Fast Forwarding Video Preservation and Digital Engagement

The aim of this project is to utilise the video digitisation suites that the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA) acquired in our previous Capability for Collections grant (AH/V011952/1) to actively engage new and, particularly, youth audiences in collections-based research and digital engagement. These activities will make use of and preserve valuable, under-studied and at-risk parts of our collections that are of local, national and international significance. We will achieve the engagement strategies through partnership with the BBC who will collaborate on the selection of content and the digital outputs, and make use of the generated digital content for their 'BBC at 100' celebrations (2022).

EAFA's extensive collections of film, video and born-digital content, covering the 1890s to the present, are a valuable resource for academics and educators working across a range of disciplines. EAFA is a thriving research centre, collaborating on a range of funded research projects and educational initiatives. These projects reflect the strengths of our collections in amateur filmmaking and regional television (BBC East / ITV-Anglia), but also EAFA's cutting-edge digital expertise and infrastructure. In 2020, EAFA was successful in securing funding for seven video digitisation kits from Capability for Collections. This consisted of:
- 7 x FSI DM240 (professional 'reference' video monitor with waveform displays, legal levels and vectorscopes)
- 7 x HP EliteDesk PC's
The new equipment, in combination with Leitch Timebase Correctors, Vrecord (open source video digitisation software) and Blackmagic video capture cards make up seven video digitisation workstations that can digitise a wide range of formats and are able to be operated by student volunteers (following a short training programme).

The BBC collection includes a number of 'at-risk' video formats as well as film titles. EAFA's proposal is that the archive will digitise a range of BBC videos and films alongside selections from other valuable EAFA collections to meet the objectives of the research and engagement strategies. This grant will fund digitisation of approximately 550+ hours of video and film content. Some of this will be undertaken by the technical team in EAFA but we will also train a small group of UEA students to: digitise BBC and other EAFA tapes; to catalogue the material; to assist in selecting material for EAFA's annual Mash up filmmaking competition; and curating a selection of BBC content online and programmed at a live event. The material will also be viewed and interacted with by the public as part of the BBC's 100th Anniversary, within their flagship 'Story of Us' online platform.

The qualitative and quantitative research undertaken at the end of the project with the archive volunteers and Mash Up competition entrants will be used to produce an open-access report aimed at key stakeholder organisations we consulted (BBC, BFI, National Lottery Heritage Fund, INTO Film) and the wider heritage / screen education sectors. This will address their desires to understand the values and impacts of digitisation training, online curation and creative reuse projects for engaging youth audiences and developing their future skills.