AP Restores Lost Historical Footage

NEW YORK: A wealth of historical footage that had been stored in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s former World War II headquarters has been resurrected by The Associated Press, which has plans to make the "lost archive" available in HD.

Twenty-thousand film cans containing 3,500 hours of international news footage have been hidden for decades underground in a Central London bunker. The films have been well preserved, however, the numerous pieces of text catalogue that accompanied them were scattered across various locations in the U.K. and U.S. The text catalogue identifies what footage is held in each film can.

The archive is from the United Press International Television News (UPITN), which was a major television news agency from the early ’60s to the mid ’80s. It went through several changes of ownership before being renamed WTN (World Television News), and its holdings were purchased by AP in 1998 as part of its acquisition of WTN.

AP’s footage business, AP Archive, has pieced together the scattered paper records to create an online text database. The films are being cleaned and restored by Laboratoires Éclair of Paris, and then transferred onto high-definition videotape for use by professional producers. AP Archive is also digitizing the films so that they can be viewed online via its website, aparchive.com. AP Archive will soon complete the first phase of the project, which represents half of the collection. Already, 17,000 stories from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s have been restored and digitized, with 700 stories being added each week.

This new color footage contains video of key political figures from the era as well as celebrities. In addition to coverage of the events and the people that shaped the ’60s and ’70s, the footage captures the mood of the period, documenting youth and popular culture—from hippies at music festivals and bizarre fashion shoots, to footage of protests and anti-war demonstrations.

“The range and quality of what we’re finding in this lost archive is breathtaking and it’s incredibly exciting to be unearthing new history in this way,” commented AP’s director of international archives, Alwyn Lindsey. “For filmmakers, the archive is a treasure chest of fresh footage that’s readily available in HD and no longer do they have to rely on the same shots that may have been used by other producers dozens, or even hundreds of times before.”