David Finch - Film and Video Technician, Imperial War Museum
About the Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum's Film and Video Archive holds some 120 million feet of film and 6,500 hours of video tape collection relating to all aspects of twentieth and twenty-first century conflict involving Britain and the Commonwealth. As the Archive is the official repository for such public record films much of this material has been transferred to the Museum from the Services and other public bodies.
What does your role involve?
My primary role is the visual inspection, duplication and storage of films. This can be on 35 mm, 16 mm, 8 mm or 9.5 mm stock and the inspection is usually done on a Steinbeck or a Winding Bench. A lot of the film we have is very old and I have to write reports about the films, taking into account the quality and condition, paying particular attention to things like scratches, perforation damage, joins and signs of decomposition.
We prepare films before they go to laboratories for duplication, adding leaders and tails. We also carry out further checks when they come back to see that there haven't been any accidents in the process, such as water damage or scratches - basic quality control. We also have to make digital copies and try to restore old nitrate and acetate film which is very unstable and has major decomposition problems.
Another aspect of the job is to make viewing copies, copying from film onto video format, mainly digibeta which is the industry standard, though there is now a big shift towards digitisation. We also make copies for donors, for instance, if someone donates a film we will often make a copy for them say a DVD or VHS depending on what they want. We sometimes carry out telecining for clients and a certain amount of grading goes into that. That entails trying to improve the contrast and bring the colour up to spec.
It's not only very old film that gives us problems, we also have to take account of colour stock from the Seventies. A lot of it can be faded and a reaction in the emulsion has caused it to go pink so we have to do a telecine and we adjust the colour balance to bring them back to how they used to look. I also view films and help correct inaccuracies made during the logging accessioning process. We have recently taken possession of a new digital scanner, so my role will soon be to start scanning our old mute 35 mm prints, putting them into a digital format called JPEG 2000. This will mean they will be easier for the general public and our people in London to access.
I occasionally take telephone enquiries, though it's usually a wrong number, so I then have to direct them politely to the person they should be speaking to.
To read the full interview with David, you can download a PDF here:
David Finch Archive Case Study 2009
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