SUBMISSION 19
Memorandum submitted by the National Council
on Archives
IS THERE A BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY?
The National Council on Archives (NCA) is a
membership organization, which represents a broad spectrum of
the archival community including user groups, professionals, national
and regional bodies. It aims to provide a single voice for the
archival community and to lobby on matters of common interest.
SUMMARY OF
SUBMISSION
Our interest in the Committee's hearing concerns
awareness of and access to moving image archives in the UK.
We are seeking to support and endorse the work
of the Film Archive Forum (FAF). FAF was founded in 1987 and is
the organization that represents the interests of the United Kingdom's
public sector moving image archives
We wish to highlight some concerns about the
policy framework, sustainability and structural support given
to moving image archives in the UK, which in themselves are inhibiting
the very real potential of the material to touch people's lives
We hope the Committee will take the opportunity
to question the Film Council on those matters of policy and sustainability,
and urge it to support the archiving of Britain's film heritage
for cultural, educational, social and economic reasons.
AWARENESS AND
ACCESS TO
MOVING IMAGE
ARCHIVES IN
THE UK
Millions of people every year enjoy and appreciate
the great richness of material held in moving image archives in
the UK. They experience these collections through screenings in
classrooms, community centres, universities, record offices, museums,
libraries and, of course, on television, over the internet and
in cinemas.
Innovative access to these archives supports
government policy in the following areas:
— It supports the creative economy
by providing a source of inspiration not just for our contemporary
film and television industry but for individuals, schools and
community groups.
— It supports social inclusion by fostering
a sense of place and time, community identities and shared histories.
It has particular strengths in expressing the voices of those
sometimes missing from more official versions of history.
— It supports lifelong learning by
providing the raw material from which new programmes and research
can be developed. In this respect the very nature of moving image
archives can help to foster new learning in audiences that may
lack, through no fault of their own, the ability to interpret
more traditional archival sources.
Perhaps the best way of demonstrating the power
of this material to touch people's lives is to relay some of the
feelings that users experience
"This draws back a curtain on a whole world
of film which has been lost to me" Visually impaired user.
"Audio description opens doors for me, giving
me access I would not otherwise have" Visually impaired user.
"I can follow the thrust of the film much
better" Hearing Impaired User.
Quotes are from the North West Film Archive's
"Can I hear that in Colour?" project that adapted films
for use by visually impaired and hearing impaired users.
THE ACHIEVEMENTS
OF THE
FAF
The creation of innovative access to moving
image archives in the UK is, of course, dependent upon a coherent
policy framework and a sustainable structure. Since its foundation
in 1987, FAF has been instrumental in fostering a network of British
moving image archives, where none previously existed. FAF now
represents all eleven national and regional moving image archives
in the UK. FAF's achievements include:
— The establishment of a high standard
of professionalism across its network which is reflected in its
commitment to internationally agreed standards for the acquisition,
care, preservation, and cataloguing of its material.
— A commitment to achieving the widest
possible access to collections.
— Successfully campaigning for the
development of a UK Audiovisual Archive Strategy (this work is
currently underway and will be completed by September 2003). (http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/faf/faf.htm)
In the last couple of years FAF has been campaigning
vigorously for the establishment of a coherent policy framework
to underpin the sector's future development.
POLICY FRAMEWORK,
SUSTAINABILITY AND
STRUCTURAL SUPPORT—THE
ROLE OF
THE FILM
COUNCIL
Policy and funding responsibility for the UK's
regional film archives was taken over by the Film Council in 2000.
The British Film Institute and Regional Arts Boards previously
administered primary core funding.
In its policy document, Film In England (November
2000) the Film Council took two very important steps. Firstly,
it acknowledged its role in leading policy development for "archives
and collections" (Film in England, Film Council, 2000, p
63). Reassuringly, this specifically mentioned the whole gamut
of professional archival processes required to look after and
provide access to material. Secondly, the Film Council highlighted
the cultural value of moving image archives and recognized the
inherent problems they face in achieving sustainability and took
responsibility for addressing those problems. It stated, "The
Film Council wants to make additional investment, to assist these
archives to achieve a better degree of organisational stability,
to undertake sector development and to fully participate in establishing
an integrated regional planning process." (Film in England,
Film Council, 2000, pp 22-3). The Film Council identified additional
core funding of £250,000 for the English regional film archives
from 2001-04.
