In the past twenty years, scholars and archivists have increasingly emphasized previously neglected film, video, and audio artifacts. An international “orphan film movement” has generated revisionist historiographies and altered curatorial priorities. Vast amounts of newsfilm, including outtakes, have not survived, but archives holding thousands of hours of newsreel outtakes are now making such material more available than ever before. What can we learn from studying newsreels outtakes? How might this change research questions, methods, and historiography?

Dan Streible is Associate Professor at the Department of Cinema Studies, New York University and Associate Director of its Moving Image Archiving and Preservation master’s program. He is also director of the Orphan Film Symposium.