Inside the Archive #72: From The Edge to Chronically Online, via Hertfordshire

No, not the U2 guitarist! The Edge is one of the most prolific, productive and creative UK filmmaking companies you’ve (probably) never heard of.

Rather than working with the glamorous fields of feature film or high-end TV, The Edge (previously The Edge Picture Company) has, instead, since 1991, been ploughing the furrows of filmmaking commissioned by organisations from multinationals to small charities. They produce film as a medium for communication, thought and behaviour change, sometimes aimed at large public audiences and often tightly targeted ones.

Such sponsored communication occupies a rich, engrossing tradition in British film going back to the 1930s. At the BFI National Archive, we keep a close eye on its modern incarnations and, over the years, have collected more work from The Edge than any other contemporary producer: 90 films, only a small sample of its vast back catalogue.

This sample illustrates the historic shift in corporate video from the analogue world of the 1990s to today’s digital world, transforming the possibilities for screen communication. Unlike many competitors, The Edge not only survived that transition but also thrived beyond it, honing their craft and repeatedly winning awards worldwide.

The Our Screen Heritage project (supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding) is boosting BFI preservation of online video across all genres and has enabled us to update the BFI National Archive’s Edge holdings by selecting fifteen recent films. The project has also collected examples of work by newer companies working in the same field, including Plastic Pictures, Brickwall and Studio Giggle.

For clients from Openreach, Sidra and Mitie to The Integral Society and Transport for London, these films deploy drama, documentary, animation and poetry to stylishly spread awareness of everything from railway safety, disability access, child abuse and workplace violence to the aesthetics of toilet design.

Now owned by Zinc Media Group, The Edge puts admirable effort into its internal archiving. When preserving their work, we do not face the common challenge of online creators failing to keep a structured library, too often relying on publishing platforms to save their files (unfortunately, platforms like YouTube do not preserve the best-quality files, providing lower-resolution exports to those downloading from their own accounts). Even so, as we progressed the archival conversation, interesting challenges arose that were solved in collaboration with The Edge colleagues.

They had quick access to ‘working’ files of their films: good quality but smaller digital copies. Larger original ‘project’ files were stored offsite, so they had to be kindly retrieved by The Edge before acquisition could proceed.

At this point, a second complication arose, deriving precisely from the nature of corporate filmmaking, which often operates through projects and ongoing creative relationships. Clients often commission agencies to manage modular projects yielding multiple video outputs, posing the question of what to archive.

For example, The Edge had worked with Mitie to create a full customer service training programme. Having listed this in our Contemporary Collecting tracking documents as a single work, ‘You Are Mitie!’, we received a teaser video for the project (probably produced for an awards ceremony), but in fact the title could as easily be applied to an entire series of videos and accompanying audiovisual resources. Unpicking such a complex package for accurate, comprehensive cataloguing was a uniquely interesting challenge.

A related recurring phenomenon in commissioned video production is ambiguity around titles. Some files had a creative title and a separate project title. For instance, the film Sorry (2018), dramatising a child abuse victim writing a self-blaming letter, had an alternative title of Sidra – Child Advocacy, referencing Sidra having commissioned the work and the campaign it belonged to. Such small differences can complicate the process of documenting and understanding the videos we are preserving.

What do we learn from this? Firstly, congratulations to The Edge for their care of their best-quality files: a task always tempting for fast-moving producers, constantly on the move from project to project, to keep putting off.

Second, the nature of client relationships and multi-output projects complicates archival practice. Public archives sampling from this screen sector need to inform their approach with an understanding of that sector’s own professional practices and norms. Then we can ask the right questions, get the right files, and then – for future generations – preserve the selected work correctly and completely.

Norma Gaunt, The Edge’s managing director, says: “It’s a privilege to see The Edge’s work preserved in the BFI’s collection. We produce films to create impact in the moment, but it’s incredibly meaningful to know they will also have a life beyond that.”

– Patrick Russell, Senior Curator (Non-Fiction) and Will Swinburne, Curator (Non-Fiction)

Since first working with the Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend (CNFW) on their online moving image programme in June 2025, the collaboration between the BFI National Archive and Creative Non-Fiction Week has gone from strength to strength.

Chronically Online has been on tour, working with young programmers in Bristol, Belfast and Brighton, and on a mini-programme for the recent Rip it Up sessions at BFI Southbank in early May. With a focus on youth culture, the events also featured some familiar faces on stage discussing the project.

Orla and Kimia (the duo behind CNFW) had long held aspirations to recontextualise that subjective, nostalgic, niche-upon-niche experience of online video in a cinema setting, and this chimed perfectly with the archive’s latest collecting project, which sought to capture a slice of the last thirty years of online moving image. And now nearly a year on from that first event at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, reflecting on the project and the tour – and hearing an audience charmed by a couple of laughing paramedics – was a really nice capper to two years of the BFI’s Our Screen Heritage project. A project supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.

The events in Bristol and Belfast illustrated just how different – hyper-local, hyper-specific – a personal history of the UK internet can be. And it also speaks to the ingenuity of the young programmers behind the events, from the line-up to their own social media campaigns. Each place could have a completely different set of touchstones. I’d never heard of Dr. Dot, a content creator and massage therapist, but the audience at the Queen’s Film Theatre let out a cheer when she appeared on screen. We’ve barely scratched the surface!

The next Chronically Online: A Personal History of the UK Internet event will take place in Brighton at Fabrica on Tuesday 26 May 2026, and I’d encourage anyone who can to check it out. It’s an experience unlike any other!

– Kitty Robertson, Assistant Curator (Outreach and Engagement)

Following the success of the BFI National Archive Screencraft team’s pop-up exhibition in September 2025 – featured in more detail in Inside the Archive blog #43, which explores the exhibition’s development and highlights – we have partnered with Hertfordshire Libraries to take the posters on tour. Hertfordshire’s rich connection to the world of cinema is continuing to take centre stage with a unique film poster trail across local libraries in the county.

These libraries will feature BFI film poster displays that will invite visitors to return each week to discover a new poster and learn fascinating stories behind Hertfordshire’s filmmaking heritage. Participating libraries include Berkhamsted, Bishop’s Stortford, Borehamwood, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hitchin, St Albans, Stevenage Central, Tring, Watford and Welwyn Garden City Central.

Over the course of 11 weeks, audiences will have a chance to view 11 reproduced posters from the archive’s Screencraft collections. Each display highlights the artistry of film poster design, as well as Hertfordshire’s role in film history. They also share stories from legendary local studios and famous filming locations and shine a light on the creative talent that contributed to these films’ creation.

Film lovers can expect to see posters from iconic films including Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), GoldenEye (1995), and The Dirty Dozen (1967). The exhibition also celebrates British filmmaking history with titles such as The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), The Sound Barrier (1952) and Jassy (1947).

Anyone who missed a poster during the weekly displays will have another opportunity to view all eleven together at a special pop-up exhibition at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS), from Tuesday 11 August to Sunday 6 September 2026. We have also partnered with Hertfordshire Archives to host a family craft afternoon, and film enthusiasts can attend a special curator talk exploring the BFI National Archive, Hertfordshire’s filmmaking history, and the preservation of treasured Screencraft materials.

This is a fantastic opportunity to bring Screencraft materials out of the archive and widen access to our collections. A special thanks to all participating libraries, Hertfordshire Archives and the National Heritage Lottery fund for making this possible.

– Paola Martucci, Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator (Screencraft)

The Inside the Archive blog is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.