FOCAL Awards 2023 Shortlisted Nominees

Prasad

Archival highlights

We are motivated by the tremendous strides our team has taken in establishing 8K as a cutting-edge service offering in the Indian market. Worldwide, 8K has not become mainstream yet. But in India, we strongly believed that we could crack this puzzle. It was just not about taking this service to market but a major operation struggle to scan at 8K. We faced technical issues, issues, challenges relating to scanning, film compatibility, and data storage. The Prasad team had to constantly innovate and bring in several improvements to the hardware and software to optimize performance.

Prasad physically restore and prepare deteriorating cultural and historical treasures to be ‘preserved4posterity™’. This is probably one of the largest Analog Film Restoration and Preventive Conservation project executed in the world. The ambitious project involved restoring approximately 60,000 reels, which accounted for about one-third of the archive's inventory. To achieve this, a combination of technologies, processes, and innovative thinking was employed on a large scale.

In addition, they launched two new services in 2023:
Film Colorization Services: Bringing in expertise in film preservation, they launched black-and-white film colorization services.

SDR to HDR conversion services: The consumer demand for high-quality video entertainment had surged in recent times. HDR is gradually becoming ubiquitous in the general streaming space.

Getty Images

Archival highlights

The EMEA Broadcast and Production team supported over 1,800 film and TV productions in 2023 across a variety of factual and scripted genres.

Getty Images offer key services to customers including Proof of Concept - free, content research feeding video and stills findings from our libraries back to customers. This service was used extensively in 2023, helping shape the viability or direction of over 3,000 projects.

To help deliver on the Getty Images mission of “keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do” an Advisory Group of notable, experienced archive researchers was created. This group ensures Getty Images continue to listen to what customers need and to provide the enhancements and improvements they request into the future.

September 2023 saw the re-launch of the much-improved VIDA platform collaboration between Getty Images and BBC Studios, giving access to BBC archive video and a new seamless search, purchase and download experience. The improved platform has met with overwhelmingly positive customer reaction, and to help onboarding, Getty Images ran an extensive VIDA webinar and various support activities.

Kinolibrary

Archival highlights

Kinolibrary is the perfect combination of the key facets exhibited by the best archive companies. Crucially, they have excellent material that is unique, high quality and easily accessible but they are also a lovely group of people offering excellent boutique service in their research, sales and in representing film-makers and licensors. They have also brought new talent into the industry who have since gone on to successful careers in production. I can’t think of another company that compares in such an all-round contribution to our sector.

In 2023, Kinolibrary released a new website providing users with more visibility on the collections that Kinolibrary hold. The site was built and designed with direct input from archive researchers and producers and provides a searchable database of curated clips from across the Kinolibrary collections.

In addition, Kinolibrary has continued to add high quality and exclusive content to their evolving archive, much of which has been made commercially available for the first time. These recent collections include underground LBGTQ nightlife in the 1990s, the Miner's strikes of the 1980s, the Irish Troubles from the 1970s and the UK 1960s art scene. They also completed scanning the Oscar-winning Hilary Harris' 35mm reel collection featuring beautiful scenes and communities from New York in the 1960s and 1970s

R3store Studios

Archival highlights

Established in 2016, we have become a leading company for scanning, grading, and restoration services. With clients worldwide, including the UK and Ireland, we specialize in fast turnaround scans for feature films and TV shows. Our recent upgrades in storage and computers enable real-time 4K working and HDR grading, resulting in faster turnaround times and a broader range of services. We collaborate closely with Archive Researchers and Producers to understand their exact requirements, making them an integral part of our team for long-term projects. Additionally, we provide training and support to non-technical team members, and we encourage clients to visit us to ensure technical specifications are met. Our experienced team works with diverse clients, such as archives, museums, brands, and feature films. Notable recent projects include music documentaries and the digitization and restoration of the Guinness archive, including over 500 global adverts. We have also launched a podcast in collaboration with our sister company, featuring interviews with clients discussing their careers and projects.

Huntley Film Archives

Archival highlights

Huntley Film Archives had a productive year, now housing over 100,000 film elements. With a new film scanner, they accelerated the availability of films, listing 78,000 titles on their website by mid-April 2023, including 12,500 HD scans for immediate purchase. The website expands daily, offering 10 to 20 new HD films for researchers to search by keyword, decade, category, and color. Specialist areas like 1960s U.S. Civil Rights footage and Gulf area films were made available in HD. The company attended trade shows and visited film archives worldwide, expanding into overseas markets. They prioritize preserving and scanning rare 28mm prints and offer amateur films as a unique resource. The company also provides work placements and recently expanded their archive into a neighboring building to accommodate new prints.

