Close Readings: Symposium on Amateur Films Saturday, July 27 and Sunday, July 28 Contact: Dwight Swanson at 207 469-0924. Intimate records on film offer a road map to understanding the past and its connection to the present in Close Readings: Seeing Amateur Films in Important Ways at Northeast Historic Film, the moving image archives in Bucksport, Maine, July 27 and 28. Aimed at anyone interested in home movies and their cultural significance, the symposium will be moderated by Mark Neumann and Rick Prelinger. Among presenters will be filmmaker and home movie expert Jeffrey Ruoff, Film & Television Studies, Dartmouth College, editor of the current "Travelogues and Travel Films," issue of Visual Anthropology. Rick Prelinger, of Prelinger Archives in San Francisco, a proponent of public access to cultural resources, will talk about the potential the Internet offers film archives and their users. Prelinger Archives, which has the world's largest privately held collection of 20th-century American advertising, educational, industrial and amateur films, is already doing it with 995 titles through a partnership with the Internet Moving Images Archive (www.archive.org). The films are playable on PCs equipped with the appropriate hardware and software. In his presentation, "Amateur Film, Copyright and New Media," Prelinger will talk about why giving up total control of access benefits archives in the long run. Through its arrangement, Prelinger Archives has mounted its material online at little cost, received immeasurable free publicity, and formed beneficial business relationships. Martha McNamara, University of Maine historian, will present "Investigating Authenticity," a look at the interpretation of moving images. McNamara asks her Maine history students to compare From Stump to Ship, a film about logging practices shot for the Machias Lumber Company in 1930, and Woodsmen and River Drivers, a 1985 documentary featuring interviews with many of the men who appear in the earlier movie. The later film includes a woman's voice in the mill's former bookkeeper, as well as perspective of some contemporary loggers. MOREā¦ Close Readings: Symposium on Amateur Films 2 Student opinions on which film tells a more compelling story about early 20th century always vary, and that is the point. "My students' lives are completely saturated with moving images," McNamara says. "I want to teach a basic visual literacy. They need to be able to apply to these moving images the skills most of us bring to reading. I want them to ask, who made this image and why? What was their goal? What are they trying to convince me to believe?" Barbara Greenstone, Technology Literacy Integrator at Mt. Ararat Middle School in Topsham, Maine, will explore how students can use moving images to gain to a deeper understanding of their community's past and present. "These kids took videos apart and really had to think about what the footage meant," Greenstone said. "It was much more meaningful than if they had just watched a movie." Her presentation is in the context of Maine's commitment to supply a laptop computer (with video editing software installed) for each 7th and 8th grader. Lunch is provided for Symposium registrants Saturday and Sunday. The cost for the program is $50 for two days; includes coffee breaks, lunches, welcome & screening of From Stump to Ship: A 1930 Logging Film on Friday, July 26 at 4:30. p.m. A printable registration form is available on the Northeast Historic Film website, www.oldfilm.org, or call 207 469-0924. The program is supported in part by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council. ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu