Memorandum submitted by the British Film
Institute
1. The British Film Institute welcomes the inquiry
by the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee into the heritage
sector. The terms of reference seem to be focused on the built
environment rather than the broader range of materials that are
held by archives and museums. We wish to ensure that broader concerns
about the protection, preservation and access to our film and
television national heritage also receive due consideration ahead
of the Heritage White Paper.
2. THE BRITISH
FILM INSTITUTE
The British Film Institute is the Royal Charter
body charged by Government to champion the cultural value of the
arts of film, television and the moving image. The BFI cares for,
develops and provides access to the history of British film, and
the filmed record of "the life and manners of the people
of Britain" as recorded image history and heritage of Our
United Kingdom.
The BFI is the lead agency in the UK for archival
work in relation to film and television and is in receipt of public
funding, through the UK Film Council, of £16 million in 2005-06.
The BFI's National Film and Television Archive was established
in the 1935. In addition, the BFI has the world's largest library
devoted to subjects related to film and television; operates the
National Film Theatre, a cinematheque celebrating artistic achievement
in film and television across the globe; and will in September
2006 extend its footprint to create BFI South Bank, which will
include a mediatheque facility offering access to direct public
access to browsable digital surrogates of material from our collections.
2.1 The BFI National Film and Television
Archive preserves the unique achievements of Britain's filmmakers
and provides a record of the life of the nation over the past
110 years, as captured by film. Since its establishment in 1933,
the BFI has been at the forefront of developments in archival
practice and this continues to this day with our pioneering work
providing online access to the collections. The British Film Institute
established its Archival activities in 1935, was a founder member
of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives) in 1938,
and has now for more than 70 years, been the primary custodian
of the nation's moving image heritage— held within the National
Film and Television Archive.
As well as the film and television Collections
themselves, which today number 750,000 titles from the earliest
days of film making in 1895 to the present, the bfi also manages
a related collection of materials to promote study and enjoyment
of our moving image history: a library of international renown
with regard to the study of the moving image; a stills archive
consisting of millions of film images; and Special Collections
consisting of personal and working papers from individuals and
organisations involved in film and TV production, paper ephemera
such as programmes, tickets, autographed letters and promotional
material, and over 20,000 pressbooks and other cinema memorabilia;
and a collection of more than 30,000 film posters.
3. INTRODUCTION
AND CONTEXT
3.1 Film and television are the most popular
cultural forms in contemporary society. They provide us with a
mirror to our diverse and fast changing culture and access to
images of our way of life. They have provided a creative space
in which British filmmakers and programme makers have excelled.
Films from all over the world have helped provide viewers with
both enjoyment and an understanding and perspective on the different
cultures across the globe. For many years, the industries which
were responsible for producing films ignored their long term cultural
value and, because of the cost of storage discarded what are now,
in the digital age, seen as having intrinsic commercial as well
as cultural value.
3.2 It is worth noting that film and television
archives have been recognised by the European Commission as an
important aspect of industrial as well as cultural policy in this
area (see "Recommendation of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 16 November 2005 on film heritage and the competitiveness
of related industrial activities").
3.3 At the same time, media literacy, in
which the development of an understanding of film and television,
and their history, play such a fundamental role, is now recognised
by Government as being a significant competence needed by all
citizens for full participation in the life of the nation. Archives,
just like museums and libraries, are a source of inspiration and
education for future generations and digital and network technologies
have transformed how and where this can be achieved.
3.4 In 2000 the National Audit Office carried
out a study of the BFI, including its archival work, and usefully
identified the extent of the preservation and access challenge
which the Institute faced in caring for the nation's moving
image heritage. The Institute has taken major steps to address
the issues identified by the NAO, albeit within a financially
constrained context which could never meet the real needs of such
inherently unstable materials.
