HSN Preservation Project

Reference document for staff | January 2026

Key Point: HSN (Hearst Silent Newsreel) is UCLA's internal designation for a preservation project, not a Hearst newsreel series. HSN elements are safety copies of HIN nitrate.

What is HSN?

HSN elements are preservation compilations created by UCLA from Hearst International Newsreel (HIN) nitrate. A single HSN reel typically contains content from multiple HIN issues spliced together.

Sources: What follows is based on (1) Blaine Bartell's handwritten notebook documenting the preservation work, now OCR'd, and (2) notes fields in the UCLA FileMaker registry. Some details are inferred from these sources.

Designation	What It Is	Era
HIN	Hearst International Newsreel — a Hearst production series	1919–1929
HNR	Hearst News Reel / News of the Day — a Hearst production series	1929–1967
HVM	Hearst Vault Material — original camera negatives and outtakes	Various
HSN	UCLA's preservation project — not a Hearst series	1990s project

Important: When you encounter an HSN barcode in the registry, remember that the underlying content is HIN material. The "HSN" designation reflects UCLA's preservation work, not Hearst's original production.

Historical Context

HIN (Hearst International Newsreel)

HIN, also known as "International Newsreel" or "International News," was Hearst's silent-era newsreel. From independent historical sources:

Active period: January 1919 – July 1929
Release schedule: Twice weekly
Distribution: Universal Pictures
Production: Hearst's International News Service
Market reach: By mid-1920s, newsreels appeared in 85-90% of ~18,000 U.S. theaters
Survival: Less than 100,000 feet of an estimated 1 million feet produced (~10%)

The term "newsreel" was first used in a title by Hearst with this series in 1918. When the Hearst-Universal partnership ended in July 1929, Universal launched its own independent newsreel. Hearst transitioned to sound as "Hearst Metrotone News" in September 1929, becoming part of the "Big Five" newsreel oligopoly alongside Fox Movietone, Paramount News, Universal Newsreel, and Warner-Pathe. The series was renamed "News of the Day" in 1936.

Sources: Grokipedia: Universal Newsreel, Grokipedia: Newsreel, Wikipedia (survival statistic), National Film Preservation Foundation; see also Raymond Fielding, The American Newsreel: A Complete History, 1911-1967 (1972, rev. 2006)

HIN Synopsis Sheets

Our knowledge of what stories appeared in specific HIN issues comes from typewritten synopsis sheets held by UCLA. These are primary source documents from Hearst's original production records.

When Hearst donated its newsreel collection to UCLA in 1981, the donation included not just film but also documentation:

Synopsis sheets: Complete listings of stories in each released newsreel
Cross-indexed card catalog: Subject access to footage
Disposition ("dispo") logs: Records of when footage was received

The synopsis sheets were essential to UCLA's preservation work. After initial distribution, Hearst cut negatives and prints into component stories for reuse. UCLA worked backward from the synopsis sheets to reassemble complete newsreels from these fragments.

Note on sources: While the volume/issue numbering system is corroborated by external sources (e.g., the NFPF's preserved "International Newsreel, Vol. 8, Issue 97, 1926"), the actual content listings for specific HIN issues rely on UCLA's synopsis sheets. No external database independently verifies what stories appeared in each issue.

HIN Index Cards

In addition to the typewritten synopsis sheets, we have scanned index cards for HIN footage (card IDs c0a00000 through c0a49998). These ~19,000 cards document individual shots and stories with metadata including:

Subject description
Location
Date
Cameraman
used_in field linking to HIN volume/issue (e.g., "10-47" = Vol 10, Issue 47)

OCR of these cards is in progress. Current status (~19,000 c0a cards):

36%

Good OCR

34%

Partial OCR

19%

Linked to issues

For the later sound-era HNR (News of the Day), we have actual scans of the original synopsis cards for most issues.

UCLA Preservation Project (1987–1995)

Based on dated entries in the registry notes, the HSN preservation project ran from at least 1987 through 1995:

Year	Elements	Personnel (from notes)
1987	27	Andrea Kalas
1988	11
1989	116	Blaine Bartell, Yuell Newsome
1990	56	Blaine Bartell, Yuell Newsome
1991	13
1992	8
1993	21
1994	30
1995	69
Undated	749

All preservation work was done at Film Technology Inc. Other personnel mentioned in notes: Karen Gracy, Jeffrey Bickel.

The notebook appears to be Blaine Bartell's documentation of this work, recording what content was preserved on each HSN compilation reel.

Blaine Bartell's Notebook

Blaine's handwritten notebook documenting the HSN preservation work has been digitized:

313

OCR text files

1,361

Stories documented

71%

Mapped to HIN

Notebook Entry Format

Each page documents one or more HSN reels with information about the preserved content:

1. HUNTING A COON FOR THE PRESIDENT-ELECT Successful chase furnishes a toothsome dinner for President Harding...Perrine, Florida r 2248 V3-114 Feb 14, 1921 2. LAST OF THE SEMINOLES For the first time picturesque members of the vanishing tribe agree to pose for the cameraman ...Everglades, Florida r 2247 V3-114 Feb 14, 1921

Understanding the Notation

Element	Example	Meaning
Story number	`1.`	Position within the HSN reel
Title	`HUNTING A COON...`	Original HIN story title
Description	`Successful chase...`	Story synopsis
Location	`Perrine, Florida`	Where footage was shot
INT number	`r 2248`	UCLA's International catalog reference
Volume/Issue	`V3-114`	Original HIN Volume 3, Issue 114
Release date	`Feb 14, 1921`	When HIN issue was released

INT Numbers

The "INT" numbers (e.g., r 2248, r 1648) are UCLA's internal catalog numbers for the International Newsreel collection. These provide cross-references between:

Blaine's notebook entries
UCLA's synopsis sheets
The original HIN release records

Mapping Status

Blaine's original notebook mapped only about 27% of the INT numbers to specific HIN volume/issue references. Automated matching has increased coverage:

Match Method	Count	Description
Exact volume/issue	655	Volume/Issue notation in notebook matched STORY table
Exact title	102	Title matched exactly
Fuzzy title	121	Title matched with fuzzy matching
INT synopsis	89	INT number matched via synopsis sheets
Total matched	967	71% of documented stories
Unmatched	394	29% still need manual review

What This Means for Staff

When working with HSN elements:

The content is HIN (silent-era newsreel), not a separate collection
One HSN reel may contain stories from multiple HIN issues
The HSN_STORY_MAP table links HSN content to original HIN stories
About 71% of the preserved content has been matched to its original HIN source

Database Tables

HSN_STORY_MAP

Located in hearst_webapp, this table maps HSN preservation content to original HIN stories:

SELECT hsn_number, roll_number, hin_volume, hin_issue, title, match_method
FROM HSN_STORY_MAP
WHERE hsn_number = 'HSN-015';

Column	Description
`hsn_number`	HSN reel identifier (e.g., "HSN-015")
`roll_number`	Story position within HSN reel
`hin_volume`	Original HIN volume number
`hin_issue`	Original HIN issue number
`hin_story`	Story number within issue
`title`	Story title from notebook
`match_method`	How the match was determined

Related Tables

hearst_webapp.STORY — HIN story records (collection = 'HIN')
hearst_webapp.ISSUE — HIN issue metadata
hearst_registry.elements — Physical HSN elements with barcodes