Film Clip Fandom

In the media fandom world, "film clips" has been used to describe both the physical as well as the digital clips from TV and film media. 
Film clip collecting was very popular in the Star Trek fandom as well as many other television and movies. While it had a science fiction-focus, fans collected clips from all sorts of movies and shows. 
==Early Star Trek Film Clips and Star Trek Fandom==
In Star Trek fandom, the use of 35mm film clips played a significant role in both promoting and celebrating the TV show. They assisted fans with photo references, and later helped provide the foundation for a new art fan - fan vids.
During the production of the Star Trek TV series in the late 1960s, unused 35mm film was the by-product of filming and editing the show for TV broadcasts. The individual "frames" would either be mounted as slides that could be shown on a screen with a projector or loosely assembled in binders or rolls. 
A 1978 description by a Star Trek fan: 
A more recent description by a Star Trek fan: 
The distribution of Star Trek film clips (and other clips) began early on. At general science fiction conventions such as FunCon held in 1968: 
Film clips were used as incentives to sweeten the pot in early fan campaigns:
After the cancellation of the TV in its second season, Roddenberry met with college students to organize "spontaneous" protest marches and put Star Trek stickers on the cars of NBC executives. He also recruited people to visit NBC's Burbank and New York offices, talking to anyone who would listen about Star Trek's incipient cancellation and passing out leaflets, buttons and stickers to anyone interested. In addition, he sent out flyers to anyone who had written fan mail. He also provided the group with film clip frames (from the cutting room floor) and various small items from the set that could be sold to defray expenses. This was the beginning of the Lincoln Enterprises souvenir/premium catalogue. Bjo Trimble said: 
==Purchasing Film Clips==
==Lincoln Enterprises==
Also see Lincoln Enterprises and Fandom and Profit.
The sale of the film clips through Roddenberry's Lincoln Enterprises served both as marketing outreach as well as a business venture:
In 1993, Majel Barrett Roddenberry explained:
===Other Film Clip Catalogs and Companies===
While Lincoln Enterprises was the mothership, it weren't the only game in town. Fans, in amateur, semi-pro, and professional capacities, created their own companies and issued catalogs.
* Company Clippings 
* Cyrano Jones' Trading Post, became Nova Enterprises 
* Federation Trading Post 
* Martin Enterprises 
* New Eye Studio
* Omega Enterprises
 
