1. Introduction

1.1 This is a personal response to the British Film Institute's (BFI)Strategy for UK Screen Heritage (whatever happened to the definite article).

1.2.I wielded my first 16mm camera (a Kodak model B) in the Huddersfield of 1967. In 1980 I became responsible for all the films made for London Transport. During this period it became clear that many sponsored film libraries were to close and it would become imperative to save the collections. In 1985 I left regular employment to run my own film archive business. 1985 was also the year I approached South East Arts ( part of the Art Council) and Brighton Polytechnic ( now University) with the idea of setting up a South East Regional Film Archive to cover Kent, Sussex ( East and West) and Surrey. Over twenty years later I was to deposit my personal film archive to this body.

1.3 The following is borne out of these years of experience and is offered as a more pragmatic and less bureaucratic alternative to that offered by the BFI.

2. Aim

2.1 To make our country's rich screen heritage accessible to all within a framework that provides a secure future for archives that hold these treasures.

3. Purpose

3.1 The purpose of this document is to indicate a realistic strategy for audio-visual archives to secure a future in which the aim can be realised.

4. History

4.1 Forty years ago when i started out as an amateur film maker we had an under resourced National Film Archive, lots of film distribution libraries both public sector ( such as the National Coal Board ) and commercial ( such as the Petroleum Information Bureau). Television was about to take on the mantle of documentary films form the likes of British Transport Films and of course there were theatrical distributors, educational films and entertainment shows on television.

4.2 During the intervening years film making ( especially documentary and educational films) gave way to television and video.

4.3 At various stages throughout that time the BFI made bids for funding an ever growing National Film ( and later Television) Archive. Some of the bids were tied into other operations of the BFI such as the now defunct Museum of the Moving Image in London. Over the years the BFI have wasted millions of pounds of public money trying to manage an archive, which sat uneasily with their production and distribution functions.

4.4 Meanwhile regional archives began to be established. Some associated with universities others with local authorities. They grew primarily because of a centralized National Archive could not cope with the demands of the local communities ( much of it local history based). Much of the material held in regional archives were films made by amateurs which had no place in a National Archive more interested in Art Films than local history.

4.5 The regional archives, for the most part, developed or inherited oral history to supplement the usually silent pictures. Most also collected other regional audio libraries ( such as the Constanin Silvestri tape archive that feature performances by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra during his all to short tenure as their conductor in the 1960s).

4.6 Most regional archives have amassed collections of posters, handbills, documents and photographs relating to their film and audio collections and to the development of cinemas in their area.

4.7 Regional archives have developed their individual ways of reaching their communities, often using volunteers. Over the years they have built links with communities, educational establishments, local media and library and archive services in their area. This has usually been achieved with meagre funds and often only short term funding.

4.8 Film as a medium started around 1895 using cellulose nitrate based 35mm stock. This remained the format of choice for feature and documentaries until 1951 when cellulose nitrate stock was replaced by acetate based stock. 16mm and 8mm film, the mainstay of regional archives, had always used acetate based film stock also known as &Quot;safety film&Quot;. By the 1990s acetate based stock gave way to polyester stock. Over the years the BFI has run campaigns on behalf of the NFTVA to copy cellulose nitrate films to polyester stock( &Quot;Nitrate 2000&Quot; run in 1989 was a campaign declaring that funds were needed to copy nitrate film otherwise it would disintegrate by 2000). Also in the 1980s came triacetate destabilisation. It was commonly known as "vinegar syndrome.". Finally there is a major problem with Eastmancolor I prints. On these colour film prints the cyan and yellow dyes fade leaving a magenta print. Over the years the BFI has received for the NFTVA public funds towards overcoming these problems. However it would appear that little progress has been made into the mountain of film held by the NFTVA.

