Fédération Internationale des Archives de Télévision International Federation of Television Archives
EDITOR: Stellan Norrlander LAYOUT: Ragnar Lilliestierna
NO. 5 OCT 1995
EDITOR’S ADDRESS: SVERIGES TELEVISION, S-105 10 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN FAX: +46 8 660 40 00
EDITORIAL: his issue is for natural reasons mainly dealing with the recently kept Seminar in Washington,DC.As a followup,the General Secretary is anxious to hear about your opinion on this, for future use,e g in Paris (INA) next year, where the next General Assembly of FIAT is planned. So,please give him an answer according to his appeal below. But there are also some articles and notes concerning future events,such as the FIAF Summer School 1996, where, for the first time,also FIAT members have an opportunity to take part.It also ought to be said that the Commissions,and especially the Training Commission,ask for participation and contributions from members; such participation can very well be undertaken through correspondance in some way (e g the old-fashioned post is still a most efficient way of communicating!) and does not necessarily mean (more or less) expensive travelling.Please also observe the UNESCO Survey and its call for response. And finally an excuse: Through a (computer) error in the hurry of editing,one article (on p 2) in the August issue of the Newsletter was printed twice.Sorry! Furthermore:The text of Steve Bryant´s address to the FIAF Congress in April (p.3) did not ”appear below”.Instead there should have been a reference to this issue.Sorry again!! AND: Members are welcome with views and opinions,to be published,under the address above.(Editor also in the FIAT/IFTA Yearbook (member list,honorary members) or in the Guide to Audiovisual Archives under ”Swedish Television/Sveriges Television/.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editorial p1 Questionnaire on the Seminar p1 Impressions and reflections from a Seminar p2 Television Archives Award 1995 p2 Commissions: Programme and Production p3 Documentation p4 Technical p5
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Training p6 UNESCO Survey p6 FIAF Summer School 1996 p6 The Dawn of the Eye p7 Torre de Belém p8 President´s Opening Speech p8 One Hundred Years p9 Address to FIAF Spring 1995 p10
QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE SEMINAR The General Secretary Ste ve Br yant has the following questions about The Washington Conference
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hope that those of you who attended the Washington conference found it enjoyable and useful.We hope that the book of the proceedings will be published early in 1996. This year we tried a few innovations,such as putting all the sessions into the three main days,with commission meetings and optional tours at the beginning and end,so that members could have more
choice as to how long they stayed.It would be very useful to hear the views of those who attended the conference as to how they thought it went.Please write to me with any comments at all about the conference organisation and any improvements you may wish to suggest.All comments will be welcome, but we are particularly keen to hear your views on the following questions: –Do you prefer the compression of all conference sessions into three full days? – Do you like the idea of optional tours at the end of the conference? >>>
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– Would you prefer the screenings of Awardnominated programmes during the main sessions? – Are the open Commission meetings useful? - Is the holding of conference together with related organisations like IASA useful? I look forward to hearing from you.” (Address and tele numbers to Steve to be found in the FIAT/IFTA Yearbook or in the Guide to Audiovisual Archives.)
IMPRESSIONS AND REFLECTIONS FROM A SEMINAR -
Luck with the weather: summertime with well
above 20°C and blue skies (mostly); - Well organized registration desk,intermittently very busy; - Scheduled speeches and demonstrations on time (congratulations to moderators and chairmen/-women); - Speakers not flowing out beyond reasonable time limits (mostly); - Impressions from the stream of good performances: ° A making clear of the differences in the meaning of ”copyright”between e g North-american and European law; ° An elegant CD-ROM demonstration; ° A well established network for Arab-speaking countries;
° A vivid information on archiving of 3D pictures and virtual reality; ° Foreign correspondents,in the midst of news and of what is happening now, and their trust in archives for background information; - A nice evening excursion to a grandiose new National Archives building II; - Another excursion to the impressive,newly restored Library of Congress main building; - A magnificent and friendly City. And so everybody went home and lived happily ever after. STELLAN NORRLANDER
TELEVISION ARCHIVES AWARD 1995
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his year the Award had gathered 27 programmes from 22 countries.As mentioned before there were three programmes shortlisted. After screening and voting the members of FIAT found that the Albanian programme ”THOSE THAT HAVE DISAPPEARED”(Te Zhdukurit) should gain the Television Archives Award of 1995.In the Newsletter of August -95 you may read the motivation of the jury for nominating this programme and obviously, the voting members did agree. he Award - a diploma - was conveyed at the closing dinner, with everyone present, by the well known former reporter and war correspondent, now Senior Producer of NBC News,mr Arthur Lord, and representatives for the sponsors and donators,mr Josef Veith of Gürtler Co,Münich,and dr Wilhelm Krueger of Tecmath,Kaiserslautern,presented the prize check to the producer of the programme,mr Esat Mysliu.
