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Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger,[1] is a film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited time.[2] Many of the films are also orphan works since they lack copyright owners or active custodians to guarantee their long-term preservation.
The genre is composed of advertising films, educational films, industrial videos, industrial musicals, training films, social guidance films, and government-produced films.[3][4]
While some may borrow themes from well-known film genres such as western film, musicals, and comedies, what defines them is a sponsored rhetoric to achieve the sponsor's goals, rather than those of the creative artist.
Sponsored films in 16mm were loaned at no cost, except sometimes postage, to clubs, schools, and other groups.[5] America's largest companies - AT&T, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Republic Steel, Standard Oil, and Westinghouse Electric Company - were for decades active sponsored film producers and distributors; others included airlines who offered travelogues on their destinations.
In the early years of commercial television, local television stations often used sponsored films as "filler" programming. Specialized distributing agents packaged films from various sponsors into TV programs with titles like Compass, Color Camera, Ladies' Day, and Adventures In Living.
In the 1950s, almost every American city of any size had at least one sponsored film studio. Cleveland, Ohio, for example, was home to over a dozen sponsored film studios.[6] From 1951 to 1973 Business Screen magazine listed U.S.-based sponsored film studios by city and region.[7]
Theatrical film studios in "Hollywood" produced sponsored films along with hundreds of studios that specialized in the genre. Significant collections of sponsored films exist from the Jam Handy Organization in Detroit, Michigan, Wilding Picture Productions in Chicago, Illinois, the Calvin Company in Kansas City, Missouri, and Cinécraft Productions, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio.
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The 1948 Cleveland Film Festival was the first American film festival dedicated to recognizing the importance of sponsored films.[8] By 1956, dozens of cities and organizations were running sponsored film festivals, and the organizers of the Cleveland Film Festival stopped running the festival. Sponsored film festivals continued on but never regained their popularity or influence.[9]
A number of sponsored films have been nominated for Academy Awards, and several have won Oscars, mainly in the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short categories.[10]
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| Film Title / Year Released/ Sponsor |
|---|
| A Time for Burning (1966). Sponsor: Lutheran Film Associates. Oscar for Best Documentary Feature (1967)[11] |
| Benjy (film) (1951). Sponsor: Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1952) |
| Giuseppina (1959). Sponsor: British Petroleum Company. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1959) |
| Skyscraper (1959). Sponsor: Tishman Realty & Construction Co.; Reynolds Metals Co.; Bethlehem Steel Co.; Westinghouse Elevator Co.; York Air Conditioning. Oscar for Best Live Action Short Subject (1959)[12] |
| The House I Live In (1945). Sponsor: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Honorary Academy Award for director Mervyn LeRoy (1946)[13] |
| The Redwoods (1967). Sponsor: Sierra Club. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1967)[14] |
| To Be Alive! (1964). Sponsor: S. C. Johnson & Son. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1965)[15] |
| Why Man Creates (1968). Sponsor: Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1968)[16] |
| Wild Wings (1965). Sponsor: British Transport Films. Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject (1966) |
At least a dozen sponsored films have been selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry because they are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[10][17]
| Film Title / Year Released/ Sponsor/ Year Inducted |
|---|
| A Time for Burning (1966). Sponsor: Lutheran Film Associates. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2005[11]' |
| All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story (1952. Sponsor: Georgia Dept. of Public Health. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2002[18] |
| Louisiana Story (1948). Sponsor: Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1994[19] |
| Master Hands (1936). Sponsor: Chevrolet Motor Co. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1999[20] |
| Powers of Ten (1977). Sponsor: IBM Corp. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998 |
| The City (1939). Sponsor: American Institute of Planners, through Civic Films Inc., with funding from Carnegie Corp. of New York. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998[21] |
| The Forgotten Frontier (1931). Sponsor: Frontier Nursing Service Inc. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1996[22] |
| The House in the Middle (1954). Sponsors: National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association; National Clean Up–Paint Up–Fix Up Bureau; Federal Civil Defense Administration. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2001[23] |
| The Making of an American (1920). Sponsor: Dept. of Americanization, State of Connecticut. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2005[24] |
| To Fly! (1976). Sponsor: Conoco Inc. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1995[25] |
| Westinghouse Works, 1904. Sponsor: Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998[26] |
| Why Man Creates (1968). Sponsor: Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2002[27] |
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Sponsored films are often used as B-roll in documentary films, for instance, the social guidance film The Terrible Truth (1951, Sid Davis) appears, desaturated, in Ron Mann's Grass (1999) as an example of what he perceives as hysteria over drug abuse, as well as an example of the slippery slope fallacy.
Prelinger and other film archivists [28] generally consider the films interesting for their sociological, ethnographic, or evidentiary value: for instance, a mental hygiene film instructing children to be careful of strangers may seem laughable by today's standards, but the film may show important aspects of society which were documented unintentionally: hairstyles, popular fashions, technological advances, landscapes, etc.[10]
Prelinger estimates that the form includes perhaps 400,000 films and, as such, is the largest genre of films, but that one-third to one-half of the films have been lost to neglect. In the late 20th century, the archival moving-image community has taken greater notice of sponsored film, and key ephemeral films began to be preserved by specialized, regional, and national archives.[10]
A number of British films in this style were re-evaluated and released commercially by the British Film Institute in 2010 as part of its Boom Britain / Shadows of Progress project.
Examples of sponsored films include Design for Dreaming, A Touch of Magic,[29] and A Word to the Wives (the latter film which dealt directly with the growth of suburban capitalism).[30] Technicolor for Industrial Films is a sponsored film about sponsored films.
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