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Acquisitions * The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, has acquired what has been called "the second most important" footage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In November 2000, an audience of about two hundred people watched the 24.5-second film recorded by the late Orville Nix on November 22, 1963. The 8mm footage is the only known motion picture of the assassination that shows part of the "grassy knoll," the area where many believe a second gunman may have been positioned. Nix documented three scenes: the motorcade entering Dealey Plaza, the last gunshot of the assassination as the presidential limousine passed in front of the grassy knoll, and the panic in the plaza afterward. His film was shot from the angle opposite to the one Abraham Zapruder used for his more famous film and shows what was happening behind Zapruder on the knoll. Zapruder can be seen in a few frames of Nix's film.
The Nix family has donated a first-generation copy and the copyright to the color home movie to the Sixth Floor Museum, where Nix's 8mm camera is also on display. At the time of the original investigation, the FBI used the Nix film to study the assassination, and the Warren Commission reproduced six frames for examination. Portions of the film were also used in the Oliver Stone movie JFK (1991).
The Sixth Floor Museum makes archival materials available through its Public Research Center. More than sixteen thousand documentary items are accessible to the public, including papers, video and audiotapes, and oral histories related to the assassination. The center administers collections of film and videotape from Dallas television stations WFAA, KTVT, and KDFW. For more information consult <www.jfk.org>.
* Historic Films has acquired the rights to more than nine thousand videotape items created by the television and multimedia producer Vidicom. Since 1982, Vidicom has produced "lifestyle features" (on technology, entertainment news, fashion, health, and other topics) and provided pool-camera coverage for Paris and New York fashion shows. Vidicom syndicates its Stylewiz series to NBC and CBS television and to ABC Radio networks. The text of Historic Films' descriptive database is available for researchers at <www.historicfilms.com>.
Preservation * Following up on its initial pledge of $250,000 in 1997, the Academy of Motion Picture...