Memorandum submitted by Richard Taylor,
Director of the East Anglian Film Archive
The author of this memorandum was commissioned
by the Film Archive Forum, in May 2005, to research and write
the attached briefing paper for an Official in DCMS' Film Branch.
At that time he was a freelance media consultant (having recently
retired as Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Film Commission
and having worked in the film and television industry since 1972).
At present he is the Director of the East Anglian Film Archive,
founded in 1976, one of eight English Regional Film Archives (RFAs).
There is currently no statutory provision for
the RFAs, which exist as not for profit organisations preserving
and making accessible the moving image history of all of the regions
of England for the benefit of the public, of the creative industries
and of the education and research communities. Interest in the
moving image history of the English regions is increasing rapidly,
as the past 100 years' output has the potential to be made more
widely available through the use of digital technologies. Amongst
the most valuable material held by the RFAs is the extant output
of many of the regional ITV companies since the 1950s.
All of the RFAs (with the exception of one)
are in a permanent state of financial crisis. Increasing public
demand for their goods and services has not been matched by a
commensurate increase in DCMS sourced funding which has remained
at around £250,000 per annum for the whole of the sector
for the last five years.
This contrasts starkly with the statutory funding
received by each of the County Record Offices in England, which
are well resourced. For example, the Norfolk Record Office (which
shares a brand new building with the East Anglian Film Archive)
receives £1.8 million per annum from the County Council and
employs 32 staff. The East Anglian Film Archive receives a total
subsidy of £100,000 per annum and employs just six permanent
staff. Due to the additional costs and complexity of film and
video storage and copying technology, compared with paper and
other conventional archival documents, the Film Archive is currently
running at a loss of £120,000 per annum.
This is an unsustainable position for the Film
Archive's owner (the University of East Anglia) and additional
external investment is required. The Archive has secured a £412,000
grant from the HE sector for a specific cataloguing project this
year; but none of those funds are available for its core running
costs (staff and overheads) or to offset its operating deficit.
Short term project funding does nothing to relieve the pressure
on the RFAs; in fact it exacerbates the pressure and disguises
the root problem of a lack of adequate core revenue funding.
The attached paper entitled The English Regional
Film Archives (Richard Taylor 2005) (not printed) seeks
to answer key questions about the RFAs for DCMS and for the current
Committee's enquiry Caring for our Collections.
THE ENGLISH
REGIONAL FILM
ARCHIVES
Summary
— The growth of the RFAs over
the last five years has not been paralleled with a change in the
implementation of national policy and priorities for film.
— The diversity of potential uses
of the RFAs' collections should be a strength; but the lack of
access to their content is a factor in their weakness, as no one
funder or sector has yet been able to imagine their potential
and subsequently committed to unlocking that potential with an
adequate level of sustained revenue funding.
— RFAs' work needs to be recognised
as a continuous, long term activity, not something that thrives
on short bursts of project funding.
— The sector requires leadership
and a long term strategic development plan. It currently needs
an additional £485,000 per annum of centrally sourced revenue
funding to stabilise the current critical situation.
— Additional investment, following
an intensive period of development, will enable the RFA network
to deliver significant outputs on all four of DCMS' strategic
objectives:
Children and Young People: increasing access
to cultural and educational opportunities.
Communities: enriching individual lives and strengthening
communities—particularly by encouraging cultural participation
from diverse and socially excluded groups.
Economy: maximising the economic contribution
and productivity of the creative industries.
Modernising delivery: ensuring that bodies are
operating efficiently and deliver in ways that meet customer need.
Note 1: the last objective could be met
very effectively by the RFAs being enabled to digitise significant
proportions of their holdings to make them widely accessible.
Note 2: some of the issues hindering the
development of the RFA sector that were highlighted in the 2005
paper (policy, leadership, coherence) are currently receiving
the attention of the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute;
but there is absolutely no new money on the table for the RFAs.
26 September 2006
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