Small-screen smiles for World Day for Audiovisual Heritage
It’s UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage today, a day to highlight the importance of preserving both sound and video heritage material.
So, here are three picks from our biggest audiovisual partner, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, that exemplify just that, and what’s more, will hopefully bring a smile to your face.
Camping at Saxenheim near Nunspeet still
First up, what’s better than camping with friends and family? Especially when that camping trip includes hairnets, campfires, pancakes, guitars, and pigs with wagging tails. (And really, someone should make an animated GIF out of the pigs for GIF IT UP 2017!)
There’s no sound on this Dutch video from 1925, but you can find your own soundtrack on the Europeana Music collections. What about watching the video while listening to this Tahitian satirical song? It was recorded only a decade after the Dutch camping trip, but is geographically about as far away from the Netherlands as you can get – Tahiti in French Polynesia. There’s no reason to put these two things together – other than they might both make you smile.
Camping at Saxenheim near Nunspeet, by Polygoon-Profilti (producer) / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (curator), is licensed under Public Domain Mark.
If that didn’t make you smile, how about a lot of people (and I do mean a LOT of people) playing the accordion together? To me, the accordion is the characteristic sound of the fairground and that’s something that brings back happy childhood memories. The tune they’re playing is a march called ‘Wien bleibt Wien’.
Mietje, pietje, ma en pa alles speelt harmonica, by Polygoon-Profilti (producent) / Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (beheerder), is licensed under Public Domain Mark.
But if that’s a bit too chaotic and you prefer something ordered and satisfying, then this final video is for you – how to make coloured pencils. Production line machinery, conveyor belts, neat ordered lines. And oh, the way they’re sharpened at the end – genius!
The making of coloured pencils, by Polygoon-Profilti (producer) / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (curator), is licensed under Creative Commons – Attribution-Share Alike.
What’s your favourite video from Europeana? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @europeanaeu