 
 File:Novaent3.jpg|a page from the 1973 Nova Enterprises catalog 
 Image:omegaenterprises.jpg| a 1977 flyer for Omega Enterprises printed in The Clipper Trade Ship #16 "Are you looking for any of the above material? If so, look no further. OMEGA ENTERPRISES has what you're looking for. We have slides, prints, and in some cases clips, from the science fiction listed above. We specialize in science fiction, and have been doing so for the last three years. We have a long list of satisfied customers who keep coming back for more."
Image:Star Trek Film Clips_small.jpg|flyer from a private seller 
==Legalities of Film Clip Collecting: Trading and Buying==
Also see Copyright, Fandom and Profit.
Once the film clips entered into fannish hands, confusion reigned as to whether it was lawful to sell them and whether one needed a license. It soon became clear that neither Paramount nor Lincoln Enterprises knew the answer, and fans were understandably confused.
The line between fannish and not-fannish, and the official and unofficial policy, was a tricky one to navigate. A 1976 comment: 
===Comments in "The Clipper Trade Ship"===
In many issues of The Clipper Trade Ship, the subject of film clips came up regularly. Below are excerpts from the early issues arranged in chronological order. One of the first topics that was raised was the difference between selling 'mounted' (into a slide) clips vs unmounted (loose) clips:
This led fans to trying various "workarounds" which, in the absence of any clear direction did not seem to ease tensions:
The lack of clarity soon spilled over to fans questioning whether Majel Roddenberry and Lincoln Enterprises had a legal right to sell the clips:
Curious fans began showing up at Lincoln Enterprises' address in the hopes of obtaining '"legal copies" - only to find an unstaffed, location:
Yet more efforts were made to obtain some sort of "yea" or "nay" as to whether fans could sell their film clips:
After Star Wars was released, many fans switched their buying and selling activities from Star Trek to Star Wars, and the question of the legality of selling film clips followed:
And then in 1975 came this bombshell: Paramount had not legally transferred the copyrights for the first two seasons of Star Trek when they acquired Desilu Productions, leaving those years in the public domain.There were two challenges to Paramount's Star Trek claims in the 1970s and 1980s. In the first challenge in 1975 Paramount lost and Thunderbird Films was allowed to continue selling 16mm copies of the TV episodes until proper ownership of the series could be reestablished. Paramount won the second challenge in 1981. In that lawsuit, it was alleged that Desilu Productions had failed to put the then required copyright notices on the first season of Star Trek. Paramount was able to successfully establish a copyright on VHS and later DVD issues of Star Trek, claiming this was the first official "sale" and that the TV shows were not "published" but syndicated, a form of limited distribution without notice allowed by the copyright law. Source: . See also Paramount Pictures Corp. vs Leslie Rubinowitz, et l, USDC E.D.NY 217 USPQ 48 (6-26-1981) 
After several years the legality issues seemed to focus into whether it was legal to sell copies or duplicates of film clips. Selling and reselling the actual clips seemed to be less an issue, under the doctrine of "first sale""The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner." Source: Wikipedia. which was finally codified in US copyright law in 1976:
But with the new copyright law come confusion in other areas, including whether fanzines fell under the rubric of derivative works or transformative works:
And even though the doctrine of first sale had been legally codified, one major studio recruited the FBI to pursue memorabilia sellers, including the sellers of fan clips. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of one such incident:
The final outcome of the FBI? Nothing, and the majority of the clips were returned. 
Regarding 1980's Star Trek: The Motion Picture and film clips:
===Comments in "Spectrum"===
From an exchange between two fans in Spectrum #35 in January 1978:
==Collecting and Discussing==
Buying, selling, and trading film clips was an activity highlighted in the zine The Clipper Trade Ship. This zine had many editorials and articles about trading clips at conventions and the legalities of distributing film clips. It also had a regular column called "Identiclip," which was about identifying and storing film clips.
There were many ads in this zine, and others, informing fans of other like-minded collectors, of catalogs that sold clips, and of fans offering to trade and sell their clips with other fans. There are mentions in zines of some fans personally owning thousands and thousands of clips. "I have been collecting clips for a year and a half, and have at least 3000." -- comment in The Clipper Trade Ship #2 (1974) 
A 1974 sample ad in The Clipper Trade Ship #2:
For many fans, clip collecting was part of the convention experience:
File:Clipsheetfromstag.png|a helpful tool for fans in 1976, printed in STAG #17 -- "...[clapperboard numbers] are useful if you collect clips -- sometimes several otherwise impossible-to-identify clips can be placed by one clapperboard... The important numbers for identification of clips are the last two....
File:Clipper Trade Ship (TCTS) 11 Page 1.jpg|from the regular column "Identiclip" in The Clipper Trade Ship, this image is from issue #11. "This present series is dedicated to all STAR TREK clip collectors, to help you to identify bridge scenes as to episode. Proceeding in production order, we are sharing all the information we presently have on each episode's Visual Display Screens (those small screens seen most often above the posts of Spock, Uhura, Scott, etc.) vital crewmembers present on the bridge, and any other means of identification that we can find."
File:Clipper11-1.jpg|another page from the regular column "Identiclip" in The Clipper Trade Ship, this image is from issue #11. It includes categories such as "Screens", "Guest Cast", "Unusual Screen Use" and "Costume characteristics A. Spock in yellow uniform; he has short bangs, and bushy eyebrows."
==Uses Of==
===Photo References===
Also see Photo Reference.
The 2007 article Dribbling Scribbling Women: The History of Our Art discusses at great length the importance of photo references for artists and the difficulties, before the internet, of finding them: 
===Slideshows===
Also see Slideshows.
* City on the Edge of Whatever Slide Show (1977)
* Supraman (1981)
===Early Vidding===
Perhaps the most significant impact of the free (or least low cost) distribution of the film clips was how it led to the creation of fan vids in an era before VCRs or DVRs.
From Fanlore's vidding page: "With the exception of Star Trek, where Gene Roddenberry's Lincoln Enterprises actually sold film clips, slides and other materials, very few fans had access to these. Vidding didn't really open up until the invention and commercial availability of the VCRThe first home VCRs appeared in 1972 and began to gain popularity in 1975. 1976 saw the introduction of the VHS format., which gave fans a way to copy their source material from television, and a way for them to linearly edit their source to create music videos. That said, the technology was expensive, and as a result it became common for groups of fans to share technology and access to source materials (in particular, hard-to-find TV shows)."
Example: What Do You Do With a Drunken Vulcan? (1975)
===Support as Visuals in Pro Books===
Fans supplied film clips to support professionally-published reference books.
An excerpt, something that shows just how entwined the author of this book, the famous Star Fleet Technical Manual, was with fans and their involvement and help:
===As Recruiting Tools===
Fans also used their clips to recruit other fans. In Halkan Council #8 one a fan suggests that another fan take her many film clips and make a slide show for many of the elementary, junior and senior high Star Trek fan clubs to watch: "Probably many of them don't have access to clips and imagine how exciting it would be!" 
Clips were used as a 1976 charity fundraiser: Dunsel Box.
==The Red Clip Syndrome==
Holding film clips, slides, and some early film was not unlike holding a bit of lightning, a bright flash, that was soon to disappear. 
 
red-shift deterioration in its early stages|thumb|
Fans began to discover that the clips they had collected were turning red, that the the objects of their intense interest in verifying colors, characters, and the minutia of the original images was slowly (or not so slowly) being altered due to time and a process they were helpless to stop. 
A fan explained in 1978: 
This color change was not just limited to slides and film clips. In 1985, Richard Arnold wrote his first letter to Interstat and offered some information on the video tapes that a fan had been complaining about: 
==As Subjects of Parody==
==Meta/Further Reading==
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==References==
Category:Fan Activities