Newsreel
The newsreel was a short collection of nonfiction stories compiled on a single reel of film produced primarily between 1911 and 1967. A number of countries produced their own domestic newsreels, however this article focuses primarily on American-made productions. Usually included as part of a theatrical program including other shorts and a feature film, the newsreel covered an assortment of events and human interest stories that were directed at a national audience. In peacetime regarded as a form of light entertainment, during World War 2 it gained national significance as the primary source of news images of combat. Produced by motion picture studios, newsreels were not the sole source of news for American audiences, rather they presented a cinematic interpretation of the events of the day.
Multiple factors, including reduced industry competition, censorship, and the increasing popularity of television news, contributed to the decline of the medium, and the last of the major newsreels ceased production in 1967.
Contents
Origins
Production and Technology
Collecting Footage
Editing
Types of Stories
Distribution and Censorship
Reception and Propaganda
Decline and End
References
Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.
Fielding, Raymond. The American Newsreel. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Print.
Hanssen, Eirik Frisvold. "Symptoms of desire: colour, costume, and commodities in fashion newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s." Film History. 21 (2009): 107-121. Project Muse. Web. 4 March 2010.
Roeder, George H., Jr. "The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.
Zielinski, Siegfried. "Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means." Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006. Print.
