A great many culturally significant and delightful home movies are lost to history every year as the holders of these material pass away without making arrangements for their films or videos to be preserved either within or outside of their immediate families. As a result, they may be discarded, sold into flea markets, or simply shelved indefinitely rather than contributing to your community’s (city’s, state’s, country’s?) historical record. If you have enjoyed any of Ken Burns’ documentaries, you will have viewed a great many home movies whose creators never anticipated they would be of such interests to others. (In particular, National Parks (2009) and The Vietnam War (2017) make extensive use of home movies).
Founding CHM member Snowden Becker has drawn up a document that enables anyone to make plans for the survival of their home movies, in the form of this “Living Will” designed specifically for home movie collections. The document is offered here for free use and dissemination, and may be edited to suit the particular needs of each user.