4. PRIORITIES
IN FORTHCOMING
HERITAGE WHITE
PAPER
4.1 In late 2005, the BFI submitted a paper,
A National Strategy for Moving Image Archives to the DCMS. This
is an overarching development plan for the sector and calls for
an integrated strategy which recognises both the value and vulnerability
of the material and the historic underfunding of the Film Archives,
and the need for more investment at the centre to maximise the
effectiveness of the sector. It is our contention that in this
age of virtual distribution, with the great opportunities that
that affords to share our film heritage, the DCMS should prioritise
the development of the UK's film archives in the next decade,
seeking to facilitate significant investments from both public
and private sources to provide proper care and development of
this unique record and reflection of our national life, and access
to that heritage for the people of the United Kingdom, wherever
they live. The bfi believes that investment in this area will
lead to substantial cultural, political and economic benefits
for the UK.
4.2 The European Union Recommendation calls
on Member States to improve conditions of conservation, restoration
and exploitation of film heritage and identifies a series of measures
it would like implemented by November 2007. These relate to deposit
and collection, cataloguing and database creation, preservation
and restoration, access for educational, cultural and research
purposes, and professional training and media literacy. We believe
these areas should be mirrored in the forthcoming Heritage White
Paper.
4.3 In addition, we would look to the DCMS
for continued support for the negotiation of voluntary agreements
for deposit of British films, broadly defined, including statutory
provision where UK taxpayer funding (direct or indirect) has contributed
to a film's production or distribution budget. If this were to
prove impossible we would look to Government to extend legal deposit
to film as recommended by the Kenny Committee in 1999. We would
hope that this level of support could be expressed in the Heritage
White Paper.
4.4 Television archiving currently operates
within a legal framework covering the output of the terrestrial
commercial broadcasters with public service obligations under
the terms of the Communications Act 2003. The BFI is the designated
National Television Archive. However, we understand that this
provision will have to be re-examined at the time of digital switchover
to ensure a continuation of a National Television Archive. We
would look to Government to indicate its intention in the White
Paper to review the legal and financial framework and commit to
the continuation of the National Television Archive in the period
after digital switch over.
4.5 Access to, and development of, the BFI's
film and television collections is restricted by the current legislative
framework. Furthermore, the current provision of the Copyright
Designs and Patents Act as amended to comply with the EU Copyright
Directive, also fails to give publicly funded moving image heritage
institutions the automatic right to make copies (analogue or digital)
of material in film collections or to provide access to its materials
without explicit licensing agreements with rightsholders. We would
expect Government to acknowledge these pressing issues in the
Heritage White Paper and to ensure that necessary and possible
changes in the legal provisions are prioritised in Parliament
while at the same time readdressing the "fitness-for-purpose"
of copyright law at the European level.
4.6 The UK leads the world in film and television
archiving. Sufficient investment and a revised legal framework
is now urgently required to build on this reputation for innovation.
The White Paper should register the Government's commitment to
the maintenance of this position.
5. REPRESENTING
SCREEN HERITAGE
INTERESTS—THE
REMIT AND
EFFECTIVENESS OF
DCMS AND OTHER
RELEVANT ORGANIZATIONS
5.1 The British Film Institute is the lead agency
for film and television archiving in the UK. Funded through the
UK Film Council, the BFI liaises with the regional film archives
through the Film Archive Forum, and has ongoing positive relationships
with the major film companies. In addition, the BFI is the designated
National Television Archive in accordance with the Communications
Act, 2003, acting as the repository for commercial terrestrial
public broadcasters in the UK.
5.2 The BFI is supported by the UK Film Council
in its dealings with the Regional Screen Agencies (RSAs). Some
RSAs contribute to the funding of the regional film archives.
The BFI has good relationships with both the Museums Libraries
and Archives Council, The National Archives and The Imperial war
Museum Film Archive across a range of issues where our interests
overlap. The BFI holds the film material collected by The National
Archives on an agency basis and this relationship works well.
5.3 Government should work with the BFI, as
the lead agency for film archival work in the UK, to refine the
framework for deposit of and access to film and television taking
account of the interests of stakeholders and always within the
terms of the laws of copyright.
