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Southern Methodist University - G. William Jones Film & Video Collection

The G. William Jones Film & Video Collection in the Hamon Arts Library at Southern Methodist University is one of the largest film archives in the state of Texas.  Founded in 1970 by SMU...

Southern Methodist University - G. William Jones Film & Video Collection

The G. William Jones Film & Video Collection in the Hamon Arts Library at Southern Methodist University is one of the largest film archives in the state of Texas.  Founded in 1970 by SMU professor and film scholar, Dr. G. William Jones, the Collection’s holdings include a wide variety of media formats, equipment, and print materials in a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled film vault.  With the goal of preserving, exhibiting, and presenting these collected materials for use by students on campus as well as the research community at large, the Collection hopes to further the education, exposure, and relevancy of these unique items.

35mm, 16mm, & Video

The Collection has almost one thousand 35mm features, thirty-six hundred 16mm features, and two thousand videotapes in a variety of formats.  Highlights of the Collection include The Tyler Texas Black Film Collection, featuring Spencer Williams’ The Blood of Jesus; the Sulphur Springs Pre-Nickelodeon Collection, featuring several films by Siegmund Lubin, Thomas Edison, & Georges Méliès; the Mulberry Square Collection, comprising Benji-related media materials and films; the Gene Autry Collection, consisting of prints, original negative elements, and over two million feet of film and television A- and B- roll; and one of the only prints of Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature, The Pleasure Garden.  

Newsfilm

The Jones Collections holds 16mm film materials for several local television stations.  These include the PBS station KERA; the CBS affiliate, KRLD/KDFW; and the ABC affiliate WFAA.  These films account for about 5,000 hours of moving image history in Dallas from 1958 to 1977 and include topics such as politics, entertainment, and local history.  

Other Materials

Print materials in the archive include several hundred volumes of Interstate Theater financial and exhibition logs, covering over forty years of operations.  The Collection also has (approximately 20,000) unique publicity photos, film scripts, and press kits, as well as the entire paper collection of its founder, Dr. G. William Jones, and a curated selection of antique film equipment.

Digitization

In October 2017, the Jones Collection acquired a Spirit Datacine from local Dallas post-production house, Rising Fall. The Collection can now offer in-house, real-time digitization, color-correction, cleaning and restoration of its 16mm and 35mm films.  With this new equipment, the Collection has increased the speed of its overall workflow, meeting greater demand and interest while keeping costs in-house.  

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