 1996 [17]
The House in the Middle Short documentary 1954 2001 [18]
The Making of an American Silent educational film 1920 2005 [19]
To Fly! Short docudrama 1976 1995 [20]
Westinghouse_Works,_1904 Short silent films 1904 1998 [21]
Why Man Creates Animated short documentary 1968 2002 [22]

Usage

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The films are often used as B-roll in documentary films, for instance, the social guidance film The Terrible Truth (1951, Sid Davis) appears, desaturated, in Ron Mann's Grass (1999) as an example of what he perceives as hysteria over drug abuse, as well as an example of the slippery slope fallacy.

Prelinger and other film archivists [23] generally consider the films interesting for their sociological, ethnographic, or evidentiary value: for instance, a mental hygiene film instructing children to be careful of strangers may seem laughable by today's standards, but the film may show important aspects of society which were documented unintentionally: hairstyles, popular fashions, technological advances, landscapes, etc.[10]

Prelinger estimates that the form includes perhaps 400,000 films and, as such, is the largest genre of films, but that one-third to one-half of the films have been lost to neglect. In the late 20th century, the archival moving-image community has taken greater notice of sponsored film, and key ephemeral films began to be preserved by specialized, regional, and national archives.[10]

A number of British films in this style were re-evaluated and released commercially by the British Film Institute in 2010 as part of its Boom Britain / Shadows of Progress project.

Examples of sponsored films include Design for Dreaming, A Touch of Magic,[24] and A Word to the Wives. Technicolor for Industrial Films is a sponsored film about sponsored films.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ EPHEMERA: The Prelinger Archives (March 2013 Edition) on Vimeo
  2. ^ Prelinger, Rick (2006), The Field Guide to Sponsored Films, San Francisco, California: National Film Preservation Foundation, retrieved 10 July 2023
  3. ^ Learning to Love Sponsored Films|Arts & Culture|Smithsonian
  4. ^ Godfried, Nathan (2014). "Labor-Sponsored Film and Working-Class History: The Inheritance (1964)". Film History. 26 (4). Indiana University Press. doi:10.2979/filmhistory.26.4.84. JSTOR 10.2979/filmhistory.26.4.84.
  5. ^ Navigating the well-curated, deeply weird Sponsored Films online archive-The Verge
  6. ^ "Sponsored Films". Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  7. ^ /Business Screen magazine Hagley Digital Archives/
  8. ^ Cleveland’s Film Festival Surprise Hit, Business Screen, 1948, vol 9 no 8 (December 1948), pg 26-27. https://digital.hagley.org/BusinessScreen_1948_V09_N08
  9. ^ [Cleveland Sponsored Film Festival, Encyclopedia of Cleveland History https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-sponsored-film-]
  10. ^ a b c Prelinger, Rick (2006), The Field Guide to Sponsored Films, San Francisco, California: National Film Preservation Foundation, retrieved 15 November 2024
  11. ^ Sponsor: Lutheran Film Associates. Production Co.: Quest Productions. Directors/Producers/Editors: William C. Jersey, Barbara Connell. Music: Tom Paxton, Ronnie Gilbert. Copyright 17Oct66 MP18678
  12. ^ Sponsor: Georgia Dept. of Public Health. Production Co.: Medical Audio-Visual Institute, Association of American Medical Colleges. Director/Producer/Writer: George C. Stoney. Camera: Peaslee Bond. Music: Louis Applebaum. Editor: Sylvia K. Cummins. Cast: Mary Coley. Copyright 25Mar1953 MP4939
  13. ^ Sponsor: Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. Production Co.: Robert Flaherty Productions Inc. Director/-Producer: Robert J. Flaherty. Writers: Frances H. Flaherty, Robert J. Flaherty. Camera: Richard Leacock, Bert Spielvogel. Music: Virgil Thomson, Eugene Ormandy. Editors: Helen van Dongen, Ralph Rosenblum. Narrator: Robert Flaherty. Cast: Joseph Boudreaux, Lionel Le Blanc, Mrs. E. Bienvenu, Frank Hardy. Copyright 28Sep48 LP2093
  14. ^ Sponsor: Chevrolet Motor Co. Production Co.: Jam Handy Organization. Camera: Gordon Avil. Music: Samuel Benavie. Editor: Vincent Herman. Copyright 18May 36 and 27May36 MU6488
  15. ^ Sponsor: IBM Corp. Production Co.: Eames Studio. Directors: Charles and Ray Eames. Composer: Elmer Bernstein. Narrator: Philip Morrison. Copyright 23Jul79 PA48-313
  16. ^ Sponsor: American Institute of Planners, through Civic Films Inc., with funding from Carnegie Corp. of New York. Production Co.: American Documentary Films Inc. Directors: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke. Producer: Oscar Serlin. Writers: Henwar Rodakiewicz, Pare Lorentz, Lewis Mumford. Camera: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke, Jules V.D. Bucher, Edward Anhalt, Roger Barlow, Rudolph Bretz. Music: Aaron Copland. Editor: Theodore Lawrence. Narrator: Morris Carnovsky. Production Manager: John Flory. Copyright 23Jun39 MU9480
  17. ^ Sponsor: Frontier Nursing Service Inc. Director/Producer/Camera: Mary Marvin Breckenridge. Copyright not registered
  18. ^ Sponsors: National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association; National Clean Up–Paint Up–Fix Up Bureau; Federal Civil Defense Administration. Production Co.: Robert J. Enders Inc. Copyright 3May54 MP4701
  19. ^ Sponsor: Dept. of Americanization, State of Connecticut. Production Co.: Worcester Film Corp. Director: Guy Hedlund. Copyright not registered
  20. ^ Sponsor: Conoco Inc. Production Co.: Francis Thompson Inc. for MacGillivray Freeman Films. Directors/-Producers: Jim Freeman, Greg MacGillivray. Writers: Jim Freeman, Greg MacGillivray, Tom McGrath, Francis Thompson, Robert M. Young, Arthur Zegart. Camera: Brad Ohlund. Music: Bernardo Segall. Editor: Alexander Hammid. Copyright 1Oct76 MP30984
  21. ^ Sponsor: Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. Production Co.: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. Camera: G.W. Bitzer. Copyright status unknown
  22. ^ Sponsor: Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. Production Co.: Saul Bass & Associates. Director/Producer: Saul Bass. Writers: Saul Bass, Mayo Simon. Copyright not registered
  23. ^ Ephemeral Films by Rick Prelinger on Vimeo
  24. ^ EPHEMERA: POPULUXE on Vimeo
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