The film archive is the repository of visual media which the historian who wants to investigate these sources will have to use in the same way as he finds his more traditional forms of evidence in a library of written or printed materials. The basic research principle is similar but the various complex factors involved in the collection and safe keeping of historical film have a bearing on what kind of facilities may be open to the historian and on the methods he is able to employ.

Film of some potential historical value may be found in many different kinds of collection. Before considering the archives themselves, which are essentially institutions for the keeping of public records, one should take into account all other sources. These begin at the smallest level with personal and private films taken by amateurs on 16mm or 8mm, often kept by their owners as souvenirs of the events photographed by them in the past. Some of them, or copies of them, may eventually pass into the larger archives. They can be important supplements to the normal visual records because the private individual may catch incidents and personalities which the official or commercial cameraman had no brief to film at the time.

A few examples of these may make the point. The Eva Braun home movies now held by the National Archives at Washington D.C. have become relatively well known through their re-use in various compilations. One documentary film even saw fit to do a synchronised voice track, but the unusual value of the originals, showing Hitler and his friends in relaxed mood at Berchtesgaden, will no doubt allow them to survive such treatment.