6. ACCESS TO
HERITAGE AND
THE POSITION
OF HERITAGE
AS A
CULTURAL ASSET
IN THE
COMMUNITY
6.1 The moving image is an immensely powerful
and important medium that constantly touches the lives of the
entire UK population. Moving images (encountered through film,
television or other evolving forms) entertain, inform and challenge
us. They form the fabric of our cultural life and information
driven world. Encounters with the moving image inspire. This inspiration
fuels the creative economy in which the moving image (film, tv,
digital media) is central. The moving image is the "stuff
of our age"—a priceless heritage resource.
6.2 The demand for access to our moving image
heritage is clear. The recent bfi/BBC co production showcasing
the NFTVA's Mitchell and Kenyon Collection—a unique record
of life in Edwardian Britain—regularly drew television audiences
of over four million. The bfi's lottery-funded screenonline initiative,
providing a guide to British film and television and aimed at
schools, colleges and libraries, has proven a great success and
will be available in all schools in England through the National
Education Network later this year.
6.3 The UK has some of the finest moving image
archival collections in the world. The bfi's National Film and
Television Archive (NFTVA) is one of the world's largest and most
wide ranging Collections comprising 50,000 fiction film titles,
150,000 non fiction films and over 650,000 television titles.
We have rare Victorian and Edwardian films, major news events,
television collections and a comprehensive record of the creative
genius of the British film and advertising industries. We have
the proceedings of Parliament captured for a period of more than
twenty years. Further unique and highly valuable Collections also
exist throughout the nations and regions of the UK. These Collections
bring to life the cultural, social, political and economic history
of the entire 20th and 21st century.
6.4 If fully developed and integrated, the moving
image archival sector would be a unique heritage proposition providing
considerable cultural, creative and economic value. A combination
of digital and on site access to the Collections—at study
centres and in cinemas—would strongly support leisure and
tourism. Enhanced access would provide ongoing inspiration and
fuel for our creative economy. Moving image heritage can support
formal and informal learning at many levels and across a wide
subject range of subjects. It can enable an understanding of historical
representation and promote exploration of issues of identity and
cultural diversity. It can support the collective memory of the
nation—establishing a sense of citizenship and the individual's
place in the community. It can drive and support media literacy.
6.5 Dgital technology provides the potential
for making our moving image heritage available to all of the people
of the UK wherever they live. The internet can provide online
access to our moving images—both as a raw and contextualised
resource—and the BFI has been at the forefront of these
developments since the mid-1990s. In addition to its screenonline
service streaming video to educational establishments and libraries
in the UK, the BFI is a member of the Creative Archive Licence
Group with the BBC, Channel 4 and Teachers' TV making material
available for downloading and to stimulate creative repurposing
for non-commercial use in the community.
6.6 New digital distribution networks can deliver
a wider range of material into both public screening venues and
educational premises. Alongside the bfi's screenonline service
planning has begun by the BFI to establish a number of Mediatheques
across the country as access points to the Collections, where
material can be viewed on demand, bringing immediate benefits
to citizens.
7. FUNDING AND
THE DECISIONS
ON SHARING
FROM LOTTERY
SOURCES
7.1 We applaud the constructive role played
by the Heritage Lottery Fund in the 1990s and the New Opportunities
Fund in 2003 (as well as Sir John Paul Getty) in providing significant
funding for both preservation and digital access to the collections
in the BFI National Film and Television Archive. Since 2003, thanks
to a grant from the New Opportunities Fund, a small proportion
of the NFTVA holdings have been made accessible online through
a new educational web site, www.screenonline.org.uk, devoted to
the history of British film and television, and later this year
the BFI will open a Mediatheque as part of the BFI Southbank development,
part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The HLF provided significant
funding to the BFI in the late 1990s to prepare its archive for
the twenty first century. These are small but significant steps
towards our goal of greater accessibility to these heretofore
hidden treasures which we would hope to build on in the years
ahead.
