Elaine Patton, 8/30/12: The Last KHOU Reels

No more KHOU after this. It's been interesting! Today's batch included:

• Box 7206, reel 24
• Box 7208, reel 16
• Box 7401, reel 24
• Box 7503, reel 26

Difficulties:
The third file (7401-24) seemed to be completely out of order relative to the finding aid titles. In a way, this is more complicated than simply having some extra, untitled clips included, since I have to watch everything once through first to see if it ever gets back on track with the finding aid. I then proceeded to watch again to write out descriptions which I finally tried matching up to titles. Unfortunately, there isn't always a clear connection between clips and their titles (which themselves can be erroneous, up to and including spelling errors). Worse, one of the titles on the finding aid was "[]," i.e. no title given. It also threw off my pairings because with that title-less title, I had 3 slots and only 2 descriptions remaining. (I'm guessing that maybe there was something that was supposed to be 2 clips but that I interpreted as/were erroneously smushed together (y'know, to use the technical term) into one segment.)

Several of the clips were sort of vague and narratively choppy as well; by which I mean there tended to be not much context for some of the segments and the footage tended to skip around through conversations and events a bit, making it harder to summarize while still adequately describing.

It was also a wee bit annoying when the sound could be so washed out when people were actually speaking while other clips, whose only sound was ambient construction noise or such, could be so loud and clear. Unhelpful audio, boo.

Interesting highlights:

7206-24, Chris Wilson (left) interview with reporter

CW: "... They can lose a lot of things-- a woman can lose her beauty, a man can lose his hair, [laughs] you know--"
"Please don't say that."
CW: "[laughs] Oh, it was just something I threw in."
"Just something that came to you, sure."



In 7208-16, two clips in a row (both from 6/30/72, apparently) reference airplane hijackings. In "Lafitte," regarding an excavation of the pirate's Galveston house, the reporter on the scene makes a comment about living in "an age where the only piracy we have happens 30,000 feet above the ground." The subsequent untitled clip about a cross-country airplane race includes one participant commenting on the safety of single-engine aircraft, her partner joking, "And we don't have hijackings."

Fun first-person POV of "Dexter Frebish's Electric Roller Ride" at Astroworld in 7208-16 "Astroworld Ride." Also, how would you like to ride a roller coaster while toting a 1970s-era news camera?

"The steak, chicken, and roast beef campaign trail has begun. For many candidates, it'll be seven days a week, eating out at dinners, trying to acquire more votes. But our survey shows that many of the candidates are sending the desserts back. They're afraid by the time the election gets here, they may have gained more pounds than votes." - 7401-24, [who knows which actual title]

From the dentist convention in 7503-26:

What.

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - Aug 29, 2012

Today I finished three more KHOU reels from boxes 6903.26, 7112.02 and 7202.11. Only found a few problems with some clips missing their titles and another clip with really poor audio quality.

Elaine Patton, KHOU Reels, 8/23/12

Today I worked on:

• Box 6904, reels 8, 24, & 26 (~1969)
• Box 7103, reel 12 (~1971)
• Box 7106, reel 5 (~1971)

No real difficulties today: one untitled clip came at the end of a reel, and I noticed that 6904-08 had a clip title on the finding aid that hadn't been, ahem, updated to be more politically correct.

Items of interest:

Apparently even in 1969 (6904-08, "Extorsion[sic] Attempt") police were not in the habit of donning gloves to handle bloody crime scene evidence. The suspect was dead (hence the evidence being 'bloody'), sure, but then there's the consideration of blood-borne diseases. Nonetheless a detective (you can see blood on his fingertips) picks up a ski mask bare-handed. Also of interest: he's picking it up just to hold it up for the camera. Allow me to add here that the suspect shot himself in the head. Surprisingly macabre news-reporting, really.

