FOX MOVIETONE NEWS

THE NEWSREEL

The Fox Movietone News library is one of the most comprehensive news film archives of the twentieth century.  Running from October 1927 to October 1963, Fox Movietone News was one of the earliest and longest running of all the American Newsreels (and was itself a spin-off of its silent progenitor, Fox News).  The library contains 75 million feet of news footage featuring the most important stories from the 20th century.  Twice a week, the newsreel kept American audiences abreast of current events while introducing them to foreign cultures and traditions.  Around the globe, international audiences were presented with American pastimes and stories of regional interest.  The bi-weekly newsreel covered domestic and international politics, emerging technologies, fashion, sports and human-interest stories,  often ending on a light humorous note and thus establishing a format that newscasters continue to follow to this day.

THE INTRODUCTION OF SOUND

Prior to Fox Movietone News, newsreels shown in movie theaters were all silent - moving pictures without sound (discounting the live musical accompaniment, of course).  That all changed on the evening of May 20th, 1927, when the Roxy Theater in New York projected footage taken early that same morning of Charles A. Lindbergh piloting the ‘Spirit of St. Louis down the runway at Roosevelt Field on his way to becoming the first person to successfully complete a transatlantic flight from New York to Paris (8 years later Movietone would cover the trial of the century, in which Bruno Hauptmann was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh’s baby boy Charles Jr.).  Although prior audiences had been given a sneak preview of the new ‘Movietone’ system, this was the first breaking news event in history to unify both the picture and the sound in one complete package.

In spite of the historic flight being photographed by competing newsreels, nothing could match the excitement generated by the Movietone crew’s sound version of Col. Lindbergh’s plane taking off.  The film was wildly successful and propelled the notoriously press shy Lindbergh and Fox News (routinely shy of the industry leader French Pathè News) into the history books.

Previous attempts to marry picture with sound were attempted by various studios over the years.  The Vitaphone system relied on a phonograph (record player) and a key frame to synchronize the sound, but as the human brain has a very low tolerance for error to achieve the illusion that the two are in union, it was only marginally successful.  Movietone founder William Fox licensed the optical variable-density sound technology from Ted Case and Earl Sponable, two inventors working out of labs in Auburn, New York (an idea first espoused by Eugene Lauste, an inventor working in Edison's Lab). 

Field Outfit Number One, the first sound-on-film (SOF) camera weighing in at an incredible 1,500 lbs (and was said to require 3 capable men to move it from place to place) was first operated by veteran Fox News cameraman Ben Miggins.  In the early months that followed, the novel union between sound and picture dictated Fox Movietone’s editorial decision-making.  Stories featuring goats chewing laundry, gurgling streams, and young women riding fire engines were chosen simply because these scenes had never been presented to the public without the audio component.

'OH THE HUMANITY!'

Breaking news stories are by their very nature unpredictable.  On occasion there are circumstances which invite disaster. The German Zeppelin Hindenburg was a case in point.  The producers in the New York offices, believing that a large blimp filled with hydrogen gas was bound to be trouble, had instructed their cameramen to film the arrival of every airship landing in New York.  For the cameramen involved, this task became a grind, both literally and figuratively.  As the story goes, one of the cameramen from one of the competing newsreels of the time (Pathè, Hearst Metrotone, or Paramount) had departed for the saloon early and missed the shot.  His fellow grinders saved his bacon by offering to share a copy of their footage with him - an early example of what today we might call 'pool coverage'.

EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE

While at any one time there may have been multiple newsreel crews covering stories around the globe, there were often instances where Movietone was the only outfit on the scene.  Thanks to cameraman Al Brick, for example, Fox Movietone was the only newsreel to capture the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Al's raw footage was confiscated by the U.S. Government and later released back to Fox.  Other exclusive footage includes Marilyn Monroe singing a smoldering rendition of Happy Birthday to You to President John F. Kennedy at New York's Madison Square Garden.  Strangely, the footage of the singing portion of the event only exists as a telecine recording.  The camera original was either confiscated or was otherwise 'borrowed'.  We hope one day for that footage to be repatriated to Movietone.

35MM NITRATE TRANSFERS

The Fox Movietone News collection consists primarily of 35mm nitrate film, which can only be handled by labs with a nitrate license.  Our relationship with the stewards of this collection at the Library of Congress, with whom we initiated a joint preservation program in 1976, allows us to produce new HD or 4K scans from the 35mm nitrate film elements. Clients interested in pursuing new film transfers from 35mm can expect lead times of approximately 6–8 weeks.  All transfer costs are assumed by the client (transfer costs are separate from licensing rights, which must be obtained in order to use the material in a commercial manner). New scans will be delivered directly to Fox Movietone in New York, and we will issue a new screener based off the resulting master.  Costs vary depending on the amount of material being transferred.  Please call or write to us for quotes.

16MM

A discreet portion of 16mm safety film from 1952-1963 is available for HD scans upon request.  When searching the archive, you will notice that certain shot lists for story numbers after 1952 make reference to the 16mm description. 

TRANSFER DETAILS

The vast majority of content from the Fox Movietone News collection was filmed and presented on 35mm nitrate film stock. However, in the early 1950s, Fox Movietone joined forces with United Press (later United Press International/UPI) to provide coverage to the nascent television market, producing some 15million feet of 16mm film - much of it original camera negatives.  These outtakes or b-roll from this subset (1952-1963) for the most part remain unpublished and new HD transfers can be made available upon request.  In order to view this material, it must first be scanned and transposed into a file-based video asset.  Those costs are borne directly by the client thru an outside lab of our choosing.  Movietone will arrange the transfer and manage the file delivery in a process described in further detail below:

STORAGE AND DELIVERY

The 16mm film is stored at Iron Mountain in New Jersey.  Because we are charged a delivery fee to access this material we can only pull material for clients interested in performing transfers, we cannot entertain pure research requests for the 16mm film assets.  However, Movietone does absorb the cost of delivery as part of the transfer exchange.

TURNAROUND TIMES AND FEES

Typical turnaround on a film transfer is 10 days. Movietone has procured discounted rates for our clients on transfers of our material, which are billed in half-hour blocks.  This rate reflects the actual time the lab needs to transfer the footage, so 30 minutes of lab time does not equate to 30 minutes of content.  However, clients should take into consideration that once the calibration and setup is performed, the cost of transfer per linear foot of film falls as more film is transferred.  We strongly recommend optimizing your lab fee by choosing at least 3–6 rolls of film as this will generally cost the same as a single reel.  We also urge clients to perform all transfers at once as this will also greatly reduce your overall costs.  Film transfer fees for 16mm are as follows:

• $250 / 30 min of lab time
• Minimum of 30 min per project
• $150 File Mastering fee

NOTES

Because the length of each reel is not known until it is brought in-house, we cannot provide accurate estimates of the transfer until all elements are inspected.  As a very broad rule of thumb, an average reel is about 100-200ft.  At those lengths, a client may be able to transfer up to 4 short reels within the first half hour block.  If reels are excessively long, or are significantly damaged, we give the client the option of backing out of the transfer.  A deposit of $300 is taken in advance of every transfer.