what will the museum of the future be like?
Ethical Dilemma - Family Films that don't belong to your family!!!
I recently got hold of our family's Super 8 films from the 70s. When I had them digitised I found two films which had been sliced together. The problem was, they were someone else's family!!
I'm guessing that my dad (a massive hoarder/collector)must have picked them up at Trash and Treasure in Adelaide sometime in the past 30 years.
The films were taken in 1970 and 1971. The first film (1970) depicts a man returning to Italy to visit his family. It looks like southern Italy and is pretty rural. The second film (1971) depicts the man returning to his home (I'm guessing that it is the USA). He's brought his folks back with him and the film centres around their family activities. He's obviously quite well off, so much so that he's had a Fiat imported to the USA!
Someone took these films, spliced them together and made rudimentary titles, so they took care.
The films mattered to someone. Super 8s were expensive and they would be the only copies.
So what do I do with them?
I've thought of putting the digitised version onto YouTube and doing a shout out - is this your Family?
But what if my dad had picked up the film at Trash and Treasure because the family had a big row and threw the films away, never wanting to see them again?
What if they are the only records this family has, and somehow they lost them and would like them back?
I feel a great sense of responsibility knowing how much Super 8s mean to so many of us.
I genuinely have an ethical dilemma! What should I do?
I'm guessing that my dad (a massive hoarder/collector)must have picked them up at Trash and Treasure in Adelaide sometime in the past 30 years.
The films were taken in 1970 and 1971. The first film (1970) depicts a man returning to Italy to visit his family. It looks like southern Italy and is pretty rural. The second film (1971) depicts the man returning to his home (I'm guessing that it is the USA). He's brought his folks back with him and the film centres around their family activities. He's obviously quite well off, so much so that he's had a Fiat imported to the USA!
Someone took these films, spliced them together and made rudimentary titles, so they took care.
The films mattered to someone. Super 8s were expensive and they would be the only copies.
So what do I do with them?
I've thought of putting the digitised version onto YouTube and doing a shout out - is this your Family?
But what if my dad had picked up the film at Trash and Treasure because the family had a big row and threw the films away, never wanting to see them again?
What if they are the only records this family has, and somehow they lost them and would like them back?
I feel a great sense of responsibility knowing how much Super 8s mean to so many of us.
I genuinely have an ethical dilemma! What should I do?
Tags: 'family, 'super, 8', films'
Views: 18
- Attachments:
-
-
Unknown movie.mpg, 5.3 MB
-
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Regan Forrest on -
Hi Angelina,
I'm thinking an 'old school' approach may be a starting point - how about sending a letter to the Adelaide Advertiser describing what you have with any possible identifying details and see if anyone comes forward?
Good luck,
Regan
-
Permalink Reply by Angelina Russo on -
Hi Regan
Thanks for your response. You reminded me that the ABC have a program called 'can we help'. So I sent them the blog posting and perhaps they'll take it up. Alternatively, I'll try and put something into the paper before Xmas!
Ta!
-
Permalink Reply by Gareth Morlais on -
Nice to have a dilemma like this to consider Angelina.
I think publishing on YouTube is OK on the basis that you were able remove the material if there was a reason to do so in future. The benefits here probably outweigh the risks. Imagine you or your family are in this film and it was lost footage. You'd be delighted to be reunited with it via the internet. If you're still worried, you could just export a still image JPG and publish that in the paper with a 'do you know this person' appeal.
-
Permalink Reply by Angelina Russo on
-
Hi Gareth
Thanks for your response. I'm going to try a few avenues and with YouTube I'll create a thirty second 'show' and put out a call. I'll ask respondents whether they can identify the town, some of the people and provide some indication of what else might be visible in the rest of the film. If I can find the owner, then I'll send them the original Super8 and a digitized version and then I'll delete it from my files. What do you think?
-
Permalink Reply by davida de Hond on
-
I think that your intentions are good to begin with, so that makes your dilemma less of a back breaker. I think that posting the show would be a good idea, if and when you should find the, deleting would be a nice thing to do. Also identifying the town is a really good idea, maybe you can start narrowing it down.
What a discovery you have made, please keep us posted on what happend. Even if you don't succeed, you did your best to get it right.
Kind regads,
Davida
-
Permalink Reply by Eleonora Censorii on -
Hi, I do think that the first impulse would be to spend some time doing research to find out where the italian part was shot (I am italian so I guess that I presume that tracing that part would be easier, but not necessarily) but if you found no hints there it's tough. If the location was traceable you could post a message in local web sites, the municipality's web site, search Youtube or Flickr by location to find some active web users around there to contact. I would not worry so much about privacy in this case though, (even family rows often dilute in strenght with time), so i would not think that putting it in youtube would be offensive, if the reason was specified. Ithink it might be a little hard that someone found it without a geographical tag, though...any recognizable landmark? Sorry, I am a museum anthropologist with a few years of research experience in audiovisual and sound archives...I can't help this impulse for SEARCH :-)
Ciao
Eleonora
-
Permalink Reply by Angelina Russo on
-
Ciao Eleonora
Thanks for that!
It does sound as though the local areas are the ones I need to follow. That can be my Christmas project! In the meantime, I've taken the location shots out and edited them togethre here. Maybe it looks familiar?
Auguri
© 2013 Created by Lynda Kelly.
Powered by