Creepy in a different way: Halloween '69 celebrations for a group of kids (6904-26, "Airforce[]"). Not because of the costumes or decorations or any such thing. Instead, there is a near-constant overlay of kids' laughter, including when there's no children obviously laughing. Kids solemnly picking at their cake? Giggles. Being rounded up while trick-or-treating? Giggles.

Maybe the sound is just slightly out-of-sync; maybe it's because there's only one or two moments where you can actually see a child's face as they smile/laugh. Maybe I'm just inclined to notice creepiness based on the Halloween motif. Still, I found it eerie.

Fireworks stands apparently reached their developmental peak in at least the early '70s and stopped changing (7106-05 ,"Fireworks"):

In 7106-05, "Russians Visit Dome," you can see a couple men in suits look ridiculous as they try to play soccer with a baseball, apparently.

And finally, from the Vintage Style File:

7103-12, "Bill Sanford - Car Fatal"

Very '60s. Seen walking around in the background of the two clips relating to a fatal traffic accident. It's hard to see in a still image, but her dress also includes a (well-camouflaged) men's tie.

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - Aug 22, 2012

Completed KHOU reels for 6902.19 and 6903.20 and 6903.24. There were only three small clips without titles from the finding aid. Everything else was as usual.

The very first clip on 6902.19 was of a murder/robbery and once again they filmed the bloody dead body. On the next reel, there was yet another clip of a murder scene and it also included footage of the bloody murdered victim.  On the last reel, 6903.24, there was a clip from a car accident and they showed the accident victim as usual but that time there was a white sheet covering the body (thankfully).  Since I find it really disturbing to see images like that on the news, I’m really glad they don’t display that kind of content on the news coverage today.

One highlight--on the last reel, there was Frank Sinatra in the AstroDome reading a letter from President Nixon.

KHOU Reels, Elaine Patton, 8/16/12

Today's items: (Edited to add links to the videos online!)

• Box 6502, reel 08 [possibly actually 6502-03] (~1965?)
• Box 6803, reels 14 & 19 (1968)
• Box 6901, reels 13 & 28 (1969)

Right off the bat, something both interesting and problematic (problematic in two separate ways): the clip labeled 6502-08 a) opened with footage of a KKK rally, complete with cross-burning, which b)was the entirety of that file, despite 6502-08 having many other items listed on the finding aid, none of which included Klan footage. 6502-03, however, is a single-clip listing on the finding aid for "CBS KKK." (Possibly from CBS's 1965 report KKK: the Invisible Empire.)  Nonetheless, it was interesting to watch. There were young children in attendance (the Klan had an audience), and I can't help but wonder how they turned out. Also, the audible part of the speech shown seemed to one big "it's a conspiracy (by the Communists) against the South!"-style demagoguing.

Not just silly costumes but silly neckties, too.

6901-28 also had a title for which there was no footage. I initially presumed the more typical situation of untitled clips being inserted until I noticed that they matched the titles of clips that came after the missing one.

Highlights:
6803-19 ("Mayor") showed Mayor Welch answering reporters' questions, one of which asked his opinion on some recent protests in Chicago, apparently being carried out by hippies ("wearing the flowers and the signs"). His response included the unintentionally humorous : "I never knew that there was as many people in the world who hadn't bathed as were present in the lobby of the hotel..."

On that note, a scene from a "Hippy Wedding" (6803-19): 

And finally, the Hairstyle of the Week (since it seems I always make note of the hairstyles):

(6901-13) She reminds me of the one-shot Doctor Who character Foon Van Hoff.

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - Aug 15 2012

Today I completed three more film reels from 6902: 21, 27 and 32. There were no major problems and only two segments had no clear titles.

Elaine Patton, 8/9/12, KHOU Reels

The Sixties!

Today included KHOU footage from... (Edited to include links to the uploaded videos!)

• Box 6904, reels 2, 7, & 21
• Box 7001, reels 8 & 14
• Box 7002, reel 7

Literally only a couple of untitled clips in this bunch. The only other atypical thing was 7001-14 having some out-of-place sound in the blank space between some of the clips.

