Research Profiles Gallery - nonmodernist/magic-lantern GitHub Wiki

Research Profiles Gallery

Research profiles are like specialized lenses for Magic Lantern - each one is calibrated to find different kinds of historical materials based on your research questions. Think of them as pre-configured search strategies that know which publications to prioritize and what kinds of searches to run.

🎭 Available Profiles

🫥 Default Profile

Best for: Getting started, general film history research

The balanced, all-purpose profile that treats all sources fairly. Like a wide-angle lens, it captures everything without strong preferences.

  • What it does: Searches broadly across all publication types and time periods
  • Key features: No strong biases - lets you see what's out there
  • Example use: Initial exploration of any film corpus

📚 Literary Adaptations Profile

Profile name: adaptation-studies

Best for: Tracing relationship between novels/stories and films

This profile is tuned to find mentions of source materials, author attributions, and adaptation choices.

  • Prioritizes:
    • Author mentions (Fannie Hurst, Gene Stratton-Porter, etc.)
    • Mentions of the source material
  • Special searches: Looks for both film AND novel titles (they often differed!)
  • Example finding: "The Alice Hegan Rice novel and the play derived from it by Anne Crawford Flexner have been turned into an uninspired screenplay by Doris Anderson, William Slavens McNutt and Jane Storm." (😨)

🪧 Labor History Profile

Profile name: labor-history

Best for: Uncovering strikes, union activity, and working conditions across the film industry

Focused on the human side of production - when films were delayed by strikes, when unions formed, when workers protested conditions.

  • Searches for: Strike news, union coverage, wage disputes, production delays
  • Prioritizes trade papers with labor coverage:
    • Variety (excellent strike reporting)
    • Harrison's Reports (independent voice, pro-worker stance)
  • Downplays: Fan magazines (rarely mentioned labor disputes)
  • Special searches: Adds "strike against," "picketed," and "labor dispute" to film and studio searches
  • Example finding: "If the Churubusco Studios are not closed by its owners as announced on May 30, they will be shut down on June 7 by a strike of its organized employees, members of the technical and manual workers locals of the Picture Production Workers Union (STPC)."
  • See Case Study: Labor History & Exhibition for more.

🎞️ Silent Era Profile

Profile name: early-cinema

Best for: Films from 1905-1920

Optimized for the early days when film titles were fluid, release dates uncertain, and different publications covered the emerging industry.

  • Prioritizes early trade papers:
    • Moving Picture World (the essential early source)
    • Motography (technical coverage from the start)
    • Reel Life (Mutual Film Company's paper)
    • more coming soon!
  • Adjusts for era quirks:
    • Wider date ranges (release dates were fuzzy)
    • Emphasizes abbreviated titles (common practice)
    • Focuses on early studios and distributors

Example finding: "Motion picture rights have been purchased by the Signal Film Corporation for the Vaughn Kester novel, 'The Manager of the B. & A.' This has a Western atmosphere, and will be produced following the filming of the Alice MacGowan novel of the South, 'Judith of The Cumberlands.'"

🌾 Regional Reception Profile

Profile name: regional-reception

Best for: Understanding how films played outside New York and Los Angeles

Shifts focus from coastal premieres to Main Street exhibitions - how did films actually perform in Peoria?

  • Prioritizes heartland voices:
    • BoxOffice (Kansas City-based, regional focus)
    • The Exhibitor (Philadelphia perspective)
    • Showmen's Trade Review (independent exhibitors)
  • Downplays coastal publications:
    • Variety (NYC-centric coverage)
    • Hollywood Reporter (LA industry focus) Looks for: Small-town reports, neighborhood theater results, rural exhibition patterns

🤔 Choosing the Right Profile

Ask yourself:

  1. What's my main research question?
  • Author/book connections → adaptation-studies
  • Union organizing → labor-history
  • Small-town exhibition → regional-reception
  1. What time period?
  • Before 1920 → early-cinema
  • Everything else → default for now - more era profiles are being built!
  1. What kind of coverage matters most?
  • Reviews mentioning authors → adaptation-studies
  • Marketing strategies in small towns → regional-reception
  • Strike delays → labor-history

💡 Mix and Match

You can run the same films through different profiles to see different angles:

# First search: Find literary connections
--profile=adaptation-studies

# Second search: See how it played regionally  
--profile=regional-reception

# Third search: Any labor issues during production?
--profile=labor-history

Each profile will find different research treasures in the same historical record!

🎯 What Profiles Actually Do

Behind the scenes, each profile adjusts three key settings:

  1. Publication Weights: Which magazines/papers to value more
  2. Search Priorities: Which types of queries to run first (or skip)
  3. Date Ranges: How far before/after release date to search

But you don't actually have to worry about the technical details - just pick the profile that matches your research focus. Or, for more control, create your own profile.