The collection is divided into five series: Personal, Business Documents, Projects, Articles and Clippings, and Audiovisual Materials. All the series contain many of Shaye’s hand-written notes from notebooks to scraps of paper in which many of his ideas are written. Along with the notes, Shaye included many Post-it notes explaining some of the content. The majority of documents for the Projects series and all the material from the Audiovisual series are from The Last Mimzy, directed by Shaye and released in 2007.
The Personal series includes correspondence between friends and business partners as well as congratulatory cards and notes. The majority of the series consists of Shaye’s speeches made during awards ceremonies, general speeches for company events, movie premiere speeches and speeches for family and friends’ events. Many documents refer to Shaye as L.E. Moko. This reference refers to Pépé le Moko, a 1937 French gangster film directed by Julien Duvivier.
The Business Documents series ranges from 1967-2008 with documents focusing on New Line and consisting of correspondence, shareholder meeting notes, and film catalogs showcasing the variety of movies available for distribution that year. A binder with information on New Line common stock and correspondence can be found in an oversize box.
The Project series highlights some of New Line Cinema’s distributed and produced films. Highlights include storyboards for Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master, produced in 1988. The majority of documents are production documents for two films directed by Shaye, Book of Love and The Last Mimzy.
The Articles and clippings section consists of personal articles about Robert Shaye as a business entrepreneur and creative director, New Line Cinema articles, and miscellaneous film reviews along with trade magazines with issues dedicated to New Line or Robert Shaye.
The Audiovisual Materials series consists of The Last Mimzy DVD’s and a CD of video clips, trailers and publicity events. The DVD’s include production footage such as alternate beginnings, B-roll footage and different edited versions of the film.
Robert Kenneth Shaye was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 03, 1939. He holds a degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Columbia University Law School. Shaye began his film career in 1955, when he wrote, produced and directed a training film for employees of his father's supermarket, Big Bear Market in Detroit, Michigan. While a student at the University of Michigan he directed Image released in 1963.
As a Fulbright scholar, Shaye traveled to Uppsala, Sweden in the 1960’s to study international copyright law. While at Uppsala University, he made a film with other students titled On Fighting Witches released in 1965. Shaye named the production company for this film Pegasus Productions.
In 1967 Shaye founded New Line Cinema in his New York apartment after graduating from Columbia Law School. The company focused on distributing foreign and art house films on college campuses. In 1972 he re-leased the kitsch 1930's anti-marijuana film, Reefer Madness, which became popular on college campuses. New Line Cinema continued to distribute a variety of niche films and in 1977 New Line produced its first movie titled Stunts. New Line’s famous productions include the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Austin Powers and most recently the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In 1984, New Line produced and distributed the first of the Nightmare on Elm Street series to box office success. In 1986 New Line became the first independent studio to become a publicly traded company, and in 1990, Shaye created a branch of New Line called Fine Line to distribute foreign art house films and produce works by new talent in America. The company was later acquired in 1993 by Turner Broadcasting System which later became AOL Time Warner in 2000.
In June 2008, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes announced that New Line would shut down as a separately operated studio, but the company would continue to operate its financing, producing, marketing and distributing operations of its own films as part of Warner Bros., and be reconfigured into a smaller studio releasing a small number of films. Shaye left New Line that year and formed a new independent film company called Unique Features.
References:
Scott, A.O. "New Line's 40 Years of Reaching Brows High and Low." New York Times 1 Mar. 2008: B7(L). Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 22 Sep. 2011
