So far, the Andrew Avery Collection has been digitized, and now I am viewing VHS tapes that contain additional footage that Andrew Avery filmed. This is not so much a difficult process as it is time consuming, so this has taken up the majority of my time so far in the timeline of the project. This timeline has been an interesting look into how much work can often go into getting a film to the public in a way that is most easily comprehensible and easy to navigate through an online catalog. While it is time consuming, it is both necessary and ultimately rewarding.
While conducting this research, there have been quite a few pleasant surprises that I’ve discovered within this. Had we not had narration provided by the Decatur County Historical Society on the tape they had acquired, some of this information would have been difficult to discover. For instance, there is footage of an African American woman speaking to the crowd, and without these narrated tapes we would have never known that this was Lillian Williams, the first African American student to enroll in the University of West Georgia. There is also some additional footage of Marvin Griffin on one of these tapes that has not been duplicated in any other media format that the archive has.
The next step is to take the shot lists that I have been adding on to (someone has already created an incredibly detailed shot list of all the VHS tapes) and figure out a way to get them organized and onto the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS). I have been noting instances where the preservation prints match up to the VHS tapes that were transferred from the original 16mm film, as well as the VHS tapes that the Decatur County Historical Society had. With this shot list, we will fill in any gaps in the footage and soon get them onto OHMS, which we will then use to add an index to the shot lists and the notes I have taken in order to make information searchable on these silent films. For an example for how this might end up looking (except for the fact that the Avery films will not have sound, merely descriptive information and indexing), check out the Nixon/Gannon interviews that were digitized by the Brown Media Archives. This is a good example of how the Brown Media Archive has provided a readily accessible way for researchers to sift through information with relative ease. Rather than sifting through all of this footage yourself, you can search for terms or look for certain topics that Richard Nixon discusses.
There will be more updates to come, so stay tuned! And as always, feel free to post comments and questions below.
While conducting this research, there have been quite a few pleasant surprises that I’ve discovered within this. Had we not had narration provided by the Decatur County Historical Society on the tape they had acquired, some of this information would have been difficult to discover. For instance, there is footage of an African American woman speaking to the crowd, and without these narrated tapes we would have never known that this was Lillian Williams, the first African American student to enroll in the University of West Georgia. There is also some additional footage of Marvin Griffin on one of these tapes that has not been duplicated in any other media format that the archive has.
The next step is to take the shot lists that I have been adding on to (someone has already created an incredibly detailed shot list of all the VHS tapes) and figure out a way to get them organized and onto the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS). I have been noting instances where the preservation prints match up to the VHS tapes that were transferred from the original 16mm film, as well as the VHS tapes that the Decatur County Historical Society had. With this shot list, we will fill in any gaps in the footage and soon get them onto OHMS, which we will then use to add an index to the shot lists and the notes I have taken in order to make information searchable on these silent films. For an example for how this might end up looking (except for the fact that the Avery films will not have sound, merely descriptive information and indexing), check out the Nixon/Gannon interviews that were digitized by the Brown Media Archives. This is a good example of how the Brown Media Archive has provided a readily accessible way for researchers to sift through information with relative ease. Rather than sifting through all of this footage yourself, you can search for terms or look for certain topics that Richard Nixon discusses.
There will be more updates to come, so stay tuned! And as always, feel free to post comments and questions below.