Archival Storytelling is an essential, pragmatic guide to one of the most challenging issues facing filmmakers today: the use of images and music that belong to someone else. Where do producers go for affordable stills and footage? How do filmmakers evaluate the historical value of archival materials? What do vérité producers need to know when documenting a world filled with rights-protected images and sounds? How do filmmakers protect their own creative efforts from infringement?

Filled with advice and insight from filmmakers, archivists, film researchers, music supervisors, intellectual property experts, insurance executives and others, Archival Storytelling defines key terms - copyright, fair use, public domain, orphan works and more - and challenges filmmakers to become not only archival users but also archival and copyright activists, ensuring their ongoing ability as creators to draw on the cultural materials that surround them.