History[edit]

The exact origin of the term orphan film is unclear. By the 1990s, however, film archivists were commonly using this colloquialism to refer to motion pictures abandoned by their owners. Before the end of the decade, the phrase emerged as the governing metaphor for film preservation, first in the United States, then internationally.^[1]

Definition[edit]

Historians and archivists define the term in both a narrow and a broad sense. A report from the Librarian of Congress, Film Preservation 1993, offered a first definition. As a category of so-called orphan works, orphan films are those “that lack either clear copyright holders or commercial potential” to pay for their preservation.^[2] However, a much wider group of works fall under the orphan rubric when the term is expanded to refer to all manner of films that have been neglected. The neglect might be physical (a deteriorated film print), commercial (an unreleased movie), cultural (censored footage), historical (a forgotten World War I-era production) or technical (footage from television commercials and series or music videos).

This broader conception is typically illustrated by a list of orphaned genres. In Redefining Film Preservation: A National Plan (1994),^[3] the Librarian of Congress enumerated newsreels, actuality footage, silent films, experimental works, home movies, independent fiction and documentary films, political commercials, amateur footage, along with advertising, educational and industrial films as culturally significant orphans. To this the National Film Preservation Foundation adds animation, ethnic films, anthropological footage, and fragments. (See "What Are Orphan Films".)

Within a decade the epithet was adopted by scholars and educators. In The Film Experience: An Introduction (2004), for example, Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White include a section on orphan films, defining them simply as "Any sort of films that have survived but have no commercial interests to pay the costs of their preservation."^[4]

Defined in this way, more films are orphans than not. Many are more accurately described as “footage,” recordings shot on celluloid but not intended to be completed works or theatrical releases. The millions of feet of home movies and newsreel outtakes alone outnumber the quantity of film stock used to make all of the feature films ever released by Hollywood studios.

Orphan works

Public domain film

Film preservation

Association of Moving Image Archivists

The Texas Archive of the Moving Image

Alan Smithee

Abandonware

Asch, Mark. The L Magazine, January 22, 2010.

"Three Questions for Cullen Gallagher About the Orphan Film Symposium,"

Boyle, James, et al. , submission to the Copyright Office, from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke University Law School, March 2005.

Access to Orphan Films

Dylan Cave (2008). ""Born Digital"—Raised an Orphan?: Acquiring Digital Media through an Analog Paradigm". The Moving Image. 8: 1–13. :10.1353/mov.0.0002. S2CID 191967115.

doi

. "What Is an Orphan Film? Definition, Rationale, Controversy." Paper delivered at the symposium "Orphans of the Storm: Saving Orphan Films in the Digital Age", University of South Carolina, September 23, 1999. Transcript at http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/archive/orphans2001/usai.html

Cherchi Usai, Paolo

Paolo Cherchi Usai (2009). . The Moving Image. 9: 1–18. doi:10.1353/mov.0.0028.

"Are All (Analog) Films "Orphans"?: A Predigital Appraisal"

Coffey, Liz (2003). "Orphans of the Storm III: Listening to Orphan Films". The Moving Image. 3 (2): 128–132. :10.1353/mov.2003.0023. S2CID 191491354.

doi

Cohen, Emily (2004). "The Orphanista Manifesto: Orphan Films and the Politics of Reproduction". American Anthropologist. 106 (4): 719–731. :10.1525/aa.2004.106.4.719.

doi

Cullum, Paul. L.A. Weekly, Apr. 26, 2001.

“Orphanistas! Academics and Amateurs Unite to Save the Orphan Film,”

de Klerk, Nico. "Entwurf eines Heims. 'Orphan Films' im Werk Gustav Deutsch / Designing a Home: Orphan Films in the Work of Gustav Deutsch." In Gustav Deutsch, ed. Wilbirg Brainin-Donnenberg and (Vienna: SYNEMA, 2009): 113–22.

Michael Loebenstein

Fishman, Stephen. The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-free Writing, Music, Art, & More, 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2006.

Frick, Caroline (2008). "Beyond Hollywood: Enhancing Heritage with the 'Orphan' Film". International Journal of Heritage Studies. 14 (4): 319–331. :10.1080/13527250802155828. S2CID 143785649.

doi

Frick, Caroline. 'Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation' (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Goldsmith, Leo. Moving Image Source, June 10, 2010.

"Adventures in Preservation: A Report from the 7th Orphan Film Symposium,"

Horak, Jan-Christopher. (2006). "Editor's Foreword". The Moving Image. 6 (2): vi–x. :10.1353/mov.2007.0006. S2CID 201783292.

doi

Horak, Jan-Christopher (2005). "The Strange Case of the Fall of Jerusalem : Orphans and Film Identification". The Moving Image. 5 (2): 26–49. :10.1353/mov.2005.0029. S2CID 191463772.

doi

Jones, Janna. The Past Is a Moving Picture: Preserving the Twentieth Century on Film. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. See chapter 3, subtitled "Orphans and the Culture Wars."