5. The Current Position

5.1 Today we have a large depository in the form of the National Film and Television Archive in the magnificent J. Paul Getty Centre at Berkhampstead. Other public sector national collections include the Welsh and Scottish archives both part of their national libraries, the BBC, the Imperial War Museum, British Defence Film Library and the Central Office of Information. Private national collections include the National Motor Museum, the National Tramway Museum and there are commercial libraries most of whom are members of the Federation of Commercial Audio Visual Libraries (FOCAL).

5.2 Regional Archives now exist to cover almost all of England (Oxfordshire and Milton Keynes excepted).

5.3 Audio collections start with national collections the National Sound Archive (NSA) at the British Library, the Imperial War Museum, the National Railway Museum. Many regional archives, county archives, museums and libraries hold audio in one form or another and work down to local oral history projects and tape clubs.

5.4 Such funds as are available from the public sector are diverse and few are stable. This deflects archive managers from their main purpose to ensure there will be a continuing source of funding. Some funding organisations also require extensive reporting and accounting of the funds.

5.5 Archives by their very nature are here for the long term whilst responding to the demands for access today. This does cause conflict. The BFI have gained a reputation for denying access on the grounds of the need to preserve material for future generations.

5.6 The services provided by archives are invaluable to communities in understanding their history. Many technical films detail lost production processes and crafts. Publicity films and adverts are social history writ large. Amateur films detail life in a way unimaginable in previous centuries.

5.7 Unlike rag-board paper (in common use until cheaper mechanical press board paper became omniscient in the latter half of the nineteenth century) film and magnetic media (video tapes included) decay relatively rapidly. Film and video archives experience preservation problems similar to those trying to keep modern paper documents. The restoration and storage of both forms are therefore not dissimilar. Likewise access has similar problems which can be resolved by using digital formats (although they tend to inferior to the original analogue for and are therefore not suitable for long term storage). Digitizing vast amounts of archive material is expensive and must be weighed against using the funds to secure long term survival of the artifact. Again this is the conflict referred to in 5.5 above.

5.8 Technical knowledge for most twentieth century media and film in particular is in danger of being lost as the generations of technicians with the knowledge age and die.

5.9 How films were made, especially feature films, need to be recorded. The BECTU History Project has been recording film makers for over thirty years and is an invaluable resources accessible via the British Library. Likewise the Imperial War Museum has accounts of services film makers (mainly from the Army Kinematograph Service). The equipment used for both production and projection and the buildings used for studios and cinemas need conservation too if future generations are to grasp the significance of the technology on the twentieth century. The preservation of such artifacts is patchy to say the least.

5.10 Interpretation and analysis varies widely from old 9.5mm projectors and Vitaphone discs on display in my local cinema , to large media studies departments in universities producing students, who for the most part, have little knowledge or understanding of the development of media throughout the twentieth century.

6. The Future

6.1 There are two main functions of archives that need to be secured :

1. . The long term need to preserve artifacts, ideally in their original form.
2. . The need to make archives accessible and useful to current and future societies.

6.2 Preservation

6.2.1 Film makers during the twentieth century rarely gave a thought to the life of their last film as they were often more concerned about the next one. Its only with the passage of time that film has assumed an archival importance. Modern Polyester based film stocks are expected to last for 200 years if stored correctly. Transferring old film to new is expensive. Turn of the Tide A two reel Eastmancolor film promoting Liverpool as an industrial power made in 1966 that had faded to magenta cost the North West Film Archive some £17,000 to preserve . The colour was restored and the film is now on 35mm polyester stock. 6.2.2. Video and audio formats, which until very recently relied on magnetic tape have their own problems, mainly associated with replay. The generations of equipment used to replay tapes become defunct when parts are no longer available. This is particularly so for digital formats. Some 15 years ago the BBC transferred much of its video archive to the D3 digital format. They have some 600,000 hours of tape in their archive. There are no longer sufficient stocks, throughout the world, of tape machine heads to play that quantity of tape. It is considered prudent to copy digital formats to the latest version every ten years as unlike film and early audio recording there is no simple mechanical process for replay nor a storage medium that can last for longer than twenty years or so. The need to constantly update digital technology will continue for the foreseeable future and although each successive technology is cheaper there is still a huge cost in carrying out this process.

