A day at the BFI National Film Archive

07/07/2010

On May 25th, we were lucky enough to be invited to take a tour of the BFI National Film Archive in Berkhamstead. The archive is one of the world's largest, most diverse and busiest film archives and preserves the UK's film and TV heritage. Since we’ve been recently been appointed by the British Film Institute to create a new digital experience at BFI.org.uk, we saw this tour as a fantastic opportunity to learn a bit more about some of the less public facing work that the BFI does.

The National Film Archive is set in the grounds of an old mansion in Berkhamstead, and feels like a little corner of England that time forgot. Appropriately perhaps, our tour started with tea and cakes on the veranda and a short presentation to introduce us to the work of the archive.

Our first stop on the tour was a chilled archive, where thousands of rolls of film were stacked. Despite the fact that this was just a small corner of the archive, the scale was incredibly impressive. Whilst in the archive we learnt about the various types of film stock that were stored there, and the problems encountered with storing them. For example, long-lasting nitrate stock is actually explosive, whilst the safer acetate stock decays far faster than anyone was expecting when it was first introduced.

In addition to the archive itself, we also got to see some of the other incredible objects stored by the BFI. These included collections of movie posters and many personal objects, including Derek Jarman’s sketchbook for Jubilee, original continuity books and on location notes, sketches and correspondence that unlock the craft of film and moving image.

The final stop on our tour was the restoration labs, and it was here where we saw just how degraded some of the older film stock can be. The highlight of the tour for me was definitely watching one of the technicians handling one of the original rolls of film from Frank Hurley's 'South,' which was rescued by diving down below the Antarctic ice into the Endurance after she sank in 1915!

Overall, it was an incredible day at the BFI, and it really served to drive home the historical significance of the work that the archive does. The tour also gave us a real sense of what we will need to deliver on the redesigned BFI website if we are to give the public a sense of importance of this work, and to inspire and engage all users of BFI.org.uk.