LAMP Member News

Welcome all LAMP Members to the First Edition of ...LAMP Member News

After I finished adding a new area yesterday, I thought that the Members would want to know about it... THEN the more I thought, WHY does someone come to be a member of LAMP? 4 things came to mind... You either... 1) want access to particular information that we have. 2) want or need to do research in particular areas. 3) want access to larger images. or 4) believe in what we're doing and want to support the cause.

For WHATEVER reason, we appreciate it. Since we add information (of some kind )daily, the constant expansion creates a massive organization problem with things always changing, moving and growing. LAMP Members are the ones that we believe would need to know what those changes and additions are to make your research easier. For that reason I wanted to try a monthly update to give you MORE information about these changes, additions and oddities that I run across as we try to document these forgotten areas.

As a trial, I'll put this out on a monthly basis to see if it helps. PLEASE let me know if this is helpful or if you have any suggestions. I know that you're busy and I don't want to just add more junk mail to you inbox.

We have 5 basic areas of research .. posters; stills; artists; articles; archive; I'll try to cover information on each in each edition.

For this first edition, I wanted to divide it into sections for you..... WHAT'S NEW... WHAT'S CHANGED... SPOTLIGHT... and ODDITIES

WHAT'S NEW

We have several new research areas for you this month. I added new sections on Denmark. You can get to the Denmark Member section from 2 directions. One is from our home page; go to Sites By Country on the left navbar, which carries you to the list of countries around the world and then click on Denmark. On the left navbar is the Member Section. The other way (and easiest) is on our Home Page, on the left navbar, click on Member Area (which is the Member Central Area).. Then look at the bottom section of countries and click on Denmark. This carries you straight to the Denmark Member Area.

DENMARK: This month, I went through about 400 Danish posters and compiled several new logs to help your research. We added  a log on Danish Printers, showing clips from the posters of when the printers changed their tags; Danish Distributors, showing clips from the posters of distributor logos and when they changed. AND a DRASTIC expansion of Danish artists. Danish artists did some fantastic and unusual artwork. We only had 4 artists listed before, but this has now been drastically expanded and several hundred titles documented on them.

NSS Number Expansion - Yes, we MOVED the NSS Number Log, that's covered in the next section... BUT WHAT'S NEW... is the expansion of the NSS Number Log. We are in the process of combining our 15,000 NSS numbers that we had already compiled with a NSS query book that we acquired from Bruce Hershenson AND an Official 1962 NSS Master Log that we had also acquired. We are making these available to you online as I compile them. I have almost finished the first year 1940 and have it online. It is a DRASTIC expansion of each year AND we will also be adding 10 years of NSS trailer numbers from 1930-1940. As I am finishing up a particular year I will be placing an (*) asterisk by that year. Here is the first year.. 1940 ALMOST completed.

Stills New Additions - If you handle stills, you might already know this.. but since it's our first edition, I thought I would mention it to make sure. As you know, we are already working on the 2009 Edition of the Movie Studio Production Codes book that is scheduled for release in September. This will have a completely new format.. Here is a sample. BUT did you also know that we are listing the new additions on the site as we prepare them. We have several hundred already listed. To get to the section. From our Home Page, click on the Member Area to go to the Member Central Area. Look at the top section 'General Area' ( you can see a photo of it just below) and on the right you will see 'Production Stills Section'. Click on it and go down to the bottom of the page and you will see 'New Additions'.

WHAT'S CHANGED

MEMBER ENTRANCE - On the LAMP Home Page, we hade the LAMP Members entrance at the bottom of the left navbar... To make it easier for you to get to I made the Entrance larger AND put it at the TOP of the left navbar.. so if you MISSED IT.... I think you need GLASSES!! :) This leads to the Member Central Area. We are trying to make one central location for you to be able to come to get to the Advanced Research that you're looking for as quick as possible.

LOG OF LOGS - A major change that should help you find information quicker... We're now getting so many Logs that we've created a new area to show you WHERE all the Logs ARE!!. From the LAMP Home Page... click on you LAMP Member Area on the top of the left navbar... This is the LAMP Member Central Area. It's divided into 2 Major Divisions... The first is General Areas... the second is Countries. In the General Areas ... look down the left side for 'Logs' and click. Log of Logs

This shows the different logs that we have created for Belgium, France, UK, Japan, NSS, Production Codes, Size charts, Stamps and Stickers, etc. This should be a quick new faster way to get to logs to check information.