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The producer Esat Mysliu of RVT, Albania (middle) has received the Award by Art Lord, NBC (left).
OCT 1995
COMMISSIONS: THE PROGRAMMING & PRODUCTION COMMISSION presents 20th Century Projects -updated list October 1995 s promised in a previous issues of the Newsletter, the FIAT/IFTA Programming & Production Commission will continously publish the list of 20th Century Projects.Qualifacition for a project being listed is that the project principally should be based on archival material,now in production or planned in the next few years.Hopefully it can help to establish contacts between producers and facilitate productions. For contributions or corrections to this list,please contact Lasse Nilsson,Sveriges Television,S105 10 Stockholm,Sweden.Phone +46 8 784 5740, Fax +46 8 660 4000,e-mail:lani@ccmail.svt.se
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Company: CBC, Canada & BBC, Great Britain. Title: The Dawn of the Eye. Desciption:A six-part series on the last hundred years of motion picture news,newsreels and television news.Currently in preproduction. Contact: Julia Bennet,CBC TV Documentary Unit,4A100,The Broadcast Centre,Box 500,Station A,Toronto Canada M5W 1E6.Phone +1 416 205 8864, Fax +1 416 205 8842.
Company: DR TV, Denmark. Title: 100 Years of Childhood. Desciption:Ten programmes of 30 minutes for children to be transmitted in 1997-98.The production is based on archive footage from 1898 to this day.The ‘Chronicle’will concentrate on the world of the child microcosm:play, school, work, family life,friends, clothes,transports,housing etc. Producer:Marianne Kemp. Contact:Marianne Kemp,DR TV Children and Youth Dept.,TV-Byen,2860 Soeborg,Denmark.Phone +45 3520 4435, Fax +45 3520 4499.
Company: Sveriges Television (SVT), Sweden. Title: Bokslut (Closing of the accounts) Description:A series of 10 programmes on the histor y of Sweden of the 20th Century, principally based on archival material.
Producer:Olle Häger. Contact:Olle Häger, SVT Kanal 1, Dokumentärfilmsredaktionen,S-105 10 Stockholm, Sweden.Phone +46 8 784 8453, Fax +46 8 663 2726.
Company: ABC News, USA/NHK, Japan Title: The 20th Century News Description:12 programmes to be set in certain US cities or towns with a starting point in a personal story. Transmission:ABC,monthly from January 1997.
Company: BBC , Great Britain/WGBH Boston, USA Title: The People´s Century. Description:A total of 26 one hour parts of which BBC is producing 18 and WGBH eight.The theme of the project is ”mass movement and the common man. Based on archive material from across the globe. Producer: Peter Pagliamenta. Transmission:Ten parts during fall 1995,the rest 1996.
Company: TBS Productions (Turner Broadcasting),USA. Title: Century Description:A series of ten hour programmes made by different feature-film directors and producers. Producer: Jonathan Taplin.
Company: ZDF, Germany. Title: A Century Takes Off. Description:A series in tvelwe parts where the first three decades of the century is examined in the context of present issues. Producer:Dieter Frank.
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Transmission:BSkyB, CLT Multimedia Company: Südwestfunk (SWF), Gemany Title: 100 Deutsche Jahre Description:52 parts of 30 minutes covers allmost all aspects of life and history during the 20th century. Transmission from January-December 1999. Producer:Christoph Fischer Contact:Redaktion 100 Deutsche Jahre, Postfach 76 522 Baden-Baden,Germany. Phone +49 72 2192 3149, Fax +49 72 2192 2095.