7.2 Digital initiatives are expensive both in
terms of infrastructure costs and the costs of actually digitising
the moving images themselves from film or conventional television
formats. Current resource levels for publicly funded moving image
collections (national and regional) are not currently sufficient
to enable the significant investments our ambitions would require
and we would argue that the forthcoming decisions on the sharing
of funds from Lottery sources should ensure an equitable settlement
for film heritage concerns whether administered through the Heritage
Lottery Fund or the UK Film Council.
8. INFRASTRUCTURE
AND SKILLS
DEVELOPMENT
8.1 Film is a fragile medium that requires stable
and environmentally controlled storage environments together with
a range of highly specialised care strategies with regard to preservation
and restoration. Television materials are equally demanding in
respect of storage environments and the tape formats themselves
are increasingly prone to obsolescence due to technological development.
For both film and television a range of passive and active care
strategies are required to ensure that our heritage is not lost
forever. The provision of suitable storage environments for our
film and television archives is an essential requirement for effective
archiving and continuing investment in the infrastructure is an
imperative in this field. The technologies used in film and television
production and distribution are rapidly changing and the Archives
must accommodate the consequences of these changes if future generations
are to benefit from today's creative output as much as we do from
that of the last 110 years of moving image production. The bfi
is committed to leading the development in the UK of Collection
care strategies and facilities, and in the area of accessibility
using digital and network technologies.
8.2 In line with its commitment to modern infrastructure
development, the BFI took a leading role in working with the European
Commission to prioritise the development of standards in the cataloguing
of film. The BFI, on behalf of the BSI, is representing the UK
at a major initiative currently underway through CEN (the European
Committee for Standardisation) which has been mandated by the
European Union to develop standards for the harmonisation of cataloguing
and indexing practices of cinematographic works and for the interoperability
of film databases.
8.3 The European Commission in its Recommendation
identified training of archival staff as an important requirement.
The BFI is committed to ensuring that the specialized skills
required to sustain the sector are developed and training opportunities
increased. Within the UK there is currently only one formal course
of training in this field: an option in Film Archiving linked
to a broader MA in Film Studies available at the University of
East Anglia. This provision is in sharp contrast to the widespread
range of training options available in the wider sector of museums,
libraries and paper archives. The moving image heritage sector
also needs to develop and deploy a range of competencies outside
the purely technical. The professional skills of curatorship and
modern collections care, currently in short supply within the
sector, need to be established and developed through increasing
formal training opportunities. These can best be achieved in
partnership with the higher education sector and the BFI, as lead
agency for film and television archiving, has initiated discussions
with the sector to secure this objective.
9. ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES IN
MAINTAINING THE
NATION'S
FILM HERITAGE
9.1 The BFI submitted a paper to the DCMS last
year articulating a new vision for the film archive community
in the UK. The BFI's leadership role in the sector is clear and
in the last year a new framework has been established for working
with other archives across the sector.
9.2 The BFI is happy to bear the responsibility
of working with Government, the key industry partners and the
UK archival community to lead in the establishment of a joint
approach to the challenges and opportunities which rapid technological
change has provided.
9.3 This will include working in new areas of
activity. For example, there is a national need to provide proper
care for works produced by artists working across the traditional
boundaries of fine art and media. Multi media art works—often
consisting of moving image elements presented within a spatial
installation—are now commonplace within our contemporary
culture and yet care responsibilities for these works are uncoordinated.
Art galleries are striving to develop competence in dealing with
film and video conservation and preservation and yet they inevitably
lack the technological or skills infrastructure to deal with the
preservation of these materials. The original materials are not
safe, often housed with the artist's dealer. The BFI is a member
of the Creative Archive Licence Group which is seeking to contribute
to the nation's creativity—and thereby to the UK's strength
as a knowledge based economy—by providing material for users
to download and repurpose for non-commercial ends.
9.4 We envisage a challenging programme of work
in which the BFI takes a leadership role in film and television
archiving in the UK and internationally bringing together partners
and stakeholders. The key objectives will be to secure the funding
and the legal environment to open up these previously hidden assets
across a range of platforms while at the same time ensuring preservation
of this heritage for the enlightenment and enjoyment of future
generations.
8 February 2006
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