Saving the Film Heritage
The FIAF Summer School: a report by Clyde Jeavons
The 1992 FIAF Summer School - a revival of summer schools previously hosted by the film archive of the DDR under the direction of Wolfgang Klaue - took place from 14th June to 5th July at the J.Paul Getty Jr Conservation Centre, Berkhamsted, Hertfodshire, UK, under the auspices of the National Film Archive (now the NFTVA). This fulfilled a commitment (albeit one year later than planned) made by the former Curator of the NFA, David Francis, partly as an acknowledgment of the relatively advanced and comprehensive conservation facilities and operations established at the Archive's Berhamsted site since 1987 thanks to the extraordinary and enlightened generosity of Paul Getty.
The aim of the Summer School was - as in its former guises - to provide an intensive training and awareness course for film archivists from all over the world having some (but not necessarily very much) experience of film handling and archival practices. The focus was, by design, mainly technical, with an emphasis on the preservation of moving images, but embracing also the history, philosophy and ethics of film archiving, together with guidance on basic activities such as acquisition, cataloguing, acces to collections and programming.
The School was open to FIAF members (in the widest sense) as a first priority, with an emphatic eye on applicants from archives in developing countries or those with poor resources, but consideration was given also to suitable non-FIAF applicants in anticipation of there being spare vacancies - as, indeed, was the case at the time of the closing date. Thirty-two places were eventually made available, significantly more than the 25 originally envisaged, in response to the high demand and some very late applications. In the end, the School was over-subscribed, nevertheless, and a number of FIAF applicants had to be turned down. In most cases this was, regrettably, because their archives had failed to circulate the Summer School information in time (or at all), despite an eight-month application period. Looked at serendipitously, however, this failure to communicate did leave space for a welcome leavening of 'outsiders' on the course, including two from Africa, which would otherwise not have been represented.
There were, in all, 27 participants from twenty different FIAF archives and further five from non-FIAF organisations (A complete list of participants and their organisations follows at the end of this article).
Twenty-two countries were represented and all the continents. Four of the participants were picked from the NFA staff itself, to double up as drivers guides, nursemaids and paramedics. Notable among these was Kevin Patton, Senior Technical Selector at the NFTVA, who carried virtually the entire burden of the practical organisation and day-to-day running of the Summer School and whose contribution to its success and harmony remains inestimable.
The first logistical triumph of the Summer School was the arrival, from all the corners of the globe, of every single participant bar one in time for the Welcome Dinner held in the depths of the English countryside. (The exception was Kwaw Twumasi from Ghana, who arrived, against all economic odds, a few days later). Credit (and then some) for this achievement is wholly down to Kathleen Dickson, Curator's Assistant at the NFTVA, who remained in dogged contact with all the participants and got them to their destination with the coolness and skill of an air traffic controller in a flight disaster movie. Kathleen also wisely compiled profiles of the participants to hand out to each course member, which proved to be an invaluable ice-braking exercice.
The schedule for the Summer School was, it has to be admitted, a triffle packed. Fear of failure or breakdown, it would seem, led us to over-organise the timetable so that little was left to chance and every moment of the participants' day, be it work or recreation, was fully mapped out. With the hindsight of experience, we could undoubtedly have been more relaxed on this point and allowed more optional free time for our guests. But the fault was a positive one: the less confident of the visitors appreciated the security of never being at a loose end, and operational smoothness was never at risk.
The participants were all accomodated, on a single or sharing basis according to preference, in a quiet, remote, comfortable and very picturesque period guest house (the 'Old Jordans') run by liberal Quakers. Breakfast and optional evening meals were provided by the guest house, with the Archive taking care of all working lunches and most off-site meals. Despite its attractiveness and its many advantages, there was some prior anxiety about the remoteness of the 'Old Jordans' and its distance (half-an-hour's bus ride) from the Conservation Centre. These worries were rapidly dispelled by the favourable reaction of the participants, who quickly warmed to the exclusive, aesthetic and friendly atmosphere of their surroundings (and, as a result, to each other), discovered English pub culture at its best, bonded with their Quaker hosts (who developed the pleasant habit of laying on ad hoc, late-night barbecues), and appreciated the complete geographical demarcation of work and leisure. Transportation difficulties were solved by having two mini-buses, chauffeured by Archive staff, permanently on call for local trips of any kind.
The Summer School course itself requires no detailed description here, being fundamentally the technical work of a film archive, from elementary film-handling to complex colour restoration. Suffice to say that it embraced a full range of lectures, training sessions, demonstrations, look-and-learn, hands-on practice, and course-related visits to other institutions - such as Kodak, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Pinewood Studios, Rank Film Laboratories, the Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI), the Bradford Museum of Photography, Film and Television, and the East Anglian Film Archive. The course was complemented by evening screenings of classic British films, social events, outings, and some opportunities for tourism and sightseeing - all arranged and subsidised by the Archive.
