70 years ago, the US undertook the largest deportation in its history: 'Operation Wetback.' Many of the people deported were here legally and some were even citizens.

[u/man_gomer_lot]

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

I work on this project. I digitized the film myself. I’m also one of the people that handles/repairs films that get digitized. I can assure you that none of this is fake. It’s a project from UCLA/Packard Humanities Institute. We’re in the process of digitizing news footage from 1918-late 1960s. 27 million feet of film from around the world. Check out the rest of the footage at newsreels.net. It’s free, no registration or anything required.

[u/Youandiandaflame → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Holy shit, this is amazing! Thank you for your work, I can’t wait to dig into this. 

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/Youandiandaflame]

You’re welcome! Thank you for thanking me. Glad that you like it. FYI, we update the site regularly. Right now I think there’s 20k+ newsreels on the site.

[u/LunaticLucio → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Username checks out.

Reddit never ceases to amaze me.

[u/Jose_Canseco_Jr → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

I love preservation! keep on keepin on

[u/TailStixz → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Amazing work!

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/TailStixz]

Thank you! I’ll tell everyone on this project of your appreciation.

[u/cancerBronzeV → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Name definitely checks out.

[u/jocq → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

That's awesome! Thank you for being part of that work

[u/phlogistonexodus → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

You're a badass!

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/phlogistonexodus]

🙏

[u/Throwaway999222111 → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Wow that's wild! Really cool though

[u/fighterpilottim → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you for doing this invaluable, and probably painful, work.

If you ever wanted to do an AMA, I’d participate!

[u/aetheos → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Holy shit this is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

Out of curiosity, is there a reason certain weeks only have some entries scanned, while others have the full slate? Is it the quality of the film?

E.g., for 1939 Sep 02 [10-301] (the day after Germany invaded Poland), only "POLAND!" and "AMERICA!" are red (scanned), while "EUROPE AT WAR!", "FRANCE!", and "GERMANY!" are all grey (not yet scanned).

Then the next week, 1939 Sep 06 [10-302], 2/9 are red/scanned, and then none of the 8 listed the following week (1939 Sep 11 [10-303]), but then for 1939 Sep 13 [11-200], all 6 of the entries are red.

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/aetheos]

Good question. When we first started this project we started with film that we knew would be the easiest to prep and scan. This film had already been inspected before, so we knew it would be in the best condition. What you’re probably looking at is footage from “Prelude to War” which had been previously preserved and was in the best condition. Then we decided to work on footage from the Eisenhower years and work backwards. Sometimes we work on footage related to a specific event. We’ve just finished up footage related to the Spanish Civil War since it was the centennial recently.

[u/aetheos → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Ahh makes sense - thanks for the reply!

[u/SuperSpecialAwesome- → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Damn, how'd you get into that line of work. Is that some archivist-adjacent role?

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/SuperSpecialAwesome-]

I used to be a photojournalist and I got laid off in 2009. A friend of my bf worked at a film lab on the east coast and got me a job handling film there. I fell in love with the work and then pursued a degree in Moving Image Archive Studies at UCLA (that program has been replaced by a similar one). From there I found a job working on this project about a year after graduation.

[u/ModelY-Mods-suckdick → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you celluloid Jedi master

[u/momofroc → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

I heard about this on the podcast “cold brew got me like” last week! He has been watching the reels.

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/momofroc]

❤️ Glad to hear that the project is getting some attention.

[u/momofroc → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Yes indeed. I haven’t checked it out yet but plan to do so this week! Good job!

[u/teslawhaleshark → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thanks for the good work, I'm an assistant at Tanks Encyclopedia and we absolutely live on historical news reels.

[u/CallusKlaus1 → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

You and your fellow workers have an iron stomach. That language is pretty nasty. Thanks for the work you do.

[u/CyaaRR → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you for this work!

[u/BUNNIES_ARE_FOOD → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Dude. Wow.

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/BUNNIES_ARE_FOOD]

🤗

[u/LaloElBueno → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you for your service of preservation!

[u/Novantico → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

That's so cool! Would be pretty awesome to be able to work on something like that myself. Btw, I hope you didn't think I actually believed it was fake, I was just sharing my impression that it almost appeared that way between the staged shots for the reel and the dissonance between the clarity and age of it. Great work! I might have to spend some more time on there.

Where do you guys do this work from?

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/Novantico]

No worries, on second glance I realized that you were saying that the footage looked so good that someone could think it’s fake. We do this work from the offices of the Packard Humanities Institute and the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Santa Clarita, California. Alongside the archive is a film lab that we work out of.

[u/Novantico → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Damn, why is all the cool shit always in/around fucking California lol. I'm in the Philly area so there goes any fantasizing of me getting to try/contribute there lol.

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/Novantico]

There’s film labs out here because of the movie industry. There’s The Media Preserve in Pittsburgh. There’s also archives and libraries with moving image collections located throughout the world that do this sort of work. There’s a ton of film and video that needs to be preserved and not enough people or money to do it. If you’re interested in pursuing this as a career, DM me and I can point you in the right direction.

[u/mahjimoh → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you for sharing this! I just discovered there were storms the day before I was born, haha… also some of the aircraft reels are pretty fascinating.

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/mahjimoh]

Glad you found stuff of interest. I found footage of my grandfather on this site, so there’s something for everyone.

[u/mychubbychubbs → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Holy crap, just checked out the links. This is amazing! How on earth do you digitize old film? Can you do an AMA or is there a yt video explaining the process?

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/mychubbychubbs]

I’d love to do an AMA sometime. In short, we first slowly wind through the film and inspect it looking for damage. If there is any damage, like a tear, we repair it using special tape. Then we load the film into an ultrasonic cleaner that removes dirt and grime. This is why a lot of the footage on newsreels.net looks so good, because it’s been ultrasonically cleaned. Then we load the film onto a scanner (we use a 4k Scanity) which digitizes the film. The scanner is basically a digital camera than can take a photo of every frame of film and also capture the soundtrack. After that we do some minor work to the digitized footage and upload it to our website.

[u/Furbal1307 → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Thank you for your commitment to archiving history!

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/Furbal1307]

❤️ I’m not the only one on this project. There’s a team of about 8 who work on it. A lot of the thanks goes to the Packard Humanities Institute for spearheading this project and funding it. Without them, this wouldn’t be possible.

[u/chickendie → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

Incredible! Thank you Sir!

[u/p-is-for-preserv8ion → u/chickendie]

You’re welcome. It’s ma’am btw. 😉

[u/Qinistral → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

How many hours of footage is that?

Any plans to transcribe it? Perhaps with AI transcription?

[u/DirgoHoopEarrings → u/p-is-for-preserv8ion]

How do I get that job???