Washington State Governor Daniel J. Evans launched the AFW program in January 1974 with the mission first to ask Washington citizens what they wanted the state to be like in 1985 and then to involve them in actualizing that vision by identifying the costs and necessary trade-offs. The program was funded with grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Pacific Northwest Regional Commission in the US Department of Commerce, and administered by the state's Office of Program Planning and Fiscal Management.
Workshops, seminars, and community meetings across the state inaugurated the program and reached 60,000 citizens in the first year. In 1975 the 150-person statewide AFW task force analyzed and evaluated responses and compiled a report that identified eight public policy areas for Phase Two. Phase Two returned with costs attached to proposals and queried citizens to identify acceptable trade-offs to preserve "our magnificent Northwest life-style" (Alternatives for Washington, Vol. I, Rpt. 1, May 1975). Claiming to have involved 100,000 people over its three years, AFW concluded in January 1977 with the issuance of a final report "An Agenda for the Future: A Citizens Report on Alternatives for Washington".
Several departments at Washington State University assisted with conducting meetings, collecting and analyzing responses to opinion polls, and producing media presentations. These included Cooperative Extension, along with the Department of Rural Sociology (especially faculty members John M. Wardwell and Don A. Dillman), the Social Research Center, and Radio-Television Services (KWSU).
Three films were created by KWSU for AFW: Alternatives for Washington was a 12-minute introduction to the AFW project; Issaquah, a Beginning: Alternatives for Washington documented 1974's twelve-day citizen panels and public meetings in Issaquah and was released in 27-minute and 20-minute "short" versions; and the 26-minute The First Year: Alternatives for Washington summarized the Phase I results including the areas of concern based on the 1974 citizen surveys and is included in Archives 225.
The films in this collection are assumed to be footage shot by KWSU that was then used to create three AFW-associated films identified in WorldCat as WSU-produced and held only by the Washington State Library: Alternatives for Washington [1974?], Issaquah, a Beginning: Alternatives for Washington [1974?], and The First Year: Alternatives for Washington [1975?].
This collection's films were stored at Teknifilm, Inc. in Portland. Teknifilm offered complete film processing from 1964 to 1998. KWSU presumably sent film footage shot for AFW to Teknifilm to be developed and perhaps for post-production work. This collection seems to consist of what remained at Teknifilm: footage used in a WSU-production, but not the final prints.
The collection consists of fifteen reels of 16-mm film and five 1-inch paper data tapes. Films in the collection are preprints that include A, B, and C rolls, magnetic sound tracks, and internegative prints. The A, B, and C rolls and separate magnetic sound tracks are edited together in post-production to create a print. A, B, and C rolls are used to create effects such as fades and dissolves by alternating scenes back and forth from one roll to the next and back. For example, the A roll may have the even-numbered shots with black leader film between them and the B roll the odd-numbered ones. The A and B rolls and the sound track are then run through the contact printer in three passes to create a negative. An internegative comes later in post-production when editing is finished; it is the internegative from which a final release print is made. The internegative reels include an optical sound track that, unlike a magnetic track, is on the film and not on a separate reel. A- or B-wind refers to emulsion orientation. The data tapes carry more identifying information and seem to have been used to sync the rolls in post-production printing. The final two 16mm films are completed films.
Eastman Kodak metal canisters originally housed the films, often with two reels per canister and always in acidic Teknifilm-logo paper bags. Each reel was transferred to an archival media box. To retain as much of the Teknifilm provenance information as possible, photocopies of the Teknifilm bag labels are included with the film and inventory numbers from the canisters are included in the container list below.
Arrangement was primarily determined for ease of storage and preservation.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item Description]
Washington State University Alternatives for Washington Project Films 1974-1975 (Archives 311)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The Oregon Historical Society acquired the records of a Portland film lab, Teknifilm, Inc., which included these films.
The films were transferred to WSU Libraries by the Oregon Historical Society in 2001 The films were retained as UA 2001-09.
In February 2012 two completed 16mm films were moved from the WSU Libraries' unprocessed Historical Films Collection, and added to the end of this collection.
This collection was processed in 2011 by Susan Vetter.
Washington State University Cooperative Extension Service Alternatives for Washington Project Records,
1974-1975 (
Alternatives for Washington: a Future Tense [videorecording], WSU Media Materials Services, 3/4" 10012 pt. 1 and pt. 2
"Alternatives for Washington," 11 volumes (Olympia: Office of Program Planning and Fiscal Management, 1974-1977), MW 9 PL 13 ST 9 Al79
"An Agenda for the Future: [a citizens report on Alternatives for Washington]" (Olympia: Office of Program Planning and Fiscal Management, 1977), MW 9 PL 13 ST 9 Al79c
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.