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Prelinger Archives
Amateur films are the least-preserved film format in America: shot on reversal stock, stored in attics, never copied. This target funds 4K scanning and colour correction of forty 16 mm reels from the 1930s Midwest — county fairs, harvests, Sunday drives — so they can be published on Popcorn under a public-domain mark.
U.S. National Archives (Motion Picture Preservation Lab)
Only the edited newsreels were ever released. The outtakes — long takes of home-front factories, V-E Day crowds, returning troop ships — survive as 35 mm negatives that have never been scanned. This target covers cleaning, 2K scanning and shot-list cataloguing for 200 reels, published as public-domain U.S. Government records.
Independent film archive (race films, 1920s–1940s)
Of the roughly 500 'race films' made for Black audiences between 1915 and 1950, fewer than a hundred survive. This target funds photochemical stabilisation and 4K wet-gate scanning of three shrunken, partly decomposed 35 mm reels, plus a scholarly reconstruction of the missing sequences from press stills and the shooting script.
Library of Congress (Paper Print Collection)
Before 1912 films could not be copyrighted, so studios deposited them as paper contact strips. The 1950s 16 mm copies made from them are soft and unsteady. This target pays for frame-by-frame 4K rephotography of sixty short actualities — street scenes, boxing bouts, trick films — producing sharp masters that anyone may reuse.
European regional film archive (newsreels, 1946–1960)
Many post-war newsreels on Europeana have crisp picture but crackling, half-audible narration because the variable-density optical tracks were scanned with picture scanners. This target funds a dedicated optical-sound re-scan and de-noise pass for 120 issues (1946–1960), and community-reviewed subtitles in five languages.
NASA / U.S. National Archives (Apollo onboard 16 mm)
The Apollo onboard footage most people know is a 1970s telecine of a duplicate. The original Ektachrome camera magazines, held in cold storage, have never been scanned at full resolution. This target funds 4K scanning of the Data Acquisition Camera magazines from the last three lunar landings, with frame-rate metadata preserved for scientific use.