Introduction

We begin this issue of the Velvet Light Trap with a departure from the theme of failures, flops, and false starts in order to remember the life and work of our deeply missed colleague Rebecca Swender. Her posthumous contribution, entitled "Claiming the Found: Archive Footage and Documentary Practice," is a theoretical investigation into documentary filmmakers' use of recovered actuality footage. Swender's work both provides film analysts a lexicon with which to define the attributes of archive footage and offers illuminating descriptions of how four documentary filmmakers - Frank Capra, Emile de Antonio, Connie Field, and Marlon Baggs - appropriate archive footage in distinct ways. Her rigorous theorization and analysis serve as a touchstone for current and future film scholars.

We often say that history is written about successes: about the films that garner huge profits at the box office, about the shows awarded with record-breaking ratings, or about the early adopters of conquering technologies. Yet the media industry has also long been fascinated by failure. From blighted film productions Heaven's Gate) to hapless filmmakers (Ed Wood), from stars that never rose (Karl Dane) to those that fell (Montgomery Cliff), from shows that were brilliant but ultimately canceled Freaks and Geeks) to shows that were critically maligned but nevertheless repeatedly renewed Arli$$), from formats, venues, and platforms we miss (Technicolor and movie palaces) to those we never really had (HD DVD and Smell-O-Vision), failures, flops, and false starts have captivated our imaginations and expanded our understanding of the virtues and limitations of moving images and the industries that surround them.

For this issue of the Velvet Light Trap we asked film and media scholars to submit research that explored how failures culled from the vast pool of unsuccessful film, television, and new media projects, technologies, and strategies further our understanding of the haphazard and unlikely ways in...