Sparked by symposia at the University of South Carolina, an international coalition of scholars, archivists, media artists, technology experts, curators, preservationists, and new media entrepreneurs has begun to collaborate under the "orphan film" rubric. This interdisciplinary group aims to study, preserve and use all manner of orphaned images and sounds neglected by the conventional media industries.

The Digital Orphanage will use the tools of new media to build a virtual space in which the many constituencies working with orphan films and related media can expand and strengthen this emerging community.

The three components of The Orphanage will be an on-line archive, virtual symposia, and exhibition space.

BACKSTORY

The University of South Carolina has become the epicenter for "orphan films," a new conceptual framework uniting film preservation, moving-image archiving, cinema studies and new media production. In September 1999 and March 2001, USC hosted SYMPOSIA devoted to the preservation and study of orphan films. Prominent scholars, archivists, filmmakers and technologists from around the world convened on the Columbia campus for three days of presentations, discussions and screenings of rare film material.

These symposia enjoy unprecedented success not only because they showcase the importance of preserving and understanding previously neglected parts of our film history, but also because they unite a wide variety of media disciplines.

The enthusiasm generated by "Orphans I and II," as the conferences have come to be called, has fueled the creation of a permanent symposium series, with ORPHANS III scheduled for September 26-28, 2002. Now this creative energy has launched an additional rescue initiative: the Digital Orphanage.

Drawing on symposium material and USC's own film, video and audio collections, the Digital Orphanage offers a model for integrating the study, production and archiving of moving images. Using the latest web-based technologies, the Orphanage will expand access to and understanding of orphan films by digitally marrying film archives with cinema scholarship and filmmaking projects. As a media-rich website, the Digital Orphanage will not only electronically host and link important orphan collections world-wide, it also will provide wide and instant access to an expanding collection of curated orphan film projects.

The strength of today's computer-based "new media" is its ability to break down walls, to build connections not only between disciplines, but between archives and institutions. The Digital Orphanage will provide a fast, inexpensive and flexible model for rescuing our neglected film history.