Kay, Olivia Lory (2010). (PDF). Journal of Media Practice. 11 (3): 253–266. doi:10.1386/jmpr.11.3.253_1. S2CID 191598793.

"Gathering in the orphans: Essay films and archives in the information age"

Libby, Jenn. "Foundling Films: Orphans 5: Science, Industry and Education", Afterimage (May/June 2006): 11.

Longo, Regina. (2007). "Fifth Orphan Film Symposium: Science, Industry, and Education". The Moving Image. 7: 92–94. :10.1353/mov.2007.0024. S2CID 194009607.

doi

Musser, Charles (2014). . Cinémas. 24 (2–3): 125–160. doi:10.7202/1025151ar.

"Discovering Union Films and Its Archives"

Musser, Charles. Foreword to Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema by Dan Streible (University of California Press, 2008), x–xvi.

“Orphans No More: Ephemeral Films and American Culture,” issue of the Journal of Popular Film and Television 37 (Fall 2009), ed. Elizabeth Heffelfinger and Heide Solbrig.

Devin Orgeron (2008). "Conference Report: Orphans Take Manhattan: The 6th Biannual Orphan Film Symposium, March 26–29, 2008, New York City". Cinema Journal. 48 (2): 114–118. :10.1353/cj.0.0086.

doi

“‘Orphan Films’ Course to Screen Eight Neglected Works at Guild,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23, 1979.

Berkeley Technology Law Journal 27.3 (2012): 1251-1550.

Orphan Works and Mass Digitization: Obstacles and Opportunities

Prelinger, Rick. The Field Guide to Sponsored Films. San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation, 2006.

Prelinger, Rick. "On the Virtues of Preexisting Material," , blog, May 30, 2007. Republished as "Prelinger Manifesto: On the Virtues of Preexisting Material," Enclosure of the Commons blog Feb. 23, 2010; and in Contents magazine no. 5 (2013).

Black Oyster Catcher

Prelinger, Rick, with Raegan Kelly. “Panorama Ephemera,” , vol. 2.

Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular

Ruffino, Paul. “Orphan Films: Neglecting Festival Jewels - The Forgotten Films,” OC Film Commission, Feb. 2012 www.orphanfilms.org

Schwartz, Eric J.; Williams, Matt. (2007). "Access to Orphan Works: Copyright Law, Preservation, and Politics". Cinema Journal. 46 (2): 139–145. :10.1353/cj.2007.0017.

doi

Streible, Dan (2013). "Orphan Films". Oxford Bibliographies. :10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0064.

doi

Streible, Dan. (2007). "The Role of Orphan Films in the 21st Century Archive". Cinema Journal. 46 (3): 124–128. :10.1353/cj.2007.0031.

doi

Streible, Dan. “Saving, Studying, and Screening: A History of the Orphan Film Symposium.” In Film Festival Yearbook 5: Archival Film Festivals. Edited by Alex Marlow-Mann (St. Andrews, UK: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2013), 163–76.

Dan Streible (2009). . The Moving Image. 9. doi:10.1353/mov.0.0024.

"The State of Orphan Films: Editor's Introduction"

Tynes, Teri. "*Gustav Deutsch and the Art of Found Footage.” Originally for Reframe (Tribeca Film Institute blog), May 6, 2009. .

footage.html Access via the filmmaker’s website

Van Gompel, Stef; Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (2010). "The Orphan Works Problem: The Copyright Conundrum of Digitizing Large-Scale Audiovisual Archives, and How to Solve It". Popular Communication. 8: 61–71. :10.1080/15405700903502361. S2CID 144805153.

doi

Wilson, Rachel. "Moving Pictures Around the World: The 7th Orphan Film Symposium," (2010).

Senses of Cinema, 55

Ziebell Mann, Sarah. “A Meditation on the Orphan, via the University of South Carolina Symposium,” AMIA Newsletter 47 (Winter 2000), 30, 33.

Orphan Film Symposium websites at New York University (Cinema Studies Dept., Tisch School of the Arts), and at the University of South Carolina (Film and Media Studies Program, College of Arts & Sciences), [2], including "What is an orphan film?" http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/orphanfilm.html. These sites include audio and video recordings of talks given at the symposia.

[1]

Internet Archive. Created May 3, 2010; last updated July 4, 2022. Audiovisual documentation generated at the Orphan Film Symposium and miscellaneous short orphan films and videos.