Highlights:
I was also struck once again (while watching  the 6904-07 clip on Mrs. Tinsley) just how bad cameras, production values, lighting, etc. were in the '60s. Last week, there were a couple of segments on the Texas Legislature, and I thought surely the Capitol had lost power and they were conducting business by flashlight due to the spotlight from the camera and the relative dimness of the rest of the room. A couple of examples of what I'm referring to:

Gov. Preston Smith was referred to as "Goober Smith" in the title of a clip from 7001-08, which I think is funny, though I'm unsure if it's used as a nickname or a pun on "gubernatorial."

7001-08: What a strange background for a press conference, Mr. Bush.

7001-14 brings us the clip titled "Pool," which lacked sound and became almost artfully surreal. It was mostly random shots of people playing pool, but there was also: a random scene of bowling interjected in the middle, lingering shots of balls rolling across the felt, a prolonged shot of a mounted deer head (made eerie by the lighting phenomenon described above), and, perhaps most strangely of all, footage of a couple of men's shoes...not doing anything interesting, just standing still while the camera filmed them from the thigh down.


And finally, from 7002-07, another wonderful example of a bygone hairstyle:

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - August 8,2012

Today I finished three more KHOU reels from 7001.02, -.05, and -.07. There were no problems with any of them since all the titles matched the segments.

I was surprised to see one clip that showed a major car accident where someone died on the scene. Unlike the current way the news covers accidents by only showing the damaged cars that are involved, this particular clip had images of the actual deceased person still in the mangled wrecked car. It was certainly a reminder that some things can be too graphic for general newscasts.

KHOU reels - Elaine Patton, 8/2/2012

Today I worked on KHOU reels from...

• Box 6902, reels 1, 5, & 18
• Box 6903, reels 15, 17, & 18

 Pretty smooth batch with only a couple clips that weren't titled (but they were clearly distinguishable and even had sound to help describe what was happening).

Some highlights:

• Creepy animal mascots at Astroworld, 1969. (6903-15)

• Also from 6903-15, a choppy clip from some official description of post-moon-landing procedure, showing the bedrooms the astronauts would stay in until they could be certified clean as well as some description about the moon rock analysis.
• Another from 6903-15 (good reel, I suppose!): a female reporter (first I've seen in my batches, not that the reporters themselves are often shown) is interviewing a man about accidents on a freeway. When he ends up facing the freeway (and therefore not the camera), she actually reaches out and physically turns him around. Absolutely innocuous, yet I was suddenly struck by how often that exact thing seems to never occur in any modern broadcasts.
•  
What you (don't) see here is Marlene Dietrich putting her hand against the camera to keep it from filming her as she walks through the airport concourse.
• In 6903-18, a party celebrating Apollo 11's splashdown is shown. The only bit of sound comes from an interview with a man who talks about the future of the space program, including a Mars mission in the 1980s. Oh, the optimism.
• And from 6902-01, a man in a bow tie describes the excessive packaging on consumer goods (in 1969) contributing to waste. How familiar!

Elaine Patton, 07/26/12

Today I did just a couple of KHOU reels (edited to add links to uploaded videos):

• Box 6901, reels 06 & 18.

Very straightforward with no difficulties except for trying to check/verify the few names given in the titles to try to establish their identities in the clips. Two stand-out scenes for me:

06: Leftover painted Christmas trees in a surreal array of color

18: Standing in front of Dr. Cooley is a nurse with a massive hairdo, 
dutifully covered by a surgical cap. 
I'm just amused at how alien-headed she looks, really.

 The other task for the day was something new: newly digitized footage from 1935 taken by Orris Brown. The original reels are now no more, having had only one play left in their lifespan which was used up to digitize them. It's very awesome. I viewed:

•  the fourth (reel 4, part 1, part 2) and tenth reels (reel 10, part 1, part 2)

#4 concerned the Houston flood of 1935, which was nicely topical in light of the recent flooding in northwest Houston.

