Make Film History - Opening up the Archives to Young Filmmakers

As cultural heritage organisations digitise their collections and increase public access, moving image portals like the IFI Player, RTÉ Archives, BFI Player and BBC iPlayer provide audiences with virtual screening rooms to view their shared audiovisual history on demand. But the creative reuse of moving image archive material remains problematic, beset by questions of copyright law, rights clearance and "fair dealing" exceptions, and an audiovisual archives sector without a standardised framework to open up access to this material for creative reuse by young filmmakers in education and the community. Young filmmakers cannot access this material without significant funding from film funds or broadcasters to pay commercial license fees.

The Make Film History network will address this problem by developing a new, sustainable model for the creative reuse of archive material for non-commercial use by young filmmakers. This pilot study will offer audiovisual archives within the network a low-risk framework for long-term collaboration with stakeholders working with young filmmakers in education, training and the community. The network will ask: "How can we license moving image archive material for creative reuse by young filmmakers for education, training and community use? How can the creative reuse of this material increase community engagement with hidden cultural heritage and strengthen communities through new work created by emerging filmmakers reflecting on the past and developing talent for the future"?

The network will build on the success of the innovative Archives for Education project, led by the UK principal investigator Dr O'Sullivan at Kingston School of Art. Supported by the British Film Institute and BBC Archive Editorial, the project provides a new model for the creative reuse of archive film in higher education, giving student filmmakers access to archive material from the BBC and the BFI National Archive for creative reuse on course-related projects for the first time. Fifty-five institutions have signed up to the scheme, allowing student filmmakers to connect their vision of Britain today with archival representations from their parents' and grandparents' generations.

The network will take an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to exploring the theme of Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage and the Creative Industries, leveraging advances in video technology to open up access to hidden audiovisual heritage for creative reuse by the next generation of young filmmakers under a non-commercial license; and developing cross-sectoral partnerships and creative exchange between academic researchers, audiovisual archives, cultural heritage organisations, film festivals and organisations working with young people in education and the creative industries.

Our timetable of events is strategically designed around regional film festivals with strong industry programmes, where industry experts gather to exchange ideas and knowledge and meet new talent. Our events will take three forms: a series of industry panels and workshops, exploring the key themes and research questions of the network; creative workshops where young filmmakers can engage with archive material and regional archives and training organisations can pilot creative reuse in a festival setting; and follow-on events where some of the work produced through the project can be screened for the local community and the findings of the project can be disseminated.

These activities will increase youth and community engagement with audiovisual heritage and bring regional stakeholders together around regional hubs of archive material. The network will develop a new model for the creative reuse of our audiovisual heritage by young filmmakers, inspiring new films about their communities and on the theme of borders and migration which bring a fresh voice to representations of the past and an enhanced awareness of copyright law and creative reuse.

The major beneficiaries of the project will be the four industry project partners, regional audiovisual archives, educators, training and community organisations and young filmmakers.

The four industry project partners and regional audiovisual archives will benefit from the increased access to and engagement with their collections creative reuse can offer to young filmmakers and training and community organisations. As noted in their letters of support, the project is aligned with their strategic plans and will create a new model for creative reuse both within their organisation and as a framework for cross-border and pan-regional collaboration.

The process of digitising, clearing and licensing material for non-commercial creative reuse will streamline a new process across their networks and unlock added value in their collections. The network will facilitate enhanced co-operation between the project partners in an exciting new area ideally suited to engaging young creatives and aggregating archive material for creative reuse across borders and collections.

It will release the latent potential of creative reuse in these collections, transforming passive young viewers in schools and the community into active creators, working hands-on with this material, with a license to integrate fragments of the past into their creative expression. It will raise the profile of archival collections and educate young filmmakers to value archive material in their work and license it legitimately. It will also help archives build relationships with new talent, some of whom will go on to license archive footage commercially later in their careers.

Educators, training organisations and community groups will benefit from a free, practice-based digital resource which has the potential to immerse young filmmakers in the audiovisual history of their communities and give them a voice in the representation of their region, while also reflecting on the UK/Irish relationship and the overarching theme of borders and migration.

The project will enhance community engagement at participating film festivals and provide hands-on filmmaking workshops which will lead to screenings of archival and newly-created work reflecting the local community.

Young filmmakers will benefit from a new digital resource which adds a historical dimension to their work and gives them a platform to connect their own experience with their parents' and grandparents' generation, producing a new generation of digital storytellers with a heightened sense of their audiovisual history and the tools to draw on it to inspire their work.

The integration of archive material into the creative process of emerging filmmakers has the potential to have a lasting impact on the documentary industry in the UK and Ireland, with renewed interest in archive material helping to sustain the work of audiovisual archives and encourage further digitisation of resources.

This pioneering project on creative reuse in the UK and Ireland also has the potential to inspire similar projects in Europe and North America through the principal investigators' engagement with the professional archivists' conference in Dublin and the project partners' influence within the archives and cultural heritage sector. The comprehensive guide to creative reuse produced with project partners at the end of the project will serve as a blueprint for future initiatives.