WFSA Grant Making Movies Project

Today soon becomes the past and this exciting project from Wessex Film and Sound Archive looks to collect current amateur films of every day and document the Hampshire experience of Covid-19 What an amateur filmmaker in the past chose to record with their precious cine camera can tell us a lot about their background, but also the world in which they lived.     Making History: Making Movies is a two-year project that aims to reconnect with the amateurs of the early 20^th century, reflect on what can be learnt from their filmmaking, and feed this into a crowdsourcing project to boost contemporary accessions to the collections. This creates a new raft of modern material that enhances audiences’ understanding of archives and their relevance today while recording an exceptional period in history. The original aim was to hone in on the ‘every day and the mundane to enhance the overall quality of contemporary collecting. In light of the COVID-19 crisis, there is a need to actively collect material right now, as a means of cathartic recording, but also in the creation of a historical record of the pandemic – history from the bottom up. It is intended to screen some of the material collected but this will be towards the later stages of the project. Part of Hampshire Record Office, Wessex Film and Sound Archive holds over 22,000 cine films and video recordings, and over 16,000 sound recordings. The collection includes items from a variety of sources, each offering a unique insight into the region’s past. The WFSA region covers Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The cine film and video footage comprise professional, amateur, and documentary film, research, advertising and newsreel footage of local interest, dating from 1897 onwards. The sound recordings include oral history, local radio, gramophone discs and local music tapes, and digital audio files. You can access a selection of WFSA’s archives  channel HERE