Anyone who has a lick of sense knows about the wealth of downloadable films available from the Prelinger Collection of ephemeral films on Archive.org. Fewer people, however, know about the equally fantastic Prelinger Library, and its role in digitizing orphaned books and journals. Among the books available in multiple forms (including PDF) is The ACL Movie Book: A Guide to Making Better Movies (1949). This book was distributed to all members of the Amateur Cinema League, America’s largest organization of amateur filmmakers. An earlier ACL book, Making Better Movies, was written by Arthur Gale and Russell Holslag, two frequent contributors to the ACL’s monthly magazine Movie Makers.

Also available from Archive.org, but not from the Prelinger Library, are two other guidebooks for amateur filmmakers: Story Telling Home Movies (Leo Salkin, 1958, McGraw-Hill) and Making 8mm Movies (Philip Grosset, 1959, Fountain Press).