VIEW Issue 8: Archive-Based Productions

In 1927, when Esfir Schub released her commissioned film The fall of the Romanov Dynasty to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, she hardly knew that her extensive use of film footage and newsreels of the event would mark the invention of a new ‘genre’: the archive-based production or compilation genre. Television has adopted this genre, but audiovisual archives have fuelled a wide array of programmes and genres beyond compilation productions.

Government, business, broadcast and film archives as well as amateur collections and home videos are commonly used to spark memories and re-enact events from the past in various contexts. They are made widely accessible and re-used in traditional broadcast productions or given a second life in digital environments through online circulation.

In this issue of VIEW, scholars, archivists, and other media practitioners consider, highlight and elaborate on the use and re-use of moving image archives in various productions.