6.3 Access

6.31. Archives are not much use if there is no general access to them by every sector of the community. The digital age allows ease of access through medium such as YouTube and Google Video. I have put almost my entire library onto Google video with burnt in time-code on the images. The quality is sufficient for general access but not good enough for broadcast. It is free and accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime. In addition regional archives have arrangements to make material available in their regions. The obvious form of access is via public libraries. Sensible cataloguing with the use of keywords that those searching for material could be expected to use can be the key to access.

6.3.2 Although archives rarely own the intellectual property rights to the material hold many rights owners are willing to let archives have licence to use the material for non-commercial purposes including access via the internet, which can be of help in promoting commercial use of the material.

7. Options

7.1 Do nothing. This will result in deterioration of existing material and insufficient access facilities.

7.2 Implement the recommendations made by the BFI in a A Strategy for British Screen Heritage. This is a highly bureaucratic and centralised solution, that given the past performance of the BFI will not work. It fails to understand that the regional archives are the principal access for communities and seeks to impose yet another layer of bureaucracy on them. Its rigid structure takes no account of the diversity of archives and also seeks to keep film and video detached from written and audio archives. This is unrealistic as those wishing to access archive material need consult all forms of archive deposits.

7.3 Transfer the NFTVA to the British Library (BL) . The Scottish and Welsh national film archives were transferred to their respective national libraries a couple of years ago. The BL already has responsibility for the National Sound Archive. There is logic in bringing written, motion picture and audio archives under one management. Once the NFTVA is taken into the BL the new management should survey the holdings of the NFTVA ( as it did a few years ago for its Newspaper library) and weed out material , such as foreign art films, that do not sit within its remit. This will make space at the NFTVA. The BL is also already geared to make access via public libraries so extending an existing system to accommodate the NFTVA would be better than creating a new system as proposed by the BFI. Naturally the BL budget will have to increased to accommodate the NFTVA but is suspect that economies of scale will result is it costing less than the costs suggested by the BFI.

7.4 Part of the DCMS budget should be allocated to enable regional archives to ensure they have the resources to preserve and make their collections accessible to all. Each regional archive has different requirements and each should be permitted to bid for for a five year allocation of both capital and revenue support form the DCMS.

7.5 Funding should be made available for an annual conference and exhibition of the work of all archives (public sector, voluntary and commercial) so that educational establishments, clubs and societies and other users can be made aware of is available. It will also allow networking between providers and users. This might be tacked onto an existing event, such as Sheffield Docfest, at least initially.

7.6 Regional Archives in association with the BECTU History project should be encouraged, with appropriate funding, to record the skills and memories of film and video technicians. They should in association with the National Media Museum collect artifacts related to the film industry in their area.

8. Recommendation

8.1 I would strongly recommend that all the parties involved in making options 7.3, 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6 a reality should be encouraged seek ways of implementing these options.

9. Dedication

This report is dedicated to the memory of Maryann Gomes (1954-2002), former Director of the North West Film Archive. "A night at the pictures presented by Maryann Gomes confounded pleasurably two sets of stereotypes. That historical factual film albeit worthy and educational can also be entrancing, entertaining, revealing and viewed with affection and humour, and that archivists can be lively and energetic, passionate and extrovert as well as knowledgeable about their collections." Janet Mc Bain, Curator , Scottish Screen Archive

"Maryann's life refuted those who complain that the spirit that fired the legendary founders of film archives and cinematheques in the middle of the last century has no equivalent in the increasingly bureaucratic modern world. Her memorial will be the number of archives and archivists who will continue to acknowledge her as an inspiration in their own work." Roger Smither, Keeper, Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive