Since 2004 FOCAL International Awards competition is dedicated to the promotion and celebration of archival footage and its contribution to the creative and cultural industries. We congratulate all the past winners.
Shortlisted
British Pathe
Synopsis
2011 was a landmark year for British Pathe. We re-established the British Pathe brand and expanded our licensing business, both in the UK and oversees; we produced original documentaries, including 'The Story of British Pathe', and released 60 hours of programming on DVD; we added to our number of subscribers, who now include 50% of UK schools, over 100 museums and BBC News; we increased our online presence, launching a YouTube channel; we worked to promote the archive industry through television and radio interviews; and we invested considerable time and funds creating a new public-facing website, launching January 2012.
www.britishpathe.com
Paul McAllister
Production Company:
Screenocean Ltd
Denis Karam, Archive Producer
Production Company:
Zig Zag Productions
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
Citing: The Truth Behind: Loch Ness, The Truth Behind Cheryl Cole, Swanny in a Spin
A Trip to The Moon (1902) (Colour Version)
Production Company:
Lobster Films
Country of Production:
France
Involved Partners:
Restoration / Preservation Work by: Lobster Films / Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage / Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema in association with Archives Francaises du Film and Madaleine-Malthete Melies
Synopsis
Everyone knows the image of the moon with a rocket in the eye. The face of Bluette Bernon (she is the actress in the "moon") appeared for the first time in this 1902 classic, one of the first science fiction films in the history of cinema, and certainly a milestone in special effects. A group of astronomers decide to organise a trip to the moon. They enter a shell, and a canon sends them on the moon, where they meet the Selenites, the inhabitants of the moon. Problems occur, and they fall back from the edge of the moon into the sea, bringing back a Selenite with them. Melies' Trip to the Moon (1902) is the first blockbuster in the history of cinema. The miraculous discovery of a hand colored print, unfortunately decomposed, was the beginning of a 20 year adventure in cinema resurrection. This is possibly the most ambitious restoration ever, and the most expensive one (more than half a million dollars for a 15 minute film) that involved labs in France, Holland, USA, from the chemical process in 2001 to the latest digital technologies in 2011. A restoration that also includes deposit of 30 prints in all the major archives thoughout the world, a world premiere in the opening evening of Cannes, and a new sound track by AIR (not compulsory) made to appeal to the younger audiences. A feature film, the Extraordinary Voyage, also submitted to the FOCAL International Awards this year, is dedicated to showing how unique the adventures of that "Trip" has been through the 20st century.
Archival highlights
1. Describe the element/s used for restoration, stating gauge and nature and specfic problems associated with them: All 35mm preservation, starting with a decomposed nitrate prind hand colored, a vintage BW print off the camera neg (circa 1915) and a 1929 dupe neg for other missing parts. Partners of this restoration are Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema, Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage, Madeleine-Malthete Melies (the grand daughter of George Melies), and the French Film Archives. From chemical melting to reconstruction from shreds, using opticals, chemicals, digital processes over 12 years (from 1999 to 2011), this restoration involved more than 25 persons. It ends up with two 35mm negs (one with sound, one "state of the art" full aperture neg), and the deposit of prints in all the majors archives in the world. 2. State the original aspect ratio and format: Original 1902 nitrate elements, 1.33, nitrate. Restitution in one 1.33, full aperture neg, one 1.85 neg, and a DCP. 3. Outline the restored aspect ratio and format: See 2. 4. Explain where the work was carried out for each title (including labs and facility houses) and broken down where there are multiple titles in an entry: Chemical operation : Haghefilm (Holland 2001/2002) and Lobster Film (Paris 2001/2003) Scans : Eclair (France, 2002), Archives du Film du CNC (Paris, 2010), Technicolor (USA, 2011) Opticals and internegatives : Haghefilm (Holland - 2002) Digital restoration : Technicolor Creative Services (Hollywood, 2010/2011) Supervision / Tom Burton (Technicolor) / Serge Bromberg-Eric Lange (Lobster FIlms / Paris). Severine Wemaere (Technicolor Foundation) and Gilles Duval (Groupama Gan Foundation). 5. What methodology was used?: Step by step. The decomposed print was put in gas using strong chemicals that melted the print for a few hours, bit by bit, and every bit was hotographed (2 years of waiting, 2001/2003). Bits and pieces could be put on a wet gate step printer in haghefilm. The files obtained, made with a 2001 digital camera, were stored until 2010. In 2009, the original nitrate BW elements were scanned on Sacha (2K), and sent to Technicolor digital services where digital correction of each frame war carried out, plus integration of BW elements with artificial colorig (for the 8-10% where the original color had not survived). Digital restoration took 10 month for 15 minutes of film at 17 frame per second, with a crew of 6 persons. New soundtrack recording and composition is also included in the plan, plus a book focusing on the restoration, and a theatrical feature film, available in English, to explain the different steps (65', The Extraordinary voyage). 6. What preservation elements have been generated and where will they be stored?: Two negatives have been made. - One in 1,85, stored at Technicolor Hollywood, speed corrected for printing. - On 1,33 state of the art neg, without speed correction, will be stored in the French Archives du Film of CNC - The digital files (2K) will be stored at Archives Francaises du Film of CNC - 30 prints will be manufactured, and deposited in the major FIAF archives throughout the world (this film is in the official registry of UNESCO since 2002)
