All about… how we acquire films, TV and other moving images

At the BFI National Archive, we conserve and preserve one of world’s largest and most culturally significant collections of film, television, moving image and associated Screencraft collections. It contributes to a rich history of UK and international moving image creativity that spans more than a century, ranging from Birt Acres’ The Derby (1896) – one of the earliest known British films – to as-yet unreleased programmes and festival-ready features. We hold an extensive international collection of films – including one of the world’s most important collections of silent cinema – most of which is held uniquely by the BFI. 

Our collecting continues, driven by a mission encapsulated in our Royal Charter to develop and maintain a collection that illustrates the art, history and impact of film, and which is to be held, preserved and shared with the public. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that work that has been selected for the national collection is still preserved 50 or 100 years in the future, and beyond. But how do we build, develop and continue collecting? Here, our Collections Development team break down the key principles and processes involved in acquiring new moving image material for the national collection.

At the foundation of our collecting are the various practitioners, donors and IP owners who offer material to the national collection. We work with companies and practitioners who generously donate their physical media and digital assets for their long term preservation.

Our donors and partners range from individual filmmakers, collectors and social media influencers through to production or distribution companies, industry organisations, streaming companies, regulatory bodies and other national collecting organisations. Whether it’s a thousand prints from a closing film warehouse or a single file from a YouTuber, it is through unique relationships that we fill the BFI National Archive with film reels, videotapes and digital files that tell countless stories of the UK’s past, present and future.

There are three main pathways by which we acquire materials for the archive, through an approach which aims to balance preservation need alongside strong relationship-building and the drive to making materials available.

Our moving image curators work to research, develop and share our collections. Dedicated colleagues seek out works for acquisition, old and new, to ensure that the collection reflects the diversity of the UK and its moving image heritage. Our curators build relationships with filmmakers, rights holders and the industry, who help us to build the national collection. The UK has no form of legal deposit for moving image and we operate without an acquisition budget for the national collection, so all our collections development work requires the generous physical gift of materials from donors.

Members of the public who wish to donate film, video and/or digital materials to the national archive can do so by visiting the Offers to the BFI National Archive page and contacting our dedicated team of curatorial archivists. Information such as the title of the film or television programme, date of release, and format of the material are essential for our archivists to understand the nature and scale of the donation, and they in turn work with the curators to assess offers and decide which to pursue.

Productions that are funded by the BFI Filmmaking Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, are required to deposit their materials into the archive. These films not only represent current UK productions but also showcase a diverse range of bold and original voices and stories. Other ways we have worked to ensure the archive is a repository of a growing breadth of UK moving image content and screen culture is through two vital screen heritage projects, both also supported by BFI National Lottery funding: the Heritage 2022 project involved digitising 100,000 works from at-risk videotapes from across the nation’s archives; and the Contemporary Collecting strand of the National Lottery-funded Our Screen Heritage project is focused on acquiring and preserving a selection of 400 born-digital online works.

– Nidhi Shukal, Assistant Curator (TV)

But how do we decide exactly what to collect? Do we pick the ‘best’ moving image works? The most ‘representative’? If we are preserving for the future, how do we know what future generations are going to be interested in? With a finite amount of storage space, and considering the significant resources required for the accessioning process, we must be selective in terms of what we acquire for the collection. How do we decide?

No one person makes the decision. We have a framework to support decision work which mixes policy, practicalities and people. All decision-making is guided by our collections policy, which defines our commitment to film in terms of art, history and impact, with a focus on British production and storytelling. The curatorial team make recommendations as to what should be acquired with this policy as a guide, and proposals are discussed in a monthly Acquisitions, Disposals and Loans (ADL) meeting. This ADL group, made up of representatives from across the archive, has delegated authority from the BFI’s Collections Board to make acquisitions decisions. Where the decision requires more involved thought or resourcing, the board itself might be brought in to decide.

Offers of material to the collection are routinely made and responded to by the curatorial team. Do they fit our collections policy and current collecting priorities? Is the material offered for works that are already in the collection? Can it be used? If so, is the material of superior quality to our existing preservation elements, or would it help increase access to a work? Is there another archive that might offer a more suitable home, such as one of the regional and national collections across the UK?

Once a decision is made, and if we decide to proceed with an acquisition, then we move into another dedicated phase of completing an acquisitions agreement before taking delivery of the materials.

– Sonia Genaitay, Curatorial Archivist

The BFI collects materials with the intent to provide long term preservation, access and care. In Screen Culture 2033 we state our drive to be the most open archive, and we have made great headway in developing transparent and ambitious legal documentation to support our collecting mission. The archive’s size and significance requires continuous and engaged management in order to preserve the collection’s cultural value and to ensure that it remains accessible for future generations. 