COUNTRY IDENTIFICATION CHART - You can get to it from the new Log of Logs OR in the General Areas of the Member Central Area, (SEE IMAGE ABOVE) you can click on 'International' and get it that way as well.  - As you know, we have the Country Identification Chart to help you when you don't know what country a particular poster is from. In movie posters, there are ALWAYS expections, so I've added a new section on the bottom of that chart to show EXCEPTIONS and how to spot them.

NSS NUMBER LOGS - We have moved the NSS Number log from out of the General Public area into the Member Area. We have started compiling for the new book on NSS which is scheduled for release in November. The best way to get to this section now is from the LAMP Home Page, on the top left, go to the Member Area... This is the Member Central Area.. On this page you can either go to US under the Countries OR in the General Areas, you can go to our new listing of 'Logs' which gives all the different logs. NSS Number Log

SPOTLIGHT

Each Edition, I wanted to put the Spotlight on a tool that you might not know is available to you and show you how to use it. For this first edition, I would like to show you a tool in the Archive called 'Markings'

Our Archive is a 'ONE OF A KIND'. There's nothing else out there like it. Unlike other databases that normally have 3, 6 or even 10 sort parameters, our archive was designed to have an unlimited number of parameters to sort by. As we continue to add more information from the posters, it starts creating little pockets of information that can also be very useful.. Let me explain:

Let's say that you have an Italian poster that is a major title that has been reprinted several times. Let's say that you can't find anything to be able to tell WHICH reissue it might be. Well, when you don't have any real information to go on, sometimes you can use the archive to date 'by association'.

First let's go to the Archive Advance Search area... to get there from our Home Page... on the Horizontal Navbar, click on Cinema Poster Archive... then look just above the search bar on the left for 'Advanced Search'.

On that page is 4 different types of Advanced Searches... The first one is Movie Search when you are looking for information about the movie titles... Just below that is the Poster Search.. THIS is the one that you want.. about the POSTER.. click on it.. If you look at the different kinds of POSTER Seaches.. follow with me going down the line... 'Poster Name'... then 'Poster Year'... then 'Release Name' .. then 'Release Year'... then 'Country'... the 'Poster Type'.. then 'Size'... then 'Artist'.... then at the bottom 'MARKINGS'..... This tool gets overlooked a LOT.. It's a pull down with HUNDREDS of different markings that you might find on the poster...

Now let's go back to our Italian poster to find out about when it was rereleased... As we compile the information, it starts to create a NEW batch of information.. For Example... if the printer on the Italian poster is Rotolito.... when you sort by just THEIR material, you will see that everything we have gathered on them so far is from the late 1960s... If the printer it Rotolitografica, when you sort by THEIR material, you will see that their material is grouped in the early to mid 1970s.... AND if the printer on the poster is Rotopress, you see that THEIR material was primarily in the 1980s. This is NOT the best way to date the poster, but it is a decent confirmation check or it gives information when there are no other indicators on the poster.

If you look through this GREAT search parameter, I think you will see MANY great ways to help your research utilizing 'MARKINGS'.

ODDITIES

We are always running into little oddities. I only grabbed a couple at the last minute, for the next edition, I'll gather more from the ones I work on during the month.

Thunder Rock - While adding a Danish Poster for Thunder Rock, I noticed that the word for director was in German and not Danish. The Danish distributor, undoubtedly trying to save money, used the German poster, painted over the title and put the title in Danish and used it. I added it as a sample of an Exception in the Country Identification Chart to show how some distributors sometimes utilized other material.

Kiss Me Kate - Some make you chuckle... like while I was working on the Danish posters, I loaded a Danish one sheet for the film Kiss Me Kate.. The artwork is taken from the US artwork but done by a Danish artist (Gaston) who did some beautiful artwork. For some reason, he decided to alter the artwork a little and while all the other countries show Howard Keel spanking Kathryn Grayson, Gaston decided to raise her dress so he's spanking her underwear.

That's it for the First Edition... For next months edition, I'll include a couple of questions that have been sent in. If you like this... or have any comments or suggestions. please let me know. We want this to be a help to our Members and not just useless dribble. The only way I will know if I am providing help info or 'dribbling' is for you to let me know.

If I can help with any research, let me know

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