Hollywood, 35 years later

In 1976, Frank Cavestani, Laura Cavestani, and Tom Weinberg produced a 30-minute documentary called Making it in Hollywood. It’s an insightful look at the business of fame and is still a strikingly accurate portrait of the Hollywood celebrity machine, featuring Shelley Winters, Sally Kirkland, Cissy Colpitts, and Tab Hunter, with appearances by Dr. John and John Belushi and many others.

More than 35 years later, Mathias Sorum watched nearly all of the 80 camera original Making It tapes in the Media Burn Archive and created something entirely fresh out of those dozens of hours of previously unused footage as a music video for San Francisco-based musician Vital.

Be one of the first to watch “Hey.”

As always, you can watch the original Making it in Hollywood at Media Burn. The 1976 production team also included Steve Conant, Paul Goldsmith, Petur Hliddal, Lars Nelson, Leslie Shatz, Jody Sibert, and Elan Soltes.

Download the new Vital EP from Black Sky Records.

Gatewood Galbraith, 1947-2012

Gatewood Galbraith, the fiercely independent five time gubernatorial candidate from Kentucky, died last week at the age of 64. We interviewed him in 1991 on his first run for governor. At the time, he was one of only a very few politicians anywhere who publicly endorsed legalizing hemp and marijuana.

For more on Galbraith, watch the full hour-long interview at Media Burn.

Last chance to support Media Burn in 2011

Please support Media Burn with a tax-deductible contribution before midnight December 31. If you do, you’ll be eligible for this year’s drawing for an HD Flip Cam!

Then, enjoy this look back at Image Union‘s off-the-wall New Year’s Eve countdown in 1988 in honor of the program’s 10th anniversary.

Here’s to another great year together. We couldn’t do it without you.

You can be Santa Claus this year

Greetings from Media Burn and Santa Claus (thanks to videomaker Scott Jacobs for this 1975 classic!)

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“Media Burn chronicles the grinding of a city and the aspiration of an era. And it offers a reality you would never see on reality TV.  In helping preserve these documentaries, we make a gift to our kids, but are also giving ourselves something along the way: a living connection to the characters and events that helped forge who we are and where we’ve come.”

–Dee Davis
Board Member, FITV/Media Burn
Founder and President, Center for Rural Strategies
former Chairman and President, Independent Television Service (ITVS)

Please support Media Burn before the end of 2011 with a tax-deductible donation and help us continue to create connections between the past and the future through the power of documentary. We’ve been thriving this year due to generous foundation and government grants, but we rely on YOU to support our critical operating costs and matching requirements. Please do what you can to help.

Check out the full selection of thank you gifts at our donate page. As always, you can send a check to Media Burn Archive, 4270 W. Irving Park Rd. Chicago IL 60641.

Thanks, as always, for being a part of Media Burn.

photo: Rich Cahan

Tom and Sara

Board of Directors:

Dee Davis, Secretary
Thea Flaum, Vice President
Peter Grosz
Eric Kramer, Treasurer
Tom Weinberg, President
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Sara Chapman, Executive Director

Videos Don’t Last Forever

We want you to read the entire post, but if you want to cut to the chase immediately, we hope you will support Media Burn with a tax-deductible donation this year. Use our simple online form or mail your check to Media Burn, 4270 W. Irving Park Rd. Chicago IL 60641.

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Every day, Media Burn is saving illuminating documentaries that are much more endangered than you may realize. In fact, one of the true innovators in moving image archiving, Jim Lindner, recently said:

“Archivists typically think that there is always tomorrow. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not. Right now in video there are many formats that are critical – meaning that worldwide there are not enough machines or time on the existing supply of consumable parts (like heads) to play back the tapes no matter how much money you are able to spend on it. The window has closed for playback for many tapes in vaults – they will never be played again. There was an industry using thousands of machines, that industry has moved on, those machines are gone, the parts are gone, the bones left only have the parts that don’t break, no one knows how to really properly fix them because some of the knowledge was not documented and eccentric and young people are not trained to repair equipment that has not been made for 50 years… Endgame. It’s over. You won’t play those tapes back – as in ever. … Plan for it to go away – and plan how you can survive the longest. Don’t delay. Find the money and spend the money now while you can. You do not have forever.”

Time magazine created this profile of Lindner, who created the SAMMA robotic systems that the Library of Congress is using to digitize their collection of 700,000 videotapes. It’s a fascinating inside look at what’s really at stake for our cultural heritage on videotape–and why what archives are doing to preserve them is so vitally important and timely.

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For eight years Media Burn has been saving and creating access to meaningful and powerful documentaries that would otherwise be lost forever. We’ve been recognized with grants from distinguished organizations such as the National Archives, the Illinois Arts Council, the Illinois Humanities Council, the City of Chicago, the MacArthur Fund at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and others.

This year, we were truly honored to have received major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities through the federal “Save America’s Treasures” program and a three-year commitment from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.

We know you also recognize that documentary has a unique power to capture our shared cultural experience. Please support Media Burn this year and help us continue our timely and urgent work.

Check out our selection of thank you gifts at our donate page. As always, you can send a check to Media Burn Archive, 4270 W. Irving Park Rd. Chicago IL 60641. All first-time contributors will get a Media Burn multi-color t-shirt!

Best to you and yours this holiday season… and thank you for your continuing support. We couldn’t do it without you.

Tom, Sara, and the Media Burn Board of Directors

Chicago Reader, 1983

As the Chicago Reader celebrates its 40th anniversary, here’s a look back at the paper in 1983, including interviews with then-Publisher and Editor Robert Roth and then-Assistant Editor Michael Miner.

If you haven’t already checked it out, don’t miss the Reader’s own retrospective and specifically, Miner’s fascinating recollection.

Remembering Studs

Studs Terkel died three years ago yesterday, on October 31, 2008. In January 2009, about 200 of Studs’ close friends came to the Chicago Cultural Center to tell their favorite Studs stories and jokes and to remember his life and work.

 

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Two Studs Terkel classics are now on DVD: It’s a Living (1974), the documentary based on Working, and Studs on a Soapbox (2000), a look at the feisty raconteur over several decades. The trailers are below and the DVDs are available in the Media Burn store.

An introduction to Apple Computer, 1982

In this 1982 interview at Apple Computer in Cupertino, CA, we see how dramatically technology and the perception of computers has evolved in less than 30 years. Produced for a technology series, WIRED IN*, the vision of Steve Jobs was already alive and well.

For more technology predictions at this early point in Apple’s history, watch the complete interview at Media Burn.
Part 1: http://mediaburn.org/Video-Preview.128.0.html?&uid=1626
Part 2: http://mediaburn.org/Video-Preview.128.0.html?&uid=1627

*The demo for WIRED IN features young Bill Murray and Lily Tomlin and is a fun look back at what we thought the future of technology was in the early ’80s.

Behind the scenes of the 1992 presidential campaigns

As primary season gets into full swing, here’s a behind the scenes look from 1992 at how campaigns craft their appearance for TV.

Nixon resigns, August 9, 1974

Thirty-seven years ago today, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States. Millions tuned in to his televised address to see what Nixon had to say about his presidency and his reasons for resigning.

What they didn’t see was the seven minutes of the television pool feed before Nixon went live. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to the gravity of the event and a unique look at Nixon’s mindset at this defining moment of his career.

The video also includes Nixon’s full 15 minute speech, in which he cites a loss of Congressional support but does not admit to any wrongdoing. A can’t miss!