Women Film Pioneers Project

Women Film Pioneers Project is a freely accessible, collaborative,[1] online-only database resource,[2][3] produced with support from Columbia University.

Development

Women Film Pioneers Project (OCLC 860910596) was founded in 1993, by Jane Gaines,[4][5][6] a film scholar and visiting professor at Vassar College, when Gaines joined the Film & Media Studies Program at Columbia University, officially launching in October 2013[7][8][9][10][11] as an online-only resource, produced in partnership with Columbia University Libraries, with support from Columbia University, School of the Arts, Film Program.[12][13][14]

Resources

Individual profiles[15][16][17] rely on primary documents,[18][19] digitized resources, film prints, paper collections, government records, other archival materials, and family recollections and memoirs.[20][21]

Overview essays are longer, peer-reviewed, essays that go beyond a single individual.[20][22]

Management

By 2016, Kate Saccone had become Project Manager.[23][24][25][26][27][28]

Contributors

Contributors,[29] among the more than 200, include:

Critical reception

"It wasn’t until a wave of scholarship arrived in the nineteen-nineties—the meticulous research done by the Women Film Pioneers Project, at Columbia, has been particularly important—that women’s outsized role in the origins of moviemaking came into focus again."—Margaret Talbot[40]

"The Women Film Pioneers Project at Columbia University must be credited with undertaking and compiling much of the research to date."—Melody Bridges and Cheryl Robson[41][42][43]

"There is criminally little research and writing on the often astounding careers of female editors. The same might well be said about many of their male counterparts, since most editors do tend to be unseen artists. Yet men came to dominate the field by the late 1920s and continue that hegemony today. Recent historians’ efforts have reclaimed some attention for many female filmmakers, especially in the area of silent film studies. The Women Film Pioneers Project at Columbia University (wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu) is one of the best. Through efforts like this it is now well known that many women played central roles in the founding of the film industry."—Betsy A. McLane[44]