Getty Images

Archival highlights

Getty Images, founded in 1995, is a renowned provider of visual assets with a library of 520 million assets and partnerships with 70 editorial content partners. Their video collection boasts over 23 million clips, including content from top editorial video producers. They pioneered the content partner model, facilitating the commercialization of digital content and serving as a distribution channel for non-digitized video content from iconic collections like BBC and NBC News Archives. Getty Images supports the TV and film production industry, assisting over 2,000 productions in 2022 across various genres. They offer services such as Proof of Concept, personalized account management, and improved response times. Getty Images invests in teams, processes, and customer feedback to enhance their offerings and continues to prioritize authenticity and accurate visual representation.

Yorkshire and North East Film Archives:

Synopsis

A small charity with a team passionate about finding, preserving, and sharing the rich moving image collections for which they care; connecting productions and audiences to footage is at the heart of what they do. In their vaults are thousands of films, and in every can, thousands more stories to be revealed.

R3store Studios

Synopsis

Established in 2016, R3store Studios is a London-based restoration house with a mission to restore film to its former glory. The team’s unique combination of passion, technology, and craftsmanship ensures the digital preservation and restoration of analogue content for generations to come.

LOLA Clips

Synopsis

LOLA Clips is a boutique video content sales agency. With offices in London and Los Angeles. LOLA has created a new footage option specifically for Feature Film and TV clients globally. LOLA offers professionally shot content that has never been sold as clips before. Our exec team has run divisions of some of the largest libraries in the world and its two founders have over 40 years of experience licensing footage to productions in Hollywood and London.

Frames Dealers

Trailer:

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Synopsis

Frames Dealer is a premium catalogue of exclusive shots sourced from hundreds of talented filmmakers all over the world. Its innovative platform offers unique creative tools for a relevant and inspiring user experience.

Reelin’ in the Years Productions

Synopsis

David Peck and his team at Reelin’ in the Years have spent the last 30 years finding, preserving and cataloging unique and historically significant archival footage. They’ve built a world-class footage company from the ground up, and proven that an independent archive can thrive in today’s hyper-competitive footage marketplace. And they've done it by focusing on the fundamentals: dedication to the archival craft; a keen nose for relevant, in-demand content; a deep knowledge of their collections; and stellar customer service.

From the beginning, their love of music and entertainment footage has been the cornerstone of their archival work, and their passion and focus have made them a go- to source for licensing footage of musical artists, entertainers and history makers.

They care deeply about the collections they take on, and are willing to invest both time and money in the preservation of these irreplaceable archives. They’re known throughout the production industry for their dedication to and deep knowledge of the collections they represent, and have shown up time and again as a true partner to their clients, offering deep subject matter expertise in addition to world- class footage.

Their work in all these areas reached new heights in 2019, and the Reelin in the Years Archive (RITY) now includes over 30,000 hours of music footage and 10,000 hours of in-depth interviews with the 20th century’s most recognizable personalities.

Over the last few years, RITY has added four new collections to their portfolio, all of which were either lost or scattered across many locations, including The David Frost Show; Brian Linehan’s City Lights; Countdown, Europe’s legendary music show; and the footage archive of the seminal rock band the Doors. Prior to RITY taking them on, all four collections were for all intents and purposes unmarketable, either because they were completely uncatalogued or held on outdated formats. All four are now fully cataloged, preserved and available for licensing.

Their work on the Doors archive, which they took on in 2019, is a case study in their commitment to the preservation and cataloging of historically significant footage archives. Because the original film reels were spooled in no particular order when the Doors archive was transferred to HD in 2008, all the pertinent location info was lost, and the archive required a massive effort in historical sleuthing to catalog and prepare for licensing -- a project that Peck and his team took to with zeal. In 2017, RITY began exclusively representing ITV’s vast musical holdings, which were formerly handled by ITN, adding many thousands ofperformances and interviews with the world’s most influential artists to their footage inventory. Over the last two years, RITY has worked closely with ITV and co-financed a project to transfer and catalogue their unique music footage holdings, which yielded many new discoveries this past year.

Throughout their existence, Reelin’ in the Years has also directed and produced over 70 historical music documentaries and programs focused primarily on the giants of jazz, blues and rock & roll. This past August they took their production work to the next level, entering a non-exclusive production partnership with Nigel Sinclair of White Horse Pictures, whose production credits include The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years (directed by Ron Howard); Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World; No Direction Home: Bob Dylan; Undefeated; and Foo Fighters: Back and Forth.

RITY’s passion for music and entertainment footage, as well as their depth of subject matter expertise, were a big draw for Sinclair, who approached Peck and his team at RITY this past summer about collaborating on original productions, a meeting which ultimately led to a deal between White Horse and Reelin’ in the Years to develop and produce documentary feature film and television projects, relying heavily on the unique material housed within the RITY archive. This deal, the first of its kind, pairs a major, award-winning production company with a leading footage library to develop archive-based event documentary projects.

Lastly, David and his team at Reelin’ in the Years have always been huge supporters of our industry, and they’ve made many contributions to its health and well-being over the years. It would be a great honor to have their tireless work and dedication recognized by this prestigious award.

Nominated By:

David Seevers

Archival highlights

President - Artist Legacy Management Company:

The Doors chose David Peck and Reelin’ in the Years to represent The Doors archive for two reasons. First, they have a stellar reputation in the footage licensing business, especially in the area of music and entertainment footage. Second, they seemed up to the challenge of sorting out our archival collection and getting it ready for market. They did not disappoint us in either area, somewhat miraculously, if the truth be told.

A big chunk of the footage in The Doors archive comes from a film called “Feast of Friends,” which was shot by friends of the band members in 1968. The film crew consisted of one cameraman filming in 16mm and one person with a Nagra reel to capture audio, and they followed The Doors around on tour in America from April to September 1968, capturing snippets of the band in concert, backstage, in the studio, on vacation and in airports. We had all of the existing raw footage transferred to Hi- Def in 2008, and in the process the lab spooled the shorter film reels containing the location information in no particular order, thus losing all the pertinent location info. Ergo, we essentially gave RITY 50 hours of footage and told them to “figure it out”. And, almost unbelievably, they did.

The first thing they did was find out all of the dates that The Doors played on that tour, and which shows were filmed. RITY then had to figure out the rest, using whatever visual clues were available in the footage itself, including, so I am told, street signs and local advertising to identify particular cities, and even the tiles on the floor and ceiling at LAX to decipher what airport they were in. Their dedication to historical accuracy was maybe a bit insane, but that kind of authenticity & accuracy is what we require. And the results so far have been extremely impressive. As a result of their tenacity, for the first time in 52 years our archive is cataloged and ready for use by producers. Clips from our archive will appear in the upcoming Laurel Canyon documentary, which will be released in 2020.

We are more convinced than ever that RITY is the right home for this irreplaceable collection, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Freelance Researcher:

Working on an almost completely archival film about Laurel Canyon (Jigsaw Productions) was quite the challenge, but David Peck and Reelin' in the Years Productions made this daunting task so much easier. Not only was their library teeming with amazing, music-related archival footage and photos, but David was always just a phone call away if and when any new themes were introduced into the film. Usually, I was the one picking up the phone to call archive houses, but David never hesitated to let me know about new and exciting material that he found. When he discovered never- before-seen home movie footage of Joni Mitchell painting from 1969, I was the first person he called and we fell in love with the material so much that we added the footage directly into the film (even though we essentially had locked the cut). I am excited to work with Reelin' again on my next project.

Principle, Production Company:

Of course, David runs this amazing library, but he also brings to the table the passion and commitment of a true archivist who cares deeply about the historical importance of footage and the need to preserve it. His invaluable advice to us on projects has gone way beyond just curating the footage he represents, and this new partnership is a chance for us to utilize his extraordinary knowledge to create some very high-level, archive-driven projects on subjects we all love. The main benefits are that David Peck’s skill, which is normally available to his customers through his ability to supply high quality material and advice is now actually harnessed with us to develop high quality archive-heavy projects. David not only knows his own enormous archive like the back of his hand but he also has a producer and a storyteller’s point of view on how to use archive. When you look at the way Reelin’ in the Years is organized, the scope of its library, and its sense that these are treasures, that vision is David’s.

LOLA Clips

Synopsis

LOLA Clips is an exciting footage agency based in London and LA, founded in 2015, by industry executives Sandra Coelho and Dominic Dare, LOLA offers a transcontinental clip agency, with a personal touch. With over 25 media partners choosing LOLA Clips to represent their collections and Sandra and Dominic having over 40 years experience in the industry it’s no wonder that their customer base and fantastic reputation is growing rapidly.

LOLA is passionate about connecting creative businesses with amazing videos from some of the best global contributors, and 2019 was no exception.

2019 saw LOLA driving forward unique and interesting ways for their clients to use footage. With amazing aerial drone footage, filmed by the team at LOLA, being featured in the feature film Godzilla: King of Monsters, a fantastic placing of content from one of LOLA’s clients, ITV, in the 2019 series of Orange is the New Black and news footage being seen in SAG nominated The Morning Show (featuring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston) showing that UK news content can travel across the pond, LOLA has pushed the boundaries on what a footage agency delivers. LOLA Clips is also co-founder of the amazing FootageFest, which launched in 2018, and brings together professional users and providers of third- party content together in Los Angeles to network, collaborate and break down any transatlantic barriers. 2019 was a bumper year for FootageFest, adding an additional day to the event, upping the number of participants and vendors and some amazing feedback from those who joined the event.

