Between 1987 and 1996, we produced a number of CD-ROMs, videotapes and videodiscs in association with The Voyager Company. Though these are technically out of print, some may still be available through Robert Stein, partner in Voyager and The Criterion Collection. They also turn up quite frequently on eBay.
To New Horizons: Ephemeral Films 1931-1945 (1987) was released on VHS, laserdisc, and CD-ROM (Macintosh only), and contains 19 films and film excerpts.
You Can't Get There From Here: Ephemeral Films 1945-1960 (1987) was also released on VHS, laserdisc, and CD-ROM (Macintosh only), and contains another 19 films and film excerpts.
Both of these anthologies were combined into a single CD-ROM entitled Ephemeral Films 1931-1960 (1993).
A DVD version of these two compilations is planned, but has no definite release date. A number of bootleg videotapes incorporating portions of them appear to be available from several small companies.
Keller Easterling and I produced Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built (1992), a laserdisc documenting the history of suburbia, suburban town planning, and suburban design in the United States, incorporating 55 minutes of archival moving image clips, 2,800 photographs, maps and plans, commentary, two audio tracks and descriptive booklet. A selection of text and images from this project is available here.
Between 1995 and 1997, Voyager published 10 volumes of a 12-volume CD-ROM set entitled Our Secret Century. The series contains 100 complete films and over 100 supplemental sequences depicting key trends and developments of the 20th century. The volumes were packaged in pairs (1 & 2, 3 & 4, and so on). The list of titles:
1. The Rainbow is Yours Post-World War II design and consumerism
2. Capitalist Realism Portrayal of workers in the Depression
3. The Behavior Offensive Post-World War II social guidance movement
4. Menace and Jeopardy Social vs. individual risk as portrayed in safety films
5. The Uncharted Landscape Landscape as a silent historical character in the 20th century
6. Teenage Transgression Juvenile delinquency and misbehavior
7. Gender Role Call Comparison of men's and women's preferred paths
8. Tireless Marketers Pervasive role of advertising, selling and marketing in American society
9. Busy Bodies Sexuality: education, mis-education and censorship
10. Make Mine Freedom Patriotism as equated with capitalism and the construction of enemies
11. Nuts and Bolts (unreleased) Changing image of technology throughout the century
12. Free to Obey (unreleased) Control, conformity and repression
Many of the films included in all of these compilations may be downloaded from the Internet Moving Images Archive.
In 1991, Highlighted Data, Inc. released a Macintosh CD-ROM version of our reference book Footage 89/91: North American Film & Video Sources. The disc contained a hypertext version of the book and a number of other key references, databases of other archival collections, and several dozen archival moving image clips from our own collection and the collection of Electronic Arts Intermix. This disc is now out of print.
July 15, 2001