After returning to Europe, we worked intermittently on the footage in Basel, Switzerland, from April, 1970, until the summer of 1972. First, we wrote a shot log and synchronized picture with sound. That completed, we had an internegative of the entire film record made for Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek for his collection of films on the Baruya at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. This satisfied the responsibility we had assumed from the beginning of preserving a research document of the footage as originally shot.

We then began work on what we intended as the first edited film to come from the project. The choice of a unifying theme, namely salt, reflected some of Godelier's theoretical thinking as he began to write up and publish his Baruya material. Family responsibilities in Italy made it impossible for us to continue this film past the rough cut stage. We had to put the whole project aside until the spring of 1979.

At this point we realized that it was high time to take stock and complete the process of getting some film into circulation. The Jablonkos, Godelier, and his assistants, Lemonnier and Lory, met in Basel to review the total footage. Lory and Lemonnier had both worked among the Baruya subsequent to 1969 and knew the area and many of the people well. This was the first time they had seen any of our footage. During three days of intensive viewing they used our footage as "a field away from the field", comparing events filmed in 1969 to situations seen during their later field trips. New perceptions and insights were reached in discussion with other anthropologists who also took part in the viewing (Florence Weiss and Milan Stanek).

The screenings were started with a rough cut of the incomplete film BARUYA SALT. We viewed this film on a screen approximately 10 by 12 feet large, in a beautifully appointed projection room. The image was professionally impressive, but there was no possibility of stopping or reversing the film. We then moved into a cutting room, which, though small, could just accommodate the seven viewers around the Steenbeck editing table. As we watched uncut footage, Godelier now had his hands on the controls. The image, though only 8 by 10 inches large, could now be stopped, precise details could be pointed to as the discussion proceeded. The film could be reversed in order to check queries.

The viewers became active participants. They were no longer the passive spectators of an on-going, unidirectional flow of images which they could only receive. This was, and at the time of writing still is, an unusual way of using footage: anthropologists gathered to review certain precisely dated events, using the opportunity to sharpen their perceptions, and possibly to revise previous understandings and conclusions. It was a type of limited replay of a field situation. We concluded that, for this kind of mutual viewing and discussion, unedited footage is fully as satisfactory as an edited film, and, possibly, even preferable. As Godelier remarked, "After all, a lot of things are already omitted, so why cut out any more?"

On the basis of this experience we chose two film events for screening to wider audiences. (FE 14 : Wrapping the Salt Bars, and FE 22 and 26: Mapping the Tultul's Garden) These were shown at the Symposium of Swiss Ethnologists on Audiovisual Methods, Neuchatel, October 1979; at the Anthropology Film Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, February 1980; and at the Conference on Visual Anthropology, Philadelphia, March 1980. Discussions arising during these screenings revealed that viewers were intrested in two diverse formats:

a) A number of anthropologists requested unedited footage of specific events for use in their anthropology classes. This has led to a collection called "Selected Film Events" which could be distributed on video-tape.

b) Other viewers were more interested in seeing us make one or more edited films. Such films would communicate the ideas inherent in the footage both to a wider audience within anthropology and especially to a wider general public.

Meanwhile, work on the ethnographic content of the film collection was proceeding. Yavine Borima, a young Baruya man studying art in the U.S.A., was able to view and translate the Baruya dialogue in the synchronous sound footage when he visited the Jablonkos in Italy in May 1980. As only the Pidgin English portions of the conversations had previously been translated, his translations greatly expanded the meaning of the filmed sequences for Western viewers. For more on translation and subtitles