California USA-1938: Dam Across The River In The Valley Between Mountains

$149 · CommercialDirect license: commercial and editorial use. $149 flat from Stockfilm. Royalty-free worldwide license for commercial and editorial use, delivered as the restored 4K master.

Year1938
Decade1930s
LocationCalifornia, United States
Duration5s
Price$149 USD
Collection1938 California

$149 · CommercialDirect license: commercial and editorial use

$149 USD flat · royalty-free worldwide · 4K restored master (MP4)

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Stockfilm licenses the rights identified in the applicable agreement. Additional use-specific review may be required. See the Licensing Guide and Archive Integrity.

Dam Across The River In The Valley Between Mountains — Clip Details

Vintage 8mm home movie footage from 1938 in California, showing a dam across a river in a mountain valley. The clip captures water cascading over the dam's spillway, creating white rapids against the calm river foreground. Rugged, arid mountains rise in the background under a hazy sky, with natural rock formations visible in the water. The film exhibits classic Super 8 characteristics: soft focus, warm color grading with purple and brown tones, and visible grain. The camera remains stationary, offering a nostalgic view of early 20th-century industrial infrastructure in a remote landscape.

Licensing & Technical Details

Original Format: 8mm / Super 8 Home Movie
Resolution: 4K restored master (MP4)
License: Direct license: commercial and editorial use
Delivery: Instant Digital Download
Duration: 5s
Price: $149 USD
Clip ID: 121486003

Rights & Clearance

$149 · Commercial Direct license: commercial and editorial use. $149 flat from Stockfilm. Royalty-free worldwide license for commercial and editorial use, delivered as the restored 4K master.

No recognizable people, logos, or music are flagged. Lower-risk for commercial use, subject to your own review.

People visible: No
Logos / trademarks: No
Audible music: No

Flags come from automated catalog metadata, not a legal opinion. The source is an original 8mm / Super 8 Home Movie reel. For high-stakes commercial use, request a full rights review.

Source & Documentation

Source reel: Reel 1153 · 8mm · 5″ reel
Original reel label: bucks lake,lake tahoe,emerald bay,martins lodge
Reel-level year note: 1938
Reel-level location note: california
Date: 1938 Estimated (Catalog estimate from the footage and file metadata; not independently confirmed.)
Date evidence: Catalog estimate. A reel-level note shows the same year, but the clip-to-reel link is itself a catalog match, so this is not counted as independent confirmation.
Location: California, United States Estimated (Catalog estimate from the footage and file metadata; not independently confirmed.)
Location evidence: Catalog estimate. A reel-level location note is linked, but the clip-to-reel link is itself a catalog match, so this is not counted as independent confirmation.
Licensing route: Direct license available from Stockfilm

Confidence labels are defined on Archive Integrity. Fields without a recorded value are shown as not recorded rather than assumed.

View source reel context Open Clip Documentation Record Request source information

Topics & Keywords

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Archive Intelligence

Archive brief fit: 1930s California 8mm footage for documentary or museum edits needing a rural river dam, spillway water, and mountain valley infrastructure context.
Period detail: The soft color 8mm image, static home-movie framing, and dated metadata support a 1938 view of a dam in a dry mountain valley in California.
Home-movie behavior: The clip has a visitor-shot, observational viewpoint, holding on the dam and water movement without staged action or visible people.
What appears in frame: Visible elements include the dam spillway, white water, calm river foreground, rocky outcrops, a small dam-side structure, arid slopes, distant mountains, and hazy sky.
Film character: The footage has soft focus, visible grain, mild flicker, muted purple-brown color, and contact-print density shifts that read as physical 8mm archive texture.
Edit role: An editor could use this as a short establishing insert, infrastructure cutaway, water transition, or quiet memory beat within a California or river-management sequence.
Historical context: The scene visually places engineered water control within a sparsely populated mountain valley, without showing workers, vehicles, signage, or public activity.
Research note: No people, faces, logos, or readable brands are visible, but copyright, location identification, and any property or infrastructure permissions should be reviewed separately.
Research search match: Useful searches include 1938 California 8mm dam footage, vintage home movie river spillway, mountain valley water infrastructure, and archival dam cutaway.
Archive pairing path: Pair first with other shots from the same reel, then California 1938 landscapes or waterworks, then broader vintage river, dam, mountain, and infrastructure footage.

Still Frames From This Clip

1938 California 8mm frame showing water spilling over a dam in a dry mountain valley with rocks in the river foreground. — Water cascades over a dam below arid mountain slopes, with rocks visible in the river.

1938 California home-movie view of a dam spillway across a river, framed by rocky foreground and dry mountain slopes. — A static view holds on the dam spillway, white water, and surrounding mountain valley.

1938 California 8mm frame with white water below the dam, dark river rocks, and arid mountains beyond. — Spillway water forms a bright band behind dark rocks in the river foreground.

1938 California home-movie frame showing a dam spillway and small structure beside a rocky river in a mountain valley. — The dam-side structure appears at the right edge as water spills across the river channel.

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