Object of the week: The state-of-the art scanner transforming the art of film preservation
Creating digital files of up to 13.5k resolution from everything from 8mm to 70mm film, this scanner has become an essential piece of kit for making our precious film holdings more widely viewable.
This imposing beast of a machine is the Lasergaphics Director 65. It’s our flagship film scanner, a top-of-the-range device which enables us to create high resolution scans for both preserving films and making them accessible.
The operator-friendly machine scans film material from 8mm to 70mm and everything in between. We can create multiple outputs simultaneously, from MP4s to DPXs, up to 13.5k resolution, as well as WAV sound files. We usually preserve files at 4k and often deliver 2k. This multi-output capability, along with the Director’s sprocket-less drive mechanism and variable speed and tension controls, makes it ideal for scanning fragile objects held in our collections.
It was acquired as part of our successful application to the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology’s Research and Innovation Organisation’s Infrastructure Fund, and was installed in a fully refurbished space in the BFI National Archive’s Conservation Centre in September 2024.
It has been put to work scanning some of the latest commercial features for external clients, as well as preservation work on a rare 16mm print of Raúl Ruiz’s 1970 film La colonia penal (The Penal Colony), scans of 8mm rushes of Derek Jarman’s The Garden (1990), and scans for BFI’s collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys on Battleship Potemkin (1925).
Film is prepared and cleaned by colleagues in the film conservation team. Reels are loaded onto the Director (oddly, film transport is right to left on this scanner, the opposite of most film equipment), parameters are set and the ‘run job’ button is pushed.
Director quietly chugs away in its glass enclosure, at speeds of between 1 and 10 frames per second. Speed can be reduced by using HDR and infrared dust detection. The resulting scans are checked, delivered to clients on portable hard drives or via file sharing platforms, and ingested into our Digital Preservation Infrastructure.
Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.