Company: TBS Title: The Cold War Description:An epic of 20 hours covering 40 years of this century. Based on worldwide footage. Producer: Jeremy Isaacs Transmission: Fall 1998 on TBS Superstation.
Company: Trans World International Title: The Great War Description:A 13-hour series with a starting point in the 81st anniversary of the end of war.
Company: UKTV Channel 5 Title: Stopwatch Description:A review of the century in 65 30-minute episodes. Transmission:To be screened over a period of three years. Company: CBS News Productions, USA Title: The Twentieth Century Description:A series mostly composed of CBS News archival footage and CBS News reporting.Picking up in the mid-fifties where Walter Cronkite left off in his series with the same title. Transmission:Arts and Entertainment Network,22 hours with start in the fall of 1994. Company: CBS News Productions, USA/Grinker and Company, USA Title: The Century that made America Great. Description:A four-hour series based mostly on archive material from the CBS News Archives and interviews. Transmission:CBS, From january 1995.
DOCUMENTATION well as stills,irrespective of their physical carrier.
From the Documentation Commission the Newsletter has received the following paper, giving PRINCIPLES OF THE FIAT/IFTA DOCUMENTATION COMMISSION; the paper was offerred during the Washington Seminar.
General principle The Documentation Commission is responsible for providing FIAT/IFTA members with information concerning documentation of audiovisual records and its applicability to the specific categories of records held in TV archives. Against this background documentation is understood to cover all issues,conditions, and instruments that are relevant to provide access to TV archive collections,taking into account the present demands,as well as the broader issues of historical and cultural perspectives and future developments. Audiovisual documents are understood to include all moving image and recorded sound documents as
Working fields Working fields of the Commission are: ° Cataloguing (descriptive cataloguing,selective cataloguing, classification and thesaurus). ° Retrie val methods and information retrieval systems. ° Technical developments on access to and use of collections. ° New audiovisual media (optical media, digitalisation,electronical highway, multimedia) as related to documentation. ° Multi-lingual topics. >>>
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° Exchange of information between FIAT/IFTA members and between other relevant commissions and working groups outside FIAT/IFTA. Current projects (1995-1997) 1. Multimedia software (Euromedia project) 2. The release of a CD-ROM on (a selection of) papers presented during FIAT conferences from 1990 on (planned) 3. The annual release of the Guide to Audiovisual Archives Members of the Commission are for the time being (addresses in theFIAT Yearbook or in the above mentioned Guide):
Annemiek e Westenbrink (Chair),the Netherlands, Audiovisual Archive Centre; Robert Egeter van Kuyk , the Netherlands, Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst; Eva-Lis Green , Sweden,SVT; # Peter Cox, United Kingdom,BBC; # Herbert Hayduck ,Austria,ORF; # Wolfgang Dehn , Germany, Südwestfunk; # Nisicler Moreire Figueir a , Brazil,TV Globo; Jyrki Stolt , Finland,YLE 1; ° Gaetan Scerba , Switzerland,TSR; Ryoko Kato , Japan,NHK. Note: # = Euromedia.° = Guide to AV-Archives
THE TECHNICAL COMMISSION HE TECHNICAL COMMISSION also met during the Washington Seminar. One main topic was the so called Aurora project (about which a paper was presented).The aim of Aurora is ”to develop an advanced system for video restoration in the digital domain,with the following features:
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° Real-time quality assessment and defect logging; ° Real-time restoration,with user-controlled levels of correction; ° Operator-driven,offline restoration tools, for high-quality restoration of very damaged documents; ° Compatibility with subsequent MPEG compression. The Aurora project is supported by an international consortium # and is a part of the ACTS program of the European Commission.” When it comes to participate it is to form an Aurora Users Group.The first purpose of this Group will be to collect informations about the practical needs for video restoration of the archive community. The Users Group should be operated mainly on a correspondance basis. There is more information to get on this matter. To apply to join the Aurora Users Group you may send a short profile of your organization (with respects to your interest for archives restoration) to: Jean-Francois Allouis,AURORA coordinator Institut National de l´Audiovisuel 4, avenue de l´Europe,94366 Bry-sur Marne Cedex, FRANCE tel: +33-1 49 83 26 27, fax: +33-1 49 83 20 07,e mail: allouis @ ina.fr
# Note: The AURORA (AUtomatic Restoration Of AUdiovisual archives) Consortium: Institut National de l´Audiovisuel - France British Broadcasting Corporation - United Kingdom Cambridge University - United Kingdom Snell & Wilcox Ltd - United Kingdom Societé Générale de Téleinformation - France Delft Technical University The Netherlands
OCT1995
TRAINING
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HE TRAINING COMMISSION consists for the moment only of its chairman,dr Peter Dusek of ORF,Austria.In a temperamental speech, reporting about the Commission,he deeply regretted the lack of economic funds,that was a substantial obstacle for the work of the Commission: He had had several suggestions on training programmes but so far they had to rest because of difficulties in financing them.
Furthermore,he looked for more active part in the Commission and its work from the members and hoped for contact with members,willing to give contributions to the Commission´s work.He also emphasized that FIAT training programmes should be restricted to member organizations; he had had suggestions from outsiders that he could not give priority.
UNESCO SURVEY DEPOSIT AGREEMENTS IN ARCHIVES UNESCO SURVEY. atherine Pinion of IFLA-AV is conducting a survey on archival deposit agreements on behalf of the UNESCO Round Table on Audiovisual Records.She has requested the help of FIAT/IFTA members in providing information.Such agreements apply primarily to national and independent archives. Whether you represent one of these archives or a broadcasting company which has a deposit agreement with such an archive, we hope you will respond to this request.
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”Catherine Pinion writes: To continue the momentum of the UNESCO workshop on AV Copyright last December, and in preparation of a possible future Seminar in 1996, UNESCO has commissioned the Round Table on AV Records to undertake a short but swift survey of the different types of agreement which are made between donor and archive.The Round Table consists of representatives from FIAF, FIAT, IASA,ICA (AV) and IFLA (AV). Within independent archives,audiovisual materials are deposited under a variety of conditions from legal deposit and voluntary arrangements with producers and companies,through to specific
agreements with individuals.The survey will cover both large,national collections and also the small ”private”archive.The aim is to study the range of different requirements in these agreements. Building on the work of the December Copyright meeting,the Round Table on AV Records has been asked by UNESCO to gather together as much information as possible concerning deposit arrangements between donor and archive and also (if possible) to report on the advantages and disadvantages of them. I would be very grateful,therefore,if readers could write to me with their comments and also send examples of agreements.The study is being undertaken for the Round Table by Catherine Pinion (IFLA-AV) in association with Wolfgang Klaue who chaired the Copyright Seminar. Please could you send informatrion BY 15th DECEMBER 1995 to: Catherine F. Pinion AV Media Consultant 65 Ranmoor Crescent Sheffield S10 3GW United Kingdom Tel/fax +44 (0)114 230 5714 Thank you in advance. A full report will be sent to
FIAF SUMMER SCHOOL 1996 FIAF SUMMER SCHOOL 1996 THIS TIME ALSO FOR FIAT MEMBERS. uring the Washington meeting the British Film Institute issued a sheet of paper, inviting to the FIAF Summer School of 1996.This time it is the intention to reserve five places on the course for FIAT/IFTA members,who should come from archives with substantial film collections.
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The Summer School ”will take place from 16 June to 7 July and will be hosted and organised by the National Film and Television Archive
(UK) at its modern J Paul Getty Jnr Conser vation Centre in Berkhamsted,Hertfordshire,approximately 35 miles from Central London................ The aim of the Summer School is to provide an intensive three-week training course for film archivists from all over the world who have some experience of film handling and archival practices.The focus of the course will be mainly technical,with an emphasis on the preservation of moving images,but will also embrace the history and philosophy of film archiving, as well as guidance on essential activities such as acquisition,cataloguing,access and programming. ............... Participants will again be accomodated in a quiet and comfortable Guest House,*Old Jordans’,
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located in the countryside about half-an-hour´s drive away.Transport to and from the Centre will be provided,and there are convenient travel facilities for exploring the area and making visits to London. .............. Many of the expert staff of the NFTA will be involved in the course training,supplemented by other staff of the British Film Insitute and key practitioners in the film,television and video industries.” Full details of the Summer School and how to apply to it will be sent to all FIAT/IFTA members soon.
In a memo on the subject,sent to Newsletter from Steve Bryant,the General Secretary points out,that the course next year, for the first time,will include elements concerned with video technology But,since film training is still very important in television archives,this is a fine opportunity to obtain it. The cost of a place is US dollars 1.500,which includes accomodation and meals for three weeks,as well as some excursions.In certain circumstances FIAT/IFTA may be prepared to offer help for members to attend. STELLAN NORRLANDER
Seeking Archival Resources To AMIA members and associates:
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he Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in cooperation with the British Broadcasting Corporation, is currently in pre-production on ”The Dawn of the Eye”, a six-part series on the last hundred years of motion picture news, newsreels, and television news. We are seeking early actuality and topical films, newsreels, and early television news and magazine kinetoscopes, and television news programs, to illustrate key moments in the development of visual news as it became dominant. We are particularly interested in examples of these which are not widely seen. Also of interest are personal footage and amateur film that might, for instance, help to illustrate the newsreel cameraman at work, or tell a well-known story of a riot or live television event from another point of view. We are also keen to speak to anyone involved in the newsreel or pioneer television days, or their relatives, for memorabiliia, anecdotes, and still photographs. If you or a colleague would like to contact us, we would be delighted. Please call me: Julia Bennett, ”The Dawn of the Eye” c/o Omni Parker House until Fri. Nov. 18. Or after Nov. 18th at: CBC TV Documentary Unit 4A-100, The Broadcast Centre Box 500, Station A Toronto Canada M5W lE6 (416) 205-8864 Fax (416) 205-8842
OCT 1995
ANOTHER POEM BY OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEGUE, EGETER VAN KUYK:
TORRE DE BELÉM.
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ne point is fixed in the Familiar sand
Of the beach where we bade farewell. Our parting words were shy and awkward Like hermit crabs stumbling On a grain of sand. The other point of the compasses reaches farther,
Ever more remote along the ship´s course From here to El Dorado,Goa´s palm-fringed coast. The ship sailed away and out of our sight, But surely it will send us a message soon About far countries,full of perfume And perhaps of our fondest dreams. Lisbon
THE PRESIDENT´S Opening Speech PRESIDENT´S CORNER will this time consist of the president´s welcoming words at the opening ceremony:
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adies and gentlemen, Dear conference participants,members of FIAT, IASA and ARSC, On behalf of FIAT I welcome you all to take part in the joint conference of ARSC,IASA and FIAT.This is an event in the history of FIAT being the first time all three associations organize a conference together and also an event, geographically speaking,when, for the first time,FIAT invites the members to the USA.We are grateful to the Library of Congress for enabling us to do this. I am convinced that you will appreciate the programme for the conference made by dedicated members of the various commissions within FIAT and by individuals whose ideas might be of interest to you all. The keywords for the programme of the conference are: Copyright,new technology, new ideas about how to make your catalogue better, information about the changes within USA - how far has they made it and is the progress in the US a signal of how we are going to work in the future? European and American technology in a friendly encounter evaluated with critical eyes by librarians and archivists from all over the world. As you all have noticed while studying the programme we have put priority on the issue of copyright.Why, you may ask.Is the problem that important? Are you
exaggerating a bit? Those of you who have some experience in the field of research work knows very well how irritating it is finally to find the shots you want and then receivin g information about the copyright:Not allowed to be used unless so and so...The last part of the routine of the research - to reuse the material legally is the issue - not what might have happened during years of not knowing the rights and the laws. On the list of topical subjects we should have mentioned the ”noble art of conversation”which means that the last word is not said about a matter by the speaker; you must use the small interludes between the lectures to get information about your private problems: talk to people,listen to those who have made mistakes and not lost the hope for better working conditions. In this group we are many in numbers - believe me - and we are all here to assist you and to give you some advices not to make the same mistakes. We all have in common the aim to preserve the collections to make new radio and television programmes or to produce materials for future historians and researchers. I wish you all luck in your work - the dedicated sound people and the dedicated people of moving images.We have much in common: Sound and picture are important for the new productions within moving image industry and in television productions and the radio programmes often need the sound from the tv programmes - we exchange experience and products.