Downtown Houston flood damage... looks like WW2 photos after a bombing.

It was a little difficult to match titles to scenes, and the only way any of them made sense was if I rearranged the title order. The titles given didn't do many clips justice which deserve their own bookmark in the footage (by dint of being both interesting and unique to its immediate neighbors), in my opinion at least, so I threw in many more time cues (ditto that for #10). The second part of the first reel was dedicated to advertisements, introducing a sponsor and their location by title card, then following up with some footage from around the business. I loved the scenes of the customers being served at the markets as well as the gas station (15 cents/gallon!). Just so very slice-of-life.

Flashbacks to O Brother, Where Art Thou? for some reason.

Also, I didn't really think about it until now, but there's a very good reason, I suppose, why the "funeral church" only briefly showed exterior shots of the building along with the owner and nothing else.

#10 was, basically, scenes from a road trip to New Orleans, with most of the footage being from NOLA itself. The only real challenge here was incomplete titles throwing off my geographical identification. The first few headings, from when Brown was still en route, are: Lake Charles, New Iberia, and Sugar Cane Harvesting (probably in the New Iberia area). Unfortunately, there's a lingering shot of a church I figured out was in Lafayette, LA, which had no mention (it was also preceded by another building I wasn't able to identify at all, unfortunately). It's interesting how little has changed, at least in the French Quarter.

All in all, though, I think it went pretty smoothly once I got the hang of it. I approached the Brown reels by watching them all the way through to get a feel for them (since they aren't as consistently and obviously divided up the way the KHOU reels are), and I actually ended up working sort of backwards, simply because the later clips were more straightforward than the very first (depicting the floods, which I already noted didn't match up with the given headings very well).

Elaine Patton 7/19/2012

More KHOU reels! (Edited to add links to uploaded videos!) Specifically,

• Box 6601, reels 20 & 22; 
• Box 6602, reels 01, 04, & 07,
• Box 6701, reel 23
• Box 6901, reels 02 & 03

...which unfortunately were largely left over from last week when I ended up leaving early to beat the potential flooding near home.

One neat clip came from 6602-01, labeled "T-9 Films": I was trying to figure out what space mission was being depicted (none of them were named T-9 so far as I can tell, so I'm not sure where that title came from) when I found this video on YouTube to confirm the Gemini 9 mission. The footage in the KHOU reel is much prettier (higher resolution + color), but it was fun watching the two side-by-side for comparison purposes:

6901-03 brings us evidence that the toothbrush moustache was not completely outré in 1969:

A curiosity: I had a much greater mix of color to black-and-white footage this time, even within the same reels. I wonder if that was just how they were archived (or that's just what survived being archived or not) or if news programs back in the '60s actually broadcast a blend of production styles.

Difficulties this week: A lot of the clips did not have sound to give any context whatsoever, so I ended up with several summaries along the lines of "meeting in progress" or "firefighters at work." Not so great, but without any particularly unique clues, there's only so much to work with.

6701-23 was also a little mixed up, made more confusing by having one untitled clip right after a couple of other clips that didn't really have anything in common with the titles that they would correspond to. Sometimes when that happens it's simply a matter of the clips being out of order and it's possible to match things up properly, but in this case, it seems everything was in the right place...just not sensibly titled.

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - July 18, 2012

Today I completed four more KHOU reels for boxes 6601.17, 6905.02, 6905.10, and 6905.11.

There was nice footage of the astronauts and the historic Apollo landing on the moon!

KHOU reels, Michelle Godfrey - July 11, 2012

Today I worked on 4 more KHOU reels: 7002.29, 7003.04 and 16, and 7004.28. Some of the titles for the clips were missing or listed in the wrong order.

There was an interesting mix of content including fires, street flooding, a bank robbery, and interviews with politicians Geo. Bush and Lloyd Bentsen. For me, the most memorable clips would be what I found to be disturbing footage from a Klan rally and another showing tainted Halloween candy.