Most of the course work and lectures were conducted by the NFTVA's technical staff, led by Henning Schou, Tony Cook, Jack Houshold and David Peterson, supplemented by other Archive and British Film Institute colleagues and - on an invited, goodwill basis - key practitioners in the film, television and video industries, such as producer David Puttnam and film historian and silent cinema expert Kevin Brownlow. Also at the invitation of the Archive, Wolfgang Klaue travelled from Berlin to represent FIAF and, in the light of his own Summer School experience, take part in the concluding de-briefing session with the participants and staff. Many of the lectures and formal proceedings were recorded on video by the Archive's own Video Club, led by Karen Sander, and in addition, 1,600 still photographs were taken by another staff member, Don Geary. (All formal lectures and training papers, and some of the more general presentations, are being edited and transcribed into a dossier which, it is hoped, will eventually be made available to all FIAF member-archives, as well as to the participants themselves).
Other adornments to the course, less vital but appreciated nonetheless, were a set of sweatshirts, T-shirts and coffee mugs given to each participant, bearing the motto of the 1992 Summer School, 'Saving the Film Heritage'; donations by various commercial companies of airline bags (from Kodak), briefcases (from Agfa), desk blotters, etc.; a tree-planting ceremony instigated (naturally) by the Israeli contingent; and a presentation of course-completion certificates to all who took part.
Before reflecting on the achievements or criticisms of the Berkhamsted Summer School, it is worth dwelling a little on the financial aspects, crucial as they must be to any future manifestations of this event and the form it may take.
After consultation with Wolfgang Klaue and Brigitte van der Elst, the course fee was set at $1,000 per head, to include all except personal expenses and fares. It was recognised that this would not come close to covering the cost of running the Summer School, and that even so it might be a figure beyond the reach of some of the very applicants the course was trying to attract. Efforts to help those who genuinely could not manage the course fee or their travel costs (or both) were generally successful - notably through the British Council or local funding sources, or, in extremis, FIAF and the NFTVA itself - but in the final analysis, the income from course fees became de facto a relatively lean credit item in the total budget.
After absoption by the NFTVA of staff salary costs and other on-site overheads, the gross expenditure on the Summer School was (at 1992 exchange rate) $105,000. With neither the BFI/NFTVA nor FIAF able to contribute more than modest emergency sums in direct cash terms, raising income against a budget of this scale became an exhausting, sometimes creative and occasionally desparate affair, and the final net deficit of $31,500 (balanced from BFI funds) must be seen as something of an achievement. Apart from the participants' fees and UNESCO's grant towards the training video, significant unconditional contributions came from Henderson's Laboratory, Soho Images (formerly Studio Film and Video Laboratory) and British Gas, all of whom deserve thanks; silver was recovered from junked nitrate film stock and sold; sales of sweatshirts recovered their cost; and, lifesavingly, a training grant of 12,000 ECUs (approximately $12,000) was awarded from the European Economic Community's MEDIA 95 project, LUMIERE, in recognition of the European component of the Summer School.
The conclusion, though, must be that - under what Wolfgang Klaue himself call 'normal' financial conditions (i.e. without automatic subsidy) - no FIAF Summer School which is to be run on a generous, effective and professional level, even in an advanced archive, can be self-supporting and underwrite its less privileged members; and FIAF itself will inevitably need to play a more central role in helping the host archive to raise both funds and awareness in any future Summer School venture.
Caveats about the balance sheet apart, there is no doubt that the effort is worthwhile. The Berkhamsted undertaking, like its East European predecessors, was an unqualified success - both from a training point of view as in human and social terms. Significantly, the levels of harmony, pleasure and motivation which such a course can engender were enjoyed as much by the hosts and their staff as by the participants; and the standard of comment and constructive criticism offered by the course members certainly indicated positive gain.
What, though, might be learned from this Nineties version Summer School? According to a slightly amused Klaue, the same things as emerged from his Summer Schools: the value of free time; the need to strike balances between theory and hands-on practice, philosophy and film-handling; whether or not to offer specialiazation to some participants, a broader range of (perhaps non-technical) topics to others... and so forth.
The experience did seem to us to answer two particular questions which have troubled earlier Summer Schools. Firstly, the inevitability on such a course of having participants with a wide divergence of archival qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills. The trick is not to worry about it: to pitch the course at a predetermined median level; dispense as much hard, basic information as possible; and give every participant full and equal attention. This way everyone will glean something useful from the course, and those who seek more will find it. It is not, as we discovered, just the rank-and-file archivist who needs or desires practical training. Even Klaue was surprised by the presence on the Berkhamsted course of the Head of an archive - but as she pointed out, it was one thing to be an administrator with paper-pushing skills, quite another to know the fundamentals of film preservation at first hand.