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS ith the permission of the author the Newsletter gives the following article from ”Moving Image Review”.The author is Samuel Surratt, well known former FIAT vice President and now an Honorary Member. He has been a historian,archivist of the Smithsonian Institution and Archivist of CBS News.
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he ”Moving Image Review”is dedicated to the Preservation of Northern New England Motion
Pictures. In celebration of the centennial of the projected motion picture,Moving Image Review's "One Hundred Years" column looks at the past and future of moving image media. Do you ever wonder what happens to all the television shows? Do they just die in outer space or is there some great recording organization that captures and catalogs them for future generations to wonder at or despair over? In the United States there are over 1000 TV stations and countless ca ble channels,each of them transmitting television for approximately 7000 hours a year. Much of it is network programming that will continue to be recycled ad infinitum,ad nauseam.But a great deal of the output of television and cable channels is unique and possibly the only record of local and regional history. Will Programs be Preserved? How many of these millions of hours of television exist in some form of recording? What deserves preserving,how do we preserve it and who should do this monumental job? In 1992 Congress passed the National Film Preservation Act,which funded a study, to be done by the Library of Congress and the National Film Preser vation Board,on the state of American motion picture preservation.This Act also mandated that a plan be drawn up that would assure the preser vation of movies in the future.The resulting document,Redefining Film Preservation:A National Plan,made a concise series of recommendations. One page of the Plan dealt with "Television and Video Preservation," recommending that the Library of Congress seek legislation,similar to that which funded the study of motion picture preservation,to embark on a study of the dimensions and problems of preserving television. This past autumn,David Francis,head of the division that oversees the collection and preser vation of motion pictures and television at the Library of Congress, stated that no Congressional authorization was necessar y for a study of television,and that funding under the American Television and Radio Archive legislation would suffice. What Will a Survey Find?
Assuming that funding is a vailable to do a sur vey of television programming,what will the surveyors find ? If television had never changed from black and white to color, there would be far fewer preservation problems facing us now. But that would be like saying "if we only had horses for transportation,pedestrians would be safer." In the days of black and white TV the method of recording was the kinescope,which was simply a black and white motion picture made of the orthicon tube or television screen.Although grainy, the kinescope had the advantage over video tape,because black and white film is the most sta ble long-term storage medium and the technology has not changed for almost a century. Videotape has a questionable longevity, and its technology changes every five to ten years. Lost and "Lost" Programs Many of the early black and white television programs no longer exist,mainly because the costconscious management of networks and Hollywood studios junked thousands of kinescopes to recover the silver from the films' emulsion. But a good number of the early dramatic and comedy series still exist in vaults and are periodically "discovered" as "lost episodes." Virtually none of the early soap operas has survived,the soap manufacturers,which owned them,being even more parsimonious than the networks which broadcast them. Series Survival Almost all color strip shows (i.e.,situation comedies, action/adventure series,etc.,that were produced for prime time television) are alive and well and living on your local cable channel.Likewise,many mini-series and quality dramatic programs are preserved by the networks, the studios,UCLA,the Library of Congress,or other archives. Sports Programming The professional leagues and networks have been keeping low-quality tapes of sporting events for the last 15 years or so,and NFL Films has been preserving professional football since before TV began covering it. Network News The most complete collections of television programs are to be found in the network news divisions, where millions of feet of film and thousands of hours of videotape document what the national news networks decide to cover. Complete runs exist of memor able program.such as See it Now, Person to Person, Victory at Sea and The Twentieth Century, preserved by the network news divisions. The Vanderbilt University news archive has been taping nightly network news broadcasts since 1968,and the National Archives and Library of Congress have thousands of news broadcasts from the early 1970s to the present.
