Pelican Media collection, circa 1971-2018

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Summary

Title:
Pelican Media collection
Dates:
circa 1971-2018
Creators:
Pelican Media
Extent:
48 Linear Feet (59 boxes), 1 hard drive(s) (external), 52 optical disc(s) (cd), and 32 optical disc(s) (dvd)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[identification of item], Pelican media collection (M2637). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford Libraries, Stanford, California

Background

Scope and content:

Collection primarily contains media from the production of Pelican Media films in a variety of formats. Series 6 contains paper records related to the company, project and production notes, and material related to Irving's film studies at Stanford and pre-Pelican documentary work.

Biographical / historical:

Founded in 1978 in San Francisco, California, Pelican Media is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose primary aim is the production of films with environmental themes, with a focus is on urban habitats and the relationships between people and animals. Pelican Media Executive Director Judy Irving is a Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker whose theatrical credits include The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a feature documentary about the relationship between a homeless street musician and a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco, Pelican Dreams, about California brown pelicans and the people who know them best, and Dark Circle, a personal film about the links between nuclear power and weapons.

Irving graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in Psychology and worked as a freelance journalist in Montreal before hitchhiking across the continent and living on a handmade raft-house in British Columbia. Later, she received her Masters in Film and Broadcasting from Stanford University, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Film.

Her documentary film career has taken her to Alaska, Japan, Russia, Nepal, and Zimbabwe, with peace and the environment as her main areas of interest. Somehow, birds seem to show up in every movie. Judy's six-film documentary series about the San Francisco Bay Area's wildlife and open space led to her interest in the wild parrot flock flying the city's north waterfront, and her habit of swimming year-round in the Bay led to her documentary, 19 Arrests, No Convictions, about a bartender who "escapes" from Alcatraz by swimming, which premiered in 2008.

adapted from https://www.pelicanmedia.org/about

Acquisition information:
Gift; 2020. Accession 2020-305.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Media listing by Ada Elsie Sussman, finding aid created by David Krah
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-07-31 10:46:38 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. Note that material must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Audiovisual and born-digital mmaterials are not available in original format, and must be reformatted to a digital use copy. Digital files are closed until processed

Terms of access:

While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.

Preferred citation:

[identification of item], Pelican media collection (M2637). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford Libraries, Stanford, California

Location of this collection:
Department of Special Collections, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6004, US
Contact:
(650) 725-1022
specialcollections@stanford.edu
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