Ephemeral, Instructional

Musical Saw Instruction Video (1995)

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Distributor: Timber Video
Collection: Private Stash

Running time: 77m
Source:  VHS; color; sound
Year: 1995
Production: Art Peterson, John Slattery
Post-Production: Art Peterson, Paul Kealoha Blake at East Bay Media Center
Executive Producer: Charlie Blacklock

Musical Saw: Charlie Blacklock
Accordion, Guitar, Vocals: Art Peterson
Fiddle: Ken Blacklock
Guitar: John Massey
Bass: Sam Morocco
Voice of Ol’ 97: Clark Delozier

Tractors, motorcycles, harmonicas, four children, two monkeys, and a musical saw: this more or less sums up the colorful character that was Charlie Blacklock. Known to many as the “Father of the Musical Saw,” he lived a full 91 years and in that time made an enormous amount of music – much of it from the teeth and blades of both traditional woodsmen saws as well as those purposefully made for musical creation. By the time Charlie died he had engineered and began selling his own variety of musical saws, the Blacklock Saw, which many consider to be the preeminent musical saw on the market to this day.

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Documentary, Educational

Teddy (1971)

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Watch on Archive.org

Institution: Internet Archive
Collection: Prelinger Archives

Running time: 16m 16s
Source film:  16mm; color; sound
Year: 1971
Director: Richard Wells
Production: Gary Schlosser; Peter Schniztler; University of California, Los Angeles – Extension Media Center;  National Institute of Mental Health
Photography/Camera: Robert Grant
Editor: Andrew Stein

The Social Seminar was a program sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and developed by the National Institute of Mental Health in the early 1970s that sought to provide a learning environment in which participants identified and established values and improved communication skills while participating in structured activities. From a cursory review of the resource manual provided to seminar facilitators (see: Related), it appears that much of the program was oriented around one of 19 short documentary films that were used as learning tools. They depicted all sorts of lives, from the acid-dropping California hippie to the television news reporter. At least six of the films were executive produced by Oscar-nominated short subject documentary filmmaker Gary Schlosser, so they had competent editing and camera-work that provided a coherent portrait of each film’s subject. Despite the program’s central aim of the prevention of drug abuse, not all of the films were strictly about drug consumption. 1971’s Teddy was one such film, focusing on a high school student in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Educational, Health

Naturally, A Girl (1973)

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Watch Now on Archive.org

Institution: Internet Archive
Collection: Prelinger Archives

Running time: 13m 18s
Source film:  color; sound
Year: 1973
Production: Cinemakers, Inc; Johnson & Johnson

If you were a Texas kid growing up in the 1990s, approaching sexual maturity probably meant having music class canceled so that you and twenty other 4th graders could sit cross-legged on the floor to enjoy a bewildering puberty education video featuring a woman pouring pancake batter in the shape of a uterus. Although I cannot now recall vividly if that video was otherwise helpful, Naturally, A Girl – an informational short produced almost two decades earlier – feels like a more straightforward and progressive alternative that circumvents the confusing co-mingling of reproductive organs and breakfast foods.

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Industrial, Occupational, Safety

Shake Hands with Danger (1980)

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Watch on Archive.org

Institution: Internet Archive
Collection: Prelinger Archives

Running time: 23m 8s
Source film:  16mm; color; sound
Year: 1980
Director: Herk Harvey
Production: Centron Corporation; Arthur H. Wolf; Russell A. Mosser
Writer: John Clifford
Cinematography: Bob Rose
Narrator: Charles Oldfather
Editor: Chuck Lacey

While I can’t say with 100% certainty that we won’t stumble upon another safety film that features chest wounds, a man on fire, or a titular country song, chances are that 1980’s Shake Hands with Danger is the only one containing all three. Helmed by Carnival of Souls director Herk Harvey and sponsored by Caterpillar Tractor Company, this film is among the more prolific safety films ever produced (it was even given the Rifftrax treatment).

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Public Information

A Cruel Kindness (1968)

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Watch on Wellcome Library

Institution: Wellcome Library
Collection: Moving Image and Sound Collection

Running time: 13m 4s
Source film:  16mm; color; sound
Year: 1968
Director: Winifred Holmes
Production: Verity Films; Oswalk Skilbeck; Film Producers Guild; Film Centre International Ltd; British Life Assurance Trust for Health Education; British Medical Association
Writer: Winifred Holmes
Photography: Jonah Jones
Editor: Anthony Ham

Nutritional guides have been prone to wild fluctuations and rearrangements over the past several decades, vary sharply by country, and have been influenced by everything from scientific studies and wartime rationing to the agriculture industry and food prices. Thank goodness for 1968’s A Cruel Kindness, then, which makes such a guide as basic as can be. According to writer/director Winifred Holmes’s film, the three food groups are carbohydrates (“energy”), fat (“warmth”), and protein (“for growth”). And sometimes, small quantities of vitamins. The filmmakers make no effort to explain what benefits this last group provides, likely because no documentary team wants to bore viewers with a discussion about watercress. We get it — it’s really good for you! Enough already, watercress. You’re almost as insufferable as kale.

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