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Local and Regional Gap The largest gap in preserving television programming will be found in local and regional broadcasts of news and public affairs.Many local and regional archives.including Northeast Historic Film,have established programs to collect newsfilm and tape from local television stations,but many areas of the country are not included and many local programs are not taped by the broadcasting station. Arrangements need to be made between local TV stations and local archives to tape certain programs off the air and store them for future reference by the communities. After the Survey
Once the survey is done,the real work begins.National, regional and local policies must be established saying what programs need to be preser ved and who will do what. Funding of this multi-level approach will be very dif ficult to achieve,and the costs of archiving audiovisual materials are staggering.Each videotape must be copied every 10 to 15 years in order to keep it in a format that can be played back.This means that every archives' costs will double (plus inflation) during each successive ten-year period. Which brings us to the heart of the matter.Although everyone watches television,no one is watching over the preservation of television! And no single agency has the kind of money it will take to do the job. Money must be found in the television industry, in private foundations and at every le vel of government if our television heritage,the mirror of our society, is to be preser ved.
ADDRESS TO FIAF ADDRESS TO FIAF GENERAL ASSEMBLY, by Steve Bryant. I would like to thank FIAF for inviting FIAT to send a delegate to your Congress and for this opportunity to address you today. I would also like to congratulate UCLA, the AFI and the Academy for organising what has been an outstanding event.Many of FIAT´s concerns are the same as yours and e very session has had relevance to FIAT and I will return to that in a moment. First,let me say a few words about myself. My job title is Keeper of Television at the National Film and Television Archive in London.As such I work for a founder member of FIAF, but on the television side,and I share the Archive Movement´s ethos and apply it to television programmes. However, I am here representing the International Federation of Television Archives,as its new General Secretary. Most members of FIAT are broadcasters,both national and commercial,but there are also a number of national and independent archives as well.I certainly would not claim that my election as General Secretary represents any kind of shift towards the more purely archival in FIAT´s thinking. I think that was there already. What was needed was for those of us in the national and independent archive field to engage with it. As it is,the FIAT Executive Council is rightly dominated by broadcasters, reflecting the membership.Our new President,Tedd Johansen of NRK,sends his greetings.The presence of ourselves and INA of Paris on the Council perhaps represents the growth of national and independent archives including television in their collections and the growing co-operation between those archives and the broadcasters. FIAT is also addressing wider and more cultural issues.Through our Programming and Production Commission we are discussing how archival television material is being re-used in new programmes and questions of selection and ethics. We also give an annual
Award for the best re-use of television archive material. As I said earlier, most of the issues discussed at this Congress are of great relevance to television archivists.We are just as daunted and excited by the digital revolution as you are. We also distrust the manufacturers of our carriers,who ever more regularly make our video formats obsolete,but I hold out no hope of ever persuading them to behave otherwise This year FIAT will hold its annual conference in Washington DC in September.Amongst the issues we will discuss be copyright,to which we are devoting a full day, new technology in documentation and picture recording, and questions of access - all the same topics as were discussed at this Congress.Even some of the speakers will be the same.So you see,our concerns are your concerns.. There are many other organisations who share these common concerns.It is not my place to intervene in the discussion on FIAF´s membership and aims which you have initiated this week,but FIAT and others will follow it with interest.Our Conference in Washington will be held jointly with the International Association of Sound Archives and the Association of Recorded Sound Collections.This is the second year we will have met with IASA.The practical problems of bringing different organisations together are very complicated,but there are very good reasons for doing so - mainly the fact that the programmes of all our conferences ha ve become so similar. There are already good examples of co-operation on conference programmes between archival organisations. The Joint Terchnical Symposium held in London in January was a g reat success and was accessible and relevant to all who attended.There is also the UNESCO Round Table on Audio-visual Archives,and FIAT hopes to become involved in the 1996 FIAF Summer School, run by the NFTVA.Let us have more co-operation of this sort,and more joint events on different subjects,because our