"London Calling..."
FIAT-Focal Summer School 2000

In July 2000 the second Summer School was held in England. Eight TV and film archive collaborators from Russia, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain were gathered at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

In the first two days of the week, introducing lessons were held at the film archive of the university (EAFA). Our very inspiring lecturer David Cleveland, director of EAFA, gave us historical and practical backgrounds to film and video formats available in different archives. Then Jane Alvey, also from the UEA film archive, made a survey of film archives in the UK, and also told us about the activity in their own archive.

The film archive of UEA is in fact a part of the university, but works mainly as a regional collector of private films and other films describing the history and the cultural and social life of East Anglia. Public showings are arranged as well as the archive of course is open for students. I found out that amateur filming was a wide and popular interest in England in early days, maybe wider than it ever was in Sweden. We saw an interesting cinema show with items from the early fifties in Norfolk; carnivals, flood rescues, English cars introduced after Wold War II etc.

After those two days in Norwich, we, that is all participants and lecturer David Cleveland, went by train down to London. We were staying at the old Hotel Regent Palace, close to Piccadilly Circus in the absolute centre of London. The circumstances regarding the arrangement of the accommodation was not the best, I'm sad to say.

On Wednesday we were all present at the FOCAL conference "Back to the future", held at a small theatre at Savile Row. (Wasn't it there The Beatles played on the roof in the "Let it be" movie ???) This technical conference had the subtitle "Bridging the Gap between the 20th and 21st Centuries". Subjects included digital restoration of old films, digital archiving project of BBC and interactive television. Speakers were represented from Imperial War Museum, BBC, ITN and others.

This day ended with a wonderful evening tour on the Thames to celebrate the 15th anniversary of FOCAL International. As being a tourist it was also a good chance to watch the Big Ben, the London's Eye, the Tower Bridge, the Docklands, the new Millennium Dome etc in the sunset light, in company of a good beer.

The fourth day was devoted to a visit at Pinewood Studios, the old filmtown where lots of well-known films were recorded, from classics like "Moby Dick" and "Goldfinger" to the latest James Bond movie. According to rumours, several famous film stars could be seen anywhere around the corners (although not this day). Unfortunately we did not see any recording studio in activity, but we could walk around in the beautiful gardens. Later on at Pinewood we visited the big, old company British Pathé. Ron Saunders and cataloguist Jenny Hammerton with colleagues presented their collections (including a huge part of nitrate films), their cataloguing and research work. The com- pany is commercial and their great non-fiction archive contains material from the period 1895 - 1969. Parts of these collection can be seen as items in well-known movies like "Zelig" and "Forrest Gump". The visit also included Canal+, which is situated in the same buildings as British Pathé.

On Friday, the last day, we were invited to the TV companies ITN and BBC. ITN is the news section of the ITV (Independent Television), the commercial TV station in UK which since the fifties has worked mainly with regional broadcastings.

ITN is producing news in collaboration with the other commercial companies, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The new, big building for it all is situated close to Russel Square in central London. Karina Smith with colleagues at ITV introduced their activity; the collection (including Reuter material), cataloguing, their great webside edition and the sales department. A working lunch with copyright issues was also on the agenda.

So, as the grande finale, we went by coach northwards to Brentford, to the BBC Information and Archives (which is geographically separated from the main BBC-production departments of London) . It was with a sense of tension we went into this greatest television-archive in Europe. Archive selector Christina Slattery showed us all the huge collections of films and videotapes in different formats. The technical equipment and preservation work was demonstrated (a rare shot with old skiffle singer Lonnie Donnegan appeared on the screen at that moment !).

The catalogue and cataloguing-work was introduced by information manager Lorna Scott. And then, at last, customer service manager Gill Atherton spoke about the wide research accesses, which is handled by around 500 (!) employed researchers at BBC department down in London. They do research in various fields for internal as well as external customers.

Back in town. Great final and goodbye. Many thanks to our lecturer David Cleveland from Norwich, who was our teacher the first days and then our guide during the study visits the rest of the day. Our company was disbanded. Two fellows were living in London, and the rest of us went back to Moscow, Reykjavik, Helsinki, Copenhagen and Stockholm.

Bengt Lorentzon (bengt.lorentzon@svt.se)
Senior Archive Editor
Sveriges Television AB