Further reading

See also

References

  1. ^ "Digital Humanities Cinema Projects". Transformations Conference. 16 March 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2022. The Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP) is a freely accessible, collaborative online database that showcases the hundreds of women who worked behind-the-scenes in the silent film industry as directors, producers, editors, and more. Women Film Pioneers is published by Columbia University Libraries' Center for Digital Research and Scholarship.
  2. ^ Golomb, Liorah. "Film and Media Studies: Websites". LibGuides. University of Oklahoma. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  3. ^ Frost, Kelly. "Film & Media Research Guide: Start Here". Research Guides. Kalamazoo College. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  4. ^ "Jane Gaines". American Film Showcase. Retrieved 21 April 2022. © Copyright 2022 USC School of Cinematic Arts (This is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government, administered by USC).
  5. ^ Jesson, Claire (1 December 2019). "Jane M. Gaines, Pink-Slipped: What Happened to Women in the Silent Film Industries? Kristen Anderson Wagner, Comic Venus: Women and Comedy in American Silent Film. Maggie Hennefeld, Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes". Screen. 60 (4): 624–628. doi:10.1093/screen/hjz044. It has been over twenty-five years since the Women Film Pioneers Project was founded by Jane M. Gaines, whose latest book, Pink-Slipped: What Happened to Women in the Silent Film Industries?, sets out to push the 'reset' button on feminist film historiography.
  6. ^ "Jane Gaines". Center for Comparative Media. Columbia University. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  7. ^ Renée, V (20 October 2013). "New Resource Gives an Exhaustive History of Female Filmmakers During the Birth of Film". No Film School. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  8. ^ "5 Highlights from Women Film Pioneers Project: African-American Women in Silent Film, Women Camera Operators and More". IndieWire. 15 October 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  9. ^ Coster, Ramzi De (10 October 2013). "A New Online Compendium Provides Evidence of the Many Women Who Worked in Film in Its Silent Era". IndieWire. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  10. ^ Ismail, Nadia (29 October 2013). "Women Film Pioneers Project: Ready for More Than a Close-Up | Filmmaker Magazine". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  11. ^ "Lost Visionaries of the Silent Screen: Highlights from the Women Film Pioneers Project". UChicago Arts. University of Chicago. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  12. ^ "Editorial Team and Acknowledgments". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  13. ^ "About the Project". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  14. ^ "Women Film Pioneers Project". Women's Film and Television History Network - UK/Ireland. 16 September 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2022. See the list of women pioneers that need a researcher. WFTHN focuses on British and Irish women working in the UK/Ireland or abroad and on overseas women working here. It is affiliated to Women & Film History International and encourages British and Irish contributions to international initiatives such as the Women Film Pioneers Database, the biennial international Women and Silent Screen conferences and the women's television conference, Consoling Passions. WFTHN is not based in a single institution but collaborates with a range of professional and academic organizations, archival collections and websites relevant to women's filmmaking and television production such as the Women and Silent British Cinema (WSBC) website, Screenonline, the British Film Institute, The Women's Library, WiFT (UK) and so on.
  15. ^ Cutler, Aaron. "Reviewed - Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology". Cineaste Magazine. A six-disc Blu-ray/DVD dual format edition. Total running time of 652 min. A Flicker Alley release.
  16. ^ Hawkins, Chelsea. "11 Female Film Pioneers Who Paved the Road to Hollywood". Mic (media company). 2014-03-07. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  17. ^ F, Frank (22 July 2021). "Groundbreaking Female Filmmakers Of Early Hollywood". Grunge.com. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  18. ^ Rambova (2014-09-20). "Nazimova in Columbia University's Women Film Pioneers Project". Alla Nazimova Society. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  19. ^ Horne, Jennifer (2013). "Alla Nazimova". Women Film Pioneers Project. doi:10.7916/d8-ws0b-qz98. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  20. ^ a b "How to Use This Resource". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  21. ^ "Pioneer Profiles". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  22. ^ "Overview Essays". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  23. ^ Saccone, Kate (11 March 2016). "Reclaiming Early Film History: The Women Film Pioneers Project". agnès films. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  24. ^ "Kate Saccone, Author". Bright Wall/Dark Room. Retrieved 21 April 2022. Kate Saccone is a freelance writer based in NYC. For her day job, she's the Project Manager of the Women Film Pioneers Project at Columbia University.
  25. ^ "Lost Visionaries of the Silent Screen: Highlights from the Women Film Pioneers Project". UChicago Arts. University of Chicago. November 11, 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2022. Kate Saccone is the Project Manager of the Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP), edited by Jane Gaines (Columbia University). She holds a Master of Arts in Film Studies from Columbia University (2013) and a Bachelor of Arts in Screen Studies from Clark University (2011). In New York City, she has helped organize screenings devoted to the work of early female filmmakers at places like the Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, and Columbia University.
  26. ^ "September – 2016". Women Film Pioneers Project. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  27. ^ Saccone, Kate (25 August 2020). "Digital (Re)Visions: May Watkis and the Women Film Pioneers Project". Modernism/modernity. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  28. ^ Bastin, Sarah. "Reclaiming Film History: An Interview with Women Film Pioneers Project Manager Kate Saccone". Flicker Alley. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  29. ^ "Contributors". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  30. ^ "Sofia Bull". Film. University of Southampton. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  31. ^ Bull, Sofia (2014). "Alva Lundin". Women Film Pioneers Project. doi:10.7916/d8-326g-2n79. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  32. ^ Pearlman, Karen; Heftberger, Adelheid (10 August 2018). "Recognising Women's Work as Creative Work". Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe (6). doi:10.17892/app.2018.0006.124. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  33. ^ Gaines, Jane; Vatsal, Radha. "How Women Worked in the US Silent Film Industry". Women Film Pioneers Project. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  34. ^ "Margaret Hennefeld". College of Liberal Arts. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  35. ^ "Professor Kathy Fuller-Seeley publishes overview essay for Columbia University Women Film Pioneers Project". Radio, Television and Film. University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  36. ^ Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn; Mahar, Karen Ward. "Exhibiting Women: Gender, Showmanship, and the Professionalization of Film Exhibition in the United States, 1900–1930". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  37. ^ "Shelley Stamp: Professor of Film + Digital Media". University of California, Santa Cruz. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  38. ^ Stamp, Shelley. "Lois Weber". Women Film Pioneers Project. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  39. ^ "Xin Peng's essay on Yan Shanshan now available on Women Film Pioneer Project". Cinema & Media Studies. University of Washington. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  40. ^ Talbot, Margaret (24 October 2019). "The Women Who Helped Build Hollywood". The New Yorker. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  41. ^ "'Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema' Explores Film's Female Trailblazers". Women and Hollywood. November 16, 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2022. Book excerpt from the introduction of "Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema"
  42. ^ "Silent women: pioneers of cinema". Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Retrieved 21 April 2022. Collection of chapters focusing on female writers, directors, producers, stars, editors and cinematographers from the silent era of film, edited by Melody Bridges and Cheryl Robson. Contents: Introduction / Melody Bridges and Cheryl Robson; 1. Girl from God's country: the history of women in film and other war stories / Karen Day; 2. Early African-American female filmmakers / Aimee Dixon Anthony; 3. The silent producer: women filmmakers who creatively controlled the silent era of cinema / Pieter Aquilia; 4. Women were writing: beyond melodrama and hot house romances / Patricia Di Risio; 5. Doing it all: women's on- and off-screen contributions to European silent film / Julie K. Allen; 6. Female legends of the silver screen / Melody Bridges; 7. Directors from the dawn of Hollywood / Francesca Stephens. Images 8. Interview with director Dorothy Arzner / Kevin Brownlow; 9. Women film editors from silent to sound / Tania Field; 10. Who was the first female cinematographer in the world? / Ellen Cheshire; 11. When the woman shoots: ladies behind the silent horror film camera / K. Charlie Oughton; 12. Critics, reformers and educators: film culture as a feminine sphere / Shelley Stamp; 13. U.S. women directors: the road ahead / Maria Giese.
  43. ^ Brownlow, Kevin; Stamp, Shelley; Day, Karen; Giese, Maria; Aquilia, Pieter; di Risio, Patricia; Dixon, Bryony (2016). Bridges, Melody; Robson, Cheryl (eds.). Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema. Twickenham: Supernova Books. ISBN 978-0-9566329-9-9.
  44. ^ McLane, Betsy A. (2 December 2016). "Early on, a Woman's Place Was in the Cutting Room". CineMontage. Motion Picture Editors Guild. Retrieved 21 April 2022.