January 21, 2010
On the Cedar River: Help identify this week’s Lost and Found Film
Editor’s Note: The UW Audio Visual Services Materials Library has more than 1,200 reels of film from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, documenting life at the University through telecourses, commercial films and original productions. Some of the short films are easily identifiable, but many more remain mysteries. Who shot these films and why? Can you help answer those questions? Faculty and staff can use the comments field at the end of the story to send ideas. Those outside the University can e-mail filmarc@u.washington.edum.
This week’s film is set on the Cedar River in about 1970, and opens with a shot of the water and the mountains. A logging truck passes by on a road. But then the camera zooms in on a building at the end of a bridge. Through a doorway, we see a man sitting by an instrument panel, making adjustments. Cables are strung from the doorway, and a man checks the cables and then a different instrument panel. A woman pours liquid from a large glass jar into a small plastic jug.
The scene shifts to the river, where a man is standing holding a long-handled instrument and wearing headphones. He plants a pole with a net in the riverbed. Then we see a man kneeling by the riverside with buckets, taking something from mesh buckets and putting it into plastic buckets. The two-minute film closes with aerial views of the river and mountains again.
Film Archive Specialist Hannah Palin believes the research depicted is probably associated with the School of Marine Affairs and the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences, but she’d like to know:
- What research is being conducted?
- Where exactly on the river is this?
- What is the equipment being used for in the building? In the forest?
- Why was this film taken and how was it used?
A reader told Palin the location of last week’s film, Ceramic. It was Room BB1065E of the Health Sciences Building, Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine’s Rogge Library. She’d be interested in additional information about it.
Readers also wrote in suggesting we contact the Alumni Association and the Retirement Association regarding these films. We did make contact with UWRA some months ago. We may follow up with the Alumni Association as well.
