The series consists of files of correspondence, research material and other documents relating to Colin Low's education, his career with the National Film Board, his travels in the United States and Europe, his interest in developments in film technology, and other aspects of his life and career. The photographs add to existing documentation of research and development demonstrating the vision of IMAX technology Low had, his work practices and artistic methods of conceiving films. There are miscellaneous notes, script proposals and outlines, speeches, articles and other writings by Colin Low, as well as some early material including school records. Most of the material documents Low's own interest in making films, although there is some material relating to his administrative work at the National Film Board, including correspondence, memoranda and reports relating to management and production. There are files on Low's work in the United States, including material on Disney Productions (including correspondence with Stephen Bosustow), the Office of Economic Opportunity (Farmersville and Hartford Projects), the Pegram lectures and other projects. There is documentation, including proposals, treatments and budgets, relating to the never-realized NFB project to celebrate the American Bicentennial. There is research material on 3D films and IMAX in general, as well as other reference material. There are publicity materials and clippings of articles about Colin Low.
Scattered throughout the series is correspondence, including letters from Tom Daly, Norman McLaren, Evelyn Lambart, Jean-Paul Ladouceur, Budge Crawley, George Dunning (including photographs in container 179), Jim MacKay (with illustrations), Roman Kroitor, Philip Stapp, Sydney Newman, Gerry Potterton and others. There is one sub-series consisting of family correspondence.
Additional records consist of further correspondence, research material, publicity material, speeches and articles by Low, and other documents relating in a general way to his career with the National Film Board and to his work with IMAX, as well as a small amount of material documenting other aspects of his career. Included are correspondence, proposals, recommendations and reports while Low was executive producer of the NFB's Unit C, overseeing the Challenge for Change series, and correspondence, memoranda and reports on his work on the Farmersville project in the U.S., including a letter from Donald Snowden. Also included is documentation on Low's participation in a Dag Hammarskjold Foundation workshop in Uppsala, Sweden, on film as an educational tool for development.
There are Low's notes on various NFB films, including Robin Spry's 'One Man' (see Criticism of Films file) and 'The Kid Who Couldn't Miss', and his notes on the relationship between IMAX and the NFB (see IMAX/OMNIMAX file). There are research files containing notebooks on multi-screen technology (see 3-D Research and Multi-Screen Research files). The additional material includes files of manuscripts written by Chief Jim White Bull on the history of the Blood Indians, evidently relating, in part, to the never-realised film 'Charcoal', reflecting Low's interest in Amerindian history. The files include a letter from Chief White Bull, 1971, referring to Low's having asked him to write his own history.
There are general files of correspondence, including letters from Wallace Stegner and George Dunning, 1969; Roman Kroitor, 1971; Donald Snowden, 1974; Boyce Richardson, 1976; and the sculptor Harold Pfeiffer, 1984. Among the material is a file on the Animation Department containing printed samples of graphic design work by Low and his colleagues George Dunning, Jim MacKay, Grant Munro and Robert Verrall, including 'The House Memo', designed and handprinted by Attic Press, Toronto, 1939-1940, and five bulletins of the Canadian Library Association, 1946-1951. There is a programme for a theatre production, 'The Sound of Murder', directed by Low in 1963 for the Baie d'Urfé Little Theatre.
