Inside the Stacks: Exploring Important Documents in Chiefs History is a series of columns based on never-before-seen documents and correspondence from the Lamar Hunt archives, including many from the founding and early days of the American Football League, the merger with the National Football League, and other historic moments up until the time of Hunt's death.

Anybody who has followed the National Football League for any length of time is familiar with the entity known as NFL Films. Originally formed as Blair Motion Pictures in 1962, the company was incorporated into the NFL's expanding marketing operation in 1965 and became its principal promotional arm, what one critic called "the greatest in-house P.R. machine in pro sports history."

Over the years, Films has captured numerous Emmy Awards, and the trophies line the wall of the lobby of the company's headquarters in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey.

But while NFL Films is well known, the operation known as AFL Films is not.

Up until the merger between the AFL and NFL, AFL teams made their own highlight films with local production companies, or with Tel-Ra, a production house out of Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Starting in 1968, a full season after the merger of the two leagues was announced, NFL Films created a sub-division called AFL Films, and staffed the company with holdover crew members and new hires from Tel-Ra. They created vests, shirts and caps with "AFL Films" emblazoned them, but the crews were interchangeable. One week, a cameraman might work a Chiefs–Raiders game, and seven days later be filming a Lions-Vikings contest.

Tel-Ra usually utilized a team's play-by-play announcer to do narration for AFL Films while the NFL had the legendary newsman, John Facenda, read over its highlights.

The NFL had high-speed cameras for super slow-motion and better telescopic lenses to get more detailed shots, it could capture sideline sound at select games (which Tel-Ra couldn't afford) and it used signature music, which was more cinematic than what Tel-Ra offered.

Finally, the scriptwriting was more sophisticated and dramatic than Tel-Ra's "just the facts" approach.

Any examination of the 1968 Chiefs highlight film offers a distinctive feel in narration and music from what Tel-Ra produced for Kansas City in 1967.

AFL Films formally ceased operations in June of 1970, and what remained became part of NFL Films.

SOURCES: "Public Relations Hi-Lite Film file, Cabinet 16, Drawer D. Lamar Hunt to Jack Steadman, December 22, 1965; Lamar Hunt to Jack Steadman, Roger Valdiserri, "Suggestions for 1965 Halite Film, March 12, 1965; "AFL-Television, AFL Films" file, Cabinet 16, Drawer E.