The statements contained in Film in England
marked a turning point for moving image archives in the UK. However,
there are some concerns that the Film Council has yet to turn
the statements it made regarding policy responsibility and funding
streams into reality.
In terms of policy responsibility, there is
no Board member with a special interest in, or knowledge of, moving
image archives and the Council has yet to appoint a policy advisor
at the executive level. Interestingly, despite invitation, the
Film Council is not, as yet, a partner in the development of FAF's
audiovisual archive strategy, which is being funded by Resource:
The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Given the Film
Council's previous positive statements, the NCA finds this disappointing.
In terms of funding, the Film Council has yet
to make available all of the stated £250,000 to the regional
film archives. In fact, the increase in core funding (after the
first two years of the Film Council's three-year Regional Investment
Fund for England) is £144,356. The devolution of funding
to the regional screen agencies also appears to have led to different
patterns of funding. There has been no stated rationale for why
increases to each regional film archive have varied from £2,000
to £20,000. The amount of funding received from the Film
Council represents a very variable percentage of the total running
costs of each regional film archive.
In the context of the Film Council's group turnover
of £60 million in 2001-02, it receives excellent value for
money from the revenue funding provided to the regional film archives.
For example, in 2002, there were over 75,000 visitors to the South
East Film and Video Archive's exhibition at Brighton Museum and
Art Gallery and over 102,000 enjoyed North West Film Archive's
footage in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire through
screenings, exhibitions and presentations.
We understand that the regional screen agencies
are encouraging the English regional film archives to forward
plan on the expectation of a tapering core fund from the Film
Council. We understand in doing so the Film Council takes the
view that its core funding represents temporary time limited assistance
to enable the film archives to develop commercial income streams,
using much the same arguments as for film production.
We would urge the Film Council to question the
assumption that the same rule can be applied to film production
and film archiving. The English FAF members earn from 3% to 28%
of their income from commercial activities each year. Their ability
to commercially exploit the material they hold is often hampered
by the fact that they do not own the intellectual and property
copyrights to that material. There are, in addition, very significant
long term and unavoidable maintenance costs involved in caring
for, and sustaining, archives to professional standards. As a
comparison, and despite the fact that local authority archive
services have increased income generation by 337% in the last
10 years, a "typical" county record office (which operates
without any regional responsibility) may receive annual core funding
of £600,000. Film archives provide social benefits and we
would suggest that it is unrealistic to expect commercial ventures
to wholly subsidise those social benefits.
The Hidden Treasures conference organised by
FAF, the British Library National Sound Archive and the NCA in
October 2002 threw into sharp relief the contrast between the
how highly the public value the material held by these archives
and the fragility of the support base upon which they rest.
There is evidence that the lack of a secure
funding base is widely affecting the ability of the regional film
archives to reach their potential in the following ways:
— An inability to meet the demands
of the public for film presentations and to contribute fully to
the promotion of social inclusion and cultural diversity.
— An inability to meet the demands
of collections management, care and preservation.
— An inability to plan beyond the short-term,
with consequent problems for strategic planning, staff recruitment
and retention.
ISSUES FOR
THE FILM
COUNCIL TO
CONSIDER
We would encourage the Committee to raise the
following issues with the Film Council:
1. What plans the Film Council has to encourage
awareness amongst policy-makers and funders of the contribution
that moving image archives can make towards supporting government
policies?
2. How the Film Council expects to exercise
its policy responsibility for moving image archives in the UK
and what relationships with other agencies it will be seeking
to foster in exercising that responsibility?
3. What advice and contribution the Film
Council is looking for from other agencies and bodies within the
archive sector to support its own policy making for moving image
archives?
4. What plans the Film Council has to make
available the committed £250,000 before the end of the current
funding period in 2004 and what contribution to the sustainability
of the regional film archives is envisaged beyond that period?
5. Does the Film Council have a view that
regional film archives could become self-supporting through commercial
income generation in the future and what evidence does it have
to support its views on this issue? What contingency plans the
Film Council has to support regional film archives if its plans
for them to become self-supporting prove not to be achievable?
3 March 2003
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