We adhere to strict policies, procedures and workflows that inform our approach to acquisitions, drawing on 90 years of best practice in collection management and care across the national heritage sector and international moving image archiving community. Preserving the collection for the long term requires significant investment in storage and care.

In this spirit, one of the key asks in our acquisition agreement is for full transfer of ownership of the physical material or donated file. This is in line with good collecting practice across the heritage sector. The agreements ensure the BFI becomes the legal owner of the materials and has full responsibility for its preservation and ongoing care needs. It means the organisation can legally ensure the ongoing preservation of the donated item with agreed permission from the donor. 

It is, however, important to us that we continue to seek our donors’ good will and support, in line with our overall approach to maintaining strong partnerships with donors through ongoing liaison and with an open and transparent approach to contracting. In return, the BFI believes that the materials should be accessible to the public with minimal financial barriers, except when specific access fees are required to cover the costs of servicing requests. Additionally, the BFI is committed to ensuring that no donor retains claims on the materials once they have been transferred, allowing the collection to be used freely to fulfil the BFI’s mission of cultural preservation and public access.

Our agreements also ask for some non-commercial permitted uses which support the BFI’s goal to share as much of the national collection as possible with the public. Our agreements are standardised, ensuring that every donor receives equal treatment and clarity in terms of ownership, rights and access. In doing so, the BFI is building a future-proof collection that will serve the public for generations to come.

Our agreement negotiations and drafting often happen in tandem with the decision-making process, though we operate a firm procedural workflow: acquisitions are agreed at our ADL meeting, then agreement is signed by both parties (donor and BFI) before our vaults and despatch colleagues assist with delivery to our BFI National Archive site in Berkhamsted.

Once in our custody, our final step in this process is to affix a barcode onto the containers in which the objects have arrived (this may be a can, videotape, hard drive or larger container holding multiple objects). The barcodes allow us to track the movement of the objects as they await our next stage: triage and selection.

– Dylan Cave, Collections Development Manager

Once an agreement is signed and the materials have arrived on-site, there is often a further phase of selection to better understand the items received and how they fit into our collections. This process can be fluid, involving further research and consultation with colleagues throughout. Collaboration with colleagues across the archive on, for example, offers of obscure tape or disc formats can involve questions like “Do we have operational equipment and the relevant skills to play this tape back and retrieve a preservable image?”

Even with the information obtained from the donor during the offer assessment and decision-making process, additional research is often necessary. As mentioned above, donations come from a wide variety of sources and can be from an individual donor – who may or may not be very familiar with the item offered – or a company where records are available to access online or through paperwork provided (or not) as part of the donation.

For any item new to the BFI National Archive collection, sufficient details will have been exchanged with the donor in advance to inform the decision to acquire them. When the items have arrived, the donor can provide additional details to help with the identification and/or accessioning. Some acquisitions may arrive with a comprehensive inventory and labelling system, or paperwork that provides production, release or transmission information. There may be notes about the various film elements and their version or production history. 

When we compare information with our own holdings, the BFI’s Collections Information Database – which holds information on release/transmission dates and alternative titles as well as articles and press cuttings – is usually the place to start. Additionally, paperwork relating to existing collections, such as catalogues and online archive resources, can be used to identify different versions of a title.

This process altogether informs the selection process, helping to identify the best or most representative copy of an item that will best fit with our collections, and, subsequently, help with accessioning and cataloguing.

– Kathleen Luckey, Curatorial Archivist

Once identified and selected for the national collection, the object will be accessioned. Accessioning is an archival term for recording an item’s entry into the collection and making it accessible by assigning it a unique identifier – usually a number or alphanumeric sequence – and creating a corresponding record within a collection database. Once an item has this unique record, it is possible to search for it in the database, add descriptive and technical cataloguing information, and locate the item as it moves around storage and archival processing facilities. 

Accessioning is a hands-on task, and is often carried out in combination with the selection process described above to find out key information such as title, format, condition and relation between items (such as multiple elements per item or the order of items in a series).

Information provided with the material can help, but some acquisitions require more investigation: deciphering hand-written labels, researching the production context or viewing the material. A digital file is usually straightforward to open and view, provided it’s of a standard file type that we can access. We can examine a film frame by eye or play a reel on a film viewer if the reel is in sufficient condition. Viewing videotape tends to be trickier; we need to rely on specialised equipment to see what is on the tape, which may not be straightforward if the format is rare or unusual.

When accessioning film, we wind reels onto new cores and rehouse them in new cans. This reduces the risk of damage from rusty can residue, plus standardised cans stack more efficiently. Videotapes are usually stored in their original cases (though they may be replaced with new cases if the original is damaged), and digital files are transferred into our digital preservation infrastructure where they are safely preserved. For physical items, we label the container with key information (title, format, donor’s name, accession date) and a scannable barcode (used to determine the most suitable location for an item and track it whenever it moves).

