Research Guides
CMS 310 Library Session: Home
Finding Primary Sources for Film
Welcome!
Film Primary Sources (American)
- American Film Institute Catalog This link opens in a new window
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National filmography for American films. Includes citations for trade journals from the silent era to 1971. - American Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new window
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Motion-picture scripts including scene and character details and facsimilie screenplay images. - Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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Core 19th to 21st century US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting, theater, and video gaming.
- Black Film ArchiveShowcase of Black film from 1915 to 1979. Feature films of various genres, documentaries, newsreels, shorts, and personal footage. (Some films included must be viewed through subscription services)
- Cinefiles - Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film ArchiveThe digital offerings include selections from the archive’s collection of reviews, press kits, film festival and repertory theater program notes, newspaper articles, and other ephemera.
- Library of Congress Digital Collections--Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound DivisionIncludes film/video, audio recordings, photography, drawings, etc.
The "Inventing Entertainment" collection may be of particular interest:
https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/about-this-collection/ - Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesMaterials from the AMPAS's holdings. Items include correspondence, photographs, sheet music, scrapbooks, lobby cards, movie ephemera, books, film magazines and industry publications.
- Media History Digital LibraryThe Media History Digital Library is a free online resource featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. Part of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the the University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Niles Silent Film MuseumThe Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is a combination of research center and living history museum. It is a resource for all facets of silent film-making, from their planning and production to their presentation. The Museum offers a way to rediscover America's movie pioneers, and see their remarkable work in an authentic setting – a theater where Charlie Chaplin and Broncho Billy Anderson saw themselves and their contemporaries on the screen. This museum keeps the spirit of silent films alive.
- Women Film Pioneers ProjectDigital reference tool on the works of women during the silent film era. Profiles of women in 6 continents. Resources include an extensive bibliography of primary sources.
Related Links & Guides
CLit 596A/Eng544/GWSS590 Spring 2014
CLit 310 History of Cinema, 1895-1929Emphasis is on the development, both technical and aesthetic, of filmmaking during the silent era.
CLit 312A History of Cinema, 1959-1988 Examines mid-century filmmaking from Beat to French New Wave, cinema in Argentina, Britain, Brazil, India, France and more
CLit 315A / SPAN 334A / SISLA 490A Contemporary Latin American Cinema, focusing on terror and memory
Film Primary Sources (International)
- British Film Institute - National ArchiveBFI National Archive maintains a collection of films, original scripts, images, promotional materials, letters, and artefacts centered on films from the British Isles.
- Filmoteca españolaMaterials centered on the history of cinema in Spain.
- Irish Film & TV Research OnlineMaterials related to Irish cinema and television. Includes databases for early silent films from 1910-1915 and transcriptions of Irish Film Censors’ reports from 1923-1938.
- National Film Archive of IndiaThis archive includes films, virtual exhibitions, and an oral history project featuring interviews with pioneers of Indian cinema.
