In San Francisco state, we realized that unique local 16 millimeter news, film and documentaries
produced in the Bay Area during typically the social upheaval and change in the 1960's,
which were nationally important, were being either destroyed by local T.V.
Stations.
Don't want to neglect it because they have neither the budget nor perhaps the interest
to do the preservation work with them.
We're trying to find the way of digitizing the material in a sustainable fashion, and
after a few experiments, we realized the only way to do this was to digitize the material
in house.
This was the point when we applied for an LSTA grant through the California State Library.
And once we secured the grant, then we started to re-master the collection and make it available
online.
One of our most popular films is a 1963 documentary made by which is the local P.B.S.
Station, it’s called 'Take This Hammer'.
The writer James Baldwin was invited to come to San Francisco to, as it were looked behind
the cosmopolitan image of San Francisco at that time, and to see whether or not racism
was as embedded in San Francisco as it was in the deep- south.
And we managed to get in touch with the original director who is still alive Richard Avedon.
And we now have an additional add-on project to the original, just digitized film and video.
We interviewed him about the making of ‘Take This Hammer’.
So the film ends with a five minute monologue by James Baldwin giving us his personal impressions
of racism at that time in America.
He is very dapper.
He is wearing a bandana.
He talks with a cigarette in his hand and he seems very relaxed even though he's talking
about a very serious subject.
We learn from the interview with Richard which will be straitened online soon that the crush
around James Baldwin got so great towards the end of the production that he couldn't
go anywhere without 100's of people showing up in cars and just having it in.
And on this particular day, Richard called his wife and he said that come and take James
Baldwin back to my place for dinner.
So James Baldwin was in their house and very shortly they were surrounded by 100's of people
who apparently eventually did get in.
His wife as the and Richard tells it lot better than I do, took James Baldwin upstairs, run
him a bubble bath, put James Baldwin in the bubble bath with a bottle of Johnny Walker's
scotch and told him to relax.
And after this he came down the stairs beautifully quaffed and refreshed and sat down in a chair
and gave them these 45 minute monologue which they used in the film.
Now, the contents of the monologue are important because it's his reflection on racism.
But getting that story, it makes it easier for people to relate to the material itself.
And with material with is two or even three generations removed from modern day audiences
especially children, I think it is important to try and give them a frame of reference
to give them a context from which they perhaps can relate to the material which is the most
important thing. �