We add this identifying information to the item’s database record, structuring data to align with our standardised conventions. Standardised data enables us to easily identify collection items based on shared characteristics – for instance, we can quickly create a list of one-inch videos created in the 1970s, 16mm films with subtitles, or pilot episodes of a web series.

This accessioning process is a vital part of acquisition: it transforms an isolated item into a part of the BFI National Archive collection.

– Caitlin Lynch, Curatorial Archivist

Following on from accessioning (though often completed in tandem with it), a further major part of the work to preserve the millions of physical and digital items in the BFI’s collection is cataloguing. The archival catalogue – a vast database of collection information – includes technical details like format, gauge and condition that may be recorded during accessioning. We also strive to describe the content and context of each work. To do this, we focus on four key fields: genre, subject, work history and synopsis.

Currently, many of the archive team are working on the National Lottery-funded Our Screen Heritage: Contemporary Collecting project. Its aim is to begin collecting and preserving online video – and, in doing so, adapt archival practices to meet the challenges of this evolving medium.

So, when it comes to cataloguing, how does a system built for film and television handle a viral internet classic like Charlie Bit My Finger (2007)? 

Assigning genres to online videos can be tricky. Our genre list is curated and intentionally limited to keep the catalogue streamlined and searchable. As we catalogued online content, new terms like video essay, ASMR and machinima emerged and have been added to the genre list. For Charlie Bit My Finger, we initially considered a new genre – viral video – but we decided that virality is something that happens to a video, not what it is. Genre must describe what the work is, in terms of themes, structure and characters.

We also considered the existing genre term home movie. Every genre term in our catalogue is defined by a ‘scope note’ that describes the works that fit with this term. The existing scope note for home movie was very limited, so we revised it to include short clips – of amusing incidents or accidents especially – filmed on phones and uploaded to platforms like YouTube or TikTok. This allowed us to welcome Charlie Bit My Finger into the catalogue.

The video’s viral status isn’t lost – it’s captured in the subject field. But its deeper context lives in work history.

Work history is a flexible, research-based field that provides extra historical information on a work, often relating to its cultural and historical significance. Finally, the synopsis offers a concise, objective summary of the video’s content, allowing users to understand what the video is without them necessarily having viewed it.

Once we’ve completed this descriptive cataloguing, we move onto adding credits, cast information and, in the case of online video, details as to when and where the video was first posted. All these fields, together, support our ultimate goal: making the archive open, accessible and useful.

– Will Swinburne, Digital Curatorial Archivist

Once the object has been acquired, selected, accessioned and catalogued, there are various routes by which an item continues its archival journey. The first priority is to ensure that the materials in our care are safely preserved for the long term, working with the vaults teams at the archive at Berkhamsted and the master film store at Gaydon, and with our digital preservation team.

Newly acquired videotape items will be considered for digital preservation workflows. We then have to balance a range of considerations in terms of whether and how to make material available; not all the stages of work outlined above will happen at once, and there may be some time between the acquisition and more detailed cataloguing of some materials (though we will always catalogue to our minimum standards, as part of our accessioning activity). 

Issues like the condition of items, licensing restrictions and copyright, as well as our own capacity and priorities, have to be taken into account. But our approach can be summarised as caring for everything we hold and sharing as much of it as possible.

The descriptive data in our online catalogue is often the first route in for aspiring viewers and researchers, allowing them to identify materials in our collection that might interest them or serve their needs. They can then follow several routes, depending on their requirements: non-commercial researchers can request access to materials via our research viewing service; commercial enquirers can request access to or licensing of footage via our commercial access team; and those wishing to screen a film can enquire about booking a print. Whatever the route, various teams across the BFI, including sales, access, vaults and despatch, work in tandem to fulfil the service required.

Often, an item might be identified for priority assessment as part of a restoration project or home media release, or put into service as part of the regular BFI Southbank programme or a special event, like the BFI’s Film on Film Festival. In these cases, our internal systems track the movement of items from our collections so we can record where they are and what work has been carried out. In this way, a physical item can take on a whole new life once it enters the collection, often travelling to glamorous locations all around the world (or at least around the UK).

For digital items, the journey is no less fulfilling. The relative ease of access to digital materials means that it is easier to share them, but they also come with rights restrictions that have to be managed. Our digital platforms BFI Player and BFI Replay enable online access from home and the UK’s public libraries, respectively, while the BFI Mediatheque provides access to over 172,000 titles from the BFI National Archive at BFI Southbank. 

Having done all the work to acquire and preserve these items, it’s a great feeling when they go on to have a further life, informing and enriching people’s experiences of the moving image.

– Will Greenacre, Curatorial Archivist