Secondly, the 'problem' of language. Again, the Berkhamsted 'solution' became simply a pragmatic one: to conduct the course in English, with no arrangements for formal translation, and to inform the participants in advance that this would be the case and some viable knowledge of English was desirable. It was felt that, apart form being prohibitively costly, any attempt at simultaneous translation, on a group basis or one-to-one, would fatally inhibit the intensity, pace and fluency of the course and compromise the instructors. The prognosis was judged to be a good one. Most of the non-Anglophone participants knew enough, or grasped enough, to get by, or caught up later by consultation with other course members or through their documenation. In the last resort, there were enough staff or colleagues on hand able to extemporise translations in French or Spanish. More importantly, the participants themselves agreed that the poly-methodological nature of the course rendered systematic translation impractical.
Given, then, that there is a proven, resurrected appetite for the FIAF Summer School, but that its financial imperatives cannot be ignored nor the burden on whoever hosts it taken lightly, what is the best way forward? Three alternative models suggest themselves:
1. Continue to hold the Summer School at appropriate intervals in one suitably equipped archive, such as the NFTVA's JPGJ Conservation Centre at Berkhamsted. The advantages here are a definite willingness to do it; good facilities; experience; continuity. The organisational strain on the Archive, however, would mean hosting the event triennially at most. (Question: What is the optimum period between Summer Schools before FIAF runs out of fresh participants?)
2. Hold the Summer School at pappropriate intervals in a selection of suitable archives, e.g. on a rotation basis. The advantages would be the possibility of holding the event more frequently; a sharing of the work burden; different approaches to training; a change of the host language from time to time.
3. Choose alternate archives, but share the organisation and work (and some of the cost?), i.e. attach experienced Summer School staff from other archives to the host archive; in other words, run the Summer School on an inter-archival basis.
And while we're at it, why Summer School...?
Clyde Jeavons
[As well as those named in the article, profoundest thanks are due to the rest of the staff of the NFTVA - all of whom contributed directly or indirectly to the success of the 1992 Summer School - and in particular to the Deputy Curator Anne Fleming]
Anastassios Adamopoulos, Greek Film Archive, Athens
Gad Astar, Israel Film Archive, Jerusalem
Paul Betts, NFTVA, UK
Mark Bodner, North West Film Archive, Manchester, UK
Johann Boehm, Austrian Film Archive, Vienna
Ki-Up Cho, Korean Film Archive, Seoul
Sophie De Meyer, Royal Film Archive, Brussels
Serge Desaulniers, Québec Cinémathèque, Montréal
Thuy Dung Dinh, Vietnam Film Institute, Hanoi
Nadien Dubois, Service des Archives du Film, Bois d'Arcy
Donald Frye, Library of Congress, Washington, USA
Martin Koerber, Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin
Marilyn Koolik, Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, Jerusalem
Eric Loné, Service des Archives du Film, Bois d'Arcy
Atanacio Martinez Sanchez, Colombian Film Archive, Bogota
Victor Martins, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon
Zuleide Flora de Medeiros, Brazilian Cinémathèque, Sâo Paulo
Juan José Mugni, National Image Archive, Uruguay
Bill North, NFTVA, UK
Kevin Patton, NFTVA, UK
Jana prikrylova, Czech Film Archvie, Prague
Olavi Simila, Finnish Film Archive, Helsinki
Ardiouma Soma, FESPACO Cinémathèque, Burkina Faso
Maria Manuel Sousa, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon
Chris Swinbanks, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra
Glenise Tompkins, NFTVA, UK
Dennis Tong, Hong Kong Film Archive
Kwaw Twumasi, National Archives of Ghana
Gerhard Ullman, Münich Film Museum
Maria Fernanda Valverde, Image Permanence Group, Mexico
Kenneth Weissman, Library of Congress, Washington, USA
Rudolf Worschech, Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt
What they said...
'Events such as this Summer School are another evidence of FIAF's vitality... Serge came back a new man! (Robert Daudelin)
'The most important thing I have ever done professionally... (and) the best times I ever had'. (Serge Desaulnier)
'... a wonderful experience for me and one I shall never forget. Everyone wanted it to be a success and in turn it brought out the very best in them'. (Kevin Patton)
'The knowledge taught to our prepresentative (Ardiouma Soma)... will be very useful to the setting up of our African film library'. (Filippe Sawadogo)
'...let's hope there will be projects in the future that might bring us together again'. (Martin Koerber)
'Wolfgang Klaue was quite surprised when he saw me, a director of an archive, on the course... Frankly, I think every director of a film archive could benefit from this most worthwhile learning experience... We "directors"... lose sight of what it is that we are so busy administering... I have come away with the most awesome new respect for the media that is sitting on my shelves'. (Marilyn Koolik)
'Nothing can replace interpersonal contact'. (Mark Bodner)
'The School brought home the truly international nature of this profession'. (Paul Betts)
'To baby-sit 32 kids is not an easy task...' (Dennis Tong)
'I found old experiences confirmed: we do not only communicate knowledge by these training courses. FIAF Summer Schools also have an important human and social effect... I do hope that this... method of training will be continued'. (Wolfgang Klaue)