Rick Prelinger (born 1953, Washington D.C., U.S.) is an archivist, writer and filmmaker, and founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002 after 20 years' operation.Rick has partnered with the Internet Archive to make over 6,000 films from Prelinger Archives available online for free viewing, downloading and reuse. With the Voyager Company, a pioneer new media publisher, he produced fourteen laserdiscs and CD-ROMs with material from his archives, including Ephemeral Films, the Our Secret Century series and Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built, a laserdisc on the history of suburbia and suburban planning (co-produced with architect Keller Easterling).He worked at The Comedy Channel from its startup in 1989 until it was merged into the comedy network HA!, and then worked at Home Box Office until 1995. Rick has taught in the MFA design program at New York's School of Visual Arts and lectures widely on American cultural and social history and on issues of cultural and intellectual property access. He sat (2001–2004) on the National Film Preservation Board as representative of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, was Board President of the San Francisco Cinematheque (2002–2007), and is currently a Board Member of the Internet Archive. In July 2013, he was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz.His feature-length film Panorama Ephemera, depicting the conflicted landscapes of 20th-century America, opened in summer 2004. With spouse Megan Prelinger he is co-founder of the Prelinger Library, an appropriation-friendly reference library located in San Francisco. In recent years he has produced archival compilation films on the history of San Francisco (Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, eight annual films, 2006-2013, and Lost Landscapes of Detroit, three films, 2010-2012 and a fourth, "Yesterday and Tomorrow in Detroit", 2014.) He was awarded a Creative Capital grant in 2012 to make the film No More Road Trips?, which premiered in Austin, Texas, at South by Southwest in March 2013.He wrote The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (2007) which "describes 452 historically or culturally significant motion pictures commissioned by businesses, charities, advocacy groups, and state or local government units between 1897 and 1980." It is available as a book and as a free PDF from the National Film Preservation Foundation. He worked at the Internet Archive (2005-2007) on a large-scale texts digitization project and (2004-2005) helped organize the Open Content Alliance.
Noted collector of "ephemeral" films; short subjects and newsreels that were intended for a specific purpose or time period (advertising, instruction, information, propaganda, industrial, amateur) and not meant for widespread distribution. Many of these were literally disposed of after their usefulness had expired. His extensive collection of over 48,000 films, licensed through Archive Films by Getty Images, is one of the largest sources of stock footage for the motion picture industry. In 2002, the collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
Director
Title
Year
Status
Character
All-Is-Well
2016
Documentary
No More Road Trips?
2013
Documentary
Panorama Ephemera
2004
Producer
Title
Year
Status
Character
All-Is-Well
2016
Documentary producer
No More Road Trips?
2013
Documentary producer
Panorama Ephemera
2004
producer
Miscellaneous
Title
Year
Status
Character
Poussières d'Amérique
2011
Documentary archive consultant
P.O.V.
2010
TV Series documentary archival researcher - 1 episode
Yes: 9012 Live
1985
Video documentary archival film and photo supplier - as Richard Prelinger
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
No More Road Trips?
2013
Documentary
Panorama Ephemera
2004
story
Editor
Title
Year
Status
Character
No More Road Trips?
2013
Documentary
Panorama Ephemera
2004
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
Rick Redbeard: The Night Is All Ours
2016
Video short acknowledgment: additional footage
Jon Boschen's Classic Industrial Film Showcase
2014-2015
TV Series documentary special thanks - 4 episodes
Jam Handy to the Rescue!
2011
Video short special thanks
The Loving Story
2011
Documentary the archival department wishes to thank
Re-presenting Prelinger
2010
Documentary short thanks
Fantasia Lusitana
2010
Documentary acknowledgement: Prelinger Archives
Clandestine
2009
Short special thanks
Collapse
2009/II
Documentary thanks
Bomb It
2007
Documentary special thanks
Masters of the Sea
2006
Short acknowledgment: public domain archival footage generously provided by, the Prelinger Archive
Tales of the Rat Fink
2006
Documentary special thanks
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria
2005
Documentary thanks
The Corporation
2003
Documentary special thanks
Hide and Seek
1997
TV Movie special thanks
The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters
1994
TV Movie documentary special thanks - as Richard Prelinger
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
1993
Documentary thanks
Heavy Petting
1989
Documentary acknowledgment: archival footage provided by
W.C. Fields: Straight Up
1986
TV Movie documentary special thanks - as Richard Prelinger
The Atomic Cafe
1982
Documentary special thanks - as Richard Prelinger
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Keeping It Reel
2011
Documentary short
Rick Prelinger
Lost Forever
2011
Documentary
Himself
Democracy Now!
2011
TV Series
Himself
These Amazing Shadows
2011
Documentary
Himself
Re-presenting Prelinger
2010
Documentary short
Himself
60 Minutes
2010
TV Series documentary
Himself - Film Historian (segment "Market Street")
Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films
2003
Documentary
Himself
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
60 Minutes
2011
TV Series documentary
Himself - Film Historian (segment "Market Street")