ABSTRACT
Mark Garrett Cooper engages Jaimie Baron in a discussion of how “the outtake” might be presented, to those in the discipline and outside it, as an object or problem of interest. Just exactly what an “outtake” is presents one set of issues since the term may be used generically to cover a range of newsfilm types that could otherwise be distinguished. The evidentiary status of the “outtake” also bears scrutiny, and in two directions at once: outtakes may illuminate or occult profilmic realities and the circumstances of filming, and the recirculation of these archival materials may disclose or conceal habits of use, interpretation, and belief. What kind of evidence can “outtakes” provide media historians? Historians in general? This prompt launches an exchange; Cooper advocates speculation that might take researchers far from questions of involving the historical reception of news, while Baron defends the vantage of reception and urges caution with respect to films never seen by historical audiences. This chapter concludes with a brief exchange between linguists about how to spell the sound “Wuzhip!” heard in archival single-system sound newsfilm.