LOLA Clips is leading the way in making the entire process of buying and selling footage simple and fun and should be recognised for the significant role that they play in this industry.

Nominated By:

Kay Page, Co-Managing Director - Northbound TV

Archival highlights

Archive Research and Clearance Specialist:

I am delighted and honored to endorse the nomination for LOLA Clips to be considered for the FOCAL International Library of the Year Award.
I have worked extensively with Dominic Dare and Sandra Coelho for many years as an archive researcher, and it’s been one of my greatest experiences. Dom and Sandra go the extra distance for their clients – their knowledge and connections with international archive resources is extraordinary, and they tirelessly work to connect us with those sources. In the last two years alone, for my projects, LOLA Clips have organized a drone shoot of Niagara Falls at dawn right before Christmas, worked out a package deal for several content heavy series for HBO and Apple TV, and tracked down elusive European and Middle East archive content. They provide unfailing support. The growth of the collections that LOLA Clips represent is quite impressive, and no small feat to secure.

LOLA Clips have also hosted as part of AMCUP the U.S. based FootageFest for the last two years – which involved an extraordinary amount of work, and resulted in two very successful, enjoyable and not-to-be-missed events attended by researchers and archives from several countries.

It would be a wonderful salute to this terrific, committed and hard-working team to award LOLA Clips the Footage Company of the Year.

Archive Producer:

LOLA Clips is an amazing international archive specializing in everything from the latest news footage to viral videos to breathtaking drone footage to historic stock footage. LOLA Clips is my go-to archive for news footage from the UK to Australia. And when I need footage from an area of the world where I have few or no contacts, I contact LOLA Clips’ Sandra Coelho and Dominic Dare to either broker footage or to provide me with an introduction to a new entity.

LOLA Clips is an ever-expanding archive. Sandra and Dominic have made me look good on multiple projects—from docuseries to TV specials to documentaries to clip shows. They both know how important each individual request is. If there’s a way to license/broker the footage, Sandra and Dominic will make things happen and they’ll do it quickly.

As a producer, the true value of an archive is its ability to add new material on a frequent basis. LOLA Clips features new gems each time I visit its website.

Furthermore, their database is easy to search. The results are always nicely targeted.

Another asset to using LOLA Clips is that they go the extra mile when it comes to licensing news footage—they make the effort to clear the talent. In other words, I can license news footage and know that I don’t need to clear the on-air talent on my own. This is a tremendous time saver for me. There are literally only a handful of archives I use on almost every project; LOLA Clips is one of them. Not only do I get the footage I need, but I also get the footage at reasonable prices and I get to work with two of the sharpest, most well-connected people in the footage archive business— Sandra Coelho and Dominic Dare.

Archive Producer:

It gives me great pleasure to endorse the nomination for LOLA Clips to be considered for FOCAL International’s Library of the Year. I have had the good fortune to work with both Dominic and Sandra over the many years I have been involved in the footage archive world. They both have a real in- depth grasp on our industry and handle themselves with the utmost professionalism. Understanding the needs and budgets of a range of productions, honouring deadlines and all the while doing so while being likeable, upbeat and extremely positive.

I have also been impressed by the massive number of hours that both Dominic and Sandra volunteered to run AMCUP’s Footage Fest for the past two years in September in Los Angeles. It was a first-rate industry event that I delighted in attending last year as part of the Visual Researchers’ of Canada delegation.

It would be a wonderful to be able to toast this hard-working team at this year’s FOCAL Awards....

Broadcaster:

We have been working together with Ms. Sandra Coelho and Mr. Dominic Dare at Lola Clips, since Lola Clips was established in 2015, and licensed a number of footage from them on behalf of a Japanese TV programme. Lola Clips offers various categories of footage which are provided by different partners from around the world, and we are very satisfied to have many selections in their large archive which can mostly cover our main interest categories (home video funny animal/kids footage, sports bloopers, CCTV, and dash cam footage).

Our sales contact, Sandra is always very helpful, a friendly, lovely person. I have been really enjoying working with her since we met first at MIPCOM several years before. Especially the production team in Japan appreciate her kind assistance, and always look forward to receiving her clip research results based on their research request. Added to this, she arranges all the necessary paper works and deliver the master materials promptly in a professional manner in order to meet our very tight delivery timeline.

We are truly delighted with their excellent and speedy service, and hope we would be also able to continue introducing their amazing footage to our Japanese viewers on upcoming future episode of our show.

Screenocean