The Desmet Collection, including more than 900 vintage nitrate prints, and paper related documents like posters, stills all from the period of 1907-1916 arrived to the Nederlands Filmmuseum in 1958, immediately after Jean Desmet passed away. All the films are on 35mm. nitrate stock, full frame, in the version of Dutch distribution prints; thus often colored (tinting, toning, stenciled, etc.) and with Dutch intertitles. This collection includes 'foreign films'; mainly from France, Italy, USA and Germany. Since the early 1980's on, the collection has been inventorized, catalogued, restored and screened for the public. The international recognition for the collection came with the 1984 screenings at the Giornate del Cinema Muto festival and later on, in 2003 with the book published by Prof. Ivo Blom: Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade (Amsterdam Univ. Press), culminating in the 2011 inscription onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. In 2011, the Desmet Project has received a boost due to the recognition of the Desmet collection by Memory of the World, challenging EYE Film Institute to continue and enlarge its efforts. Currently the films are being shown on several international venues (such as the MoMA in NY, where 40 early European comedies from the Desmet Collection will be screened in March 2012). EYE is also currently experimenting with online access to the films, and to the paper documents, with the ambition to make this international heritage collection globally available .
Archival highlights
1. Describe the element/s used for resoration, stating gauge and nature and specfic problems associated with them: Over the decades, all the films are restored onto 35mm polyester film, full aperture, with as little interference as possible, as part of the Jean Desmet legacy, thus faithfull to their Dutch distribution versions. Over the years some films have been restored in b/w, other though interneg>color print. In the last decade, all the tinted material is restored using dup neg (b/w)> color print using Desmet color method. The main laboratory has been Haghefilm Laboratories. The restored versions have been scanned to digibeta quality. The nitrate prints are kept in acclimatized vaults, as well as the duplicates. Except 30 films, all the films (900) have also projection prints. Nearly all the films are already available as scans on digibeta quality, (a project to re-scan all the preservation elements at 2K resolution is still ongoing. These scans that will make the digibeta's redundant are kept as LTO tapes and also stored on server. Also the paper collections have been worked upon in the last three decades. In 2010 the complete company papers (more than 100.000 documents) were scanned to save them from paper decay.
Rosie Newman's Britain At War In Colour
Editor(s):
Rosie Newman
Archival Sources:
Imperial War Museums
Production Company:
Imperial War Museums Film Archive
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
Previously unreleased amateur colour film of Britain during the Second World War. Two hours of remarkable footage shot by the renowned camerawoman Miss Rosie Newman, including film of London during The Blitz, aircraft manufacture, a Spitfire squadron, scenes on board a Royal Navy destroyer and the arrival of wounded. The film is presented with a reconstruction of the original music track - the first opportunity for more than 40 years to see and hear the film as the camerawoman intended. The DVD also offers an alternative commentary track and a short bonus feature on the life and films of Rosie Newman. This unique amateur film was left to the IWM in Rosie Newman's will, but it wasn't until much later, with the discovery of her original 78rpm records, that the IWM was able to realise its ambition of making this available in its entirety to a wider audience. Based on extensive research by the IWM and working with the creative team at Strike Force Entertainment, a restored HD version was completed in 2011. Packaged with a facsimile of Miss Newman's book, the original music and a commentary, this release not only contributes to our knowledge of WWII, but also gives an appreciation of how good archive film can be.
Caccile Croizat, Sarah Dabaghy, Antje Boehmert, Karin Fritzsche
Archival Sources:
Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, RTS, TVP, Czech TV, TVR
Production Company:
Artline Films (France) Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion (Germany)
Synopsis
Farewell Comrades! Interactive is an immersive and highly emotional documentary web-format about the last 15 years of the Soviet Union, leading into personal stories about friendship, passion, rebellion and belief behind the well known political facts related to the collapse of the USSR. The user is introduced to personal stories and fates through open "letters"- real postcards, written in the former Eastern Bloc between 1975 and 1991. The postcards unlock the stories of our 30 protagonists. They are linked to the archive footage of the main historical events, facts and movements of the last years of the Soviet Union. The daily life of the is depicted trough a vast selection of archive footage (video, stills, audio) from several sources, RGAKFD, TVP, Äesk TV, RTS, TVR, among others. Original postcards are the connecting element between all media and the core of the artistic concept, as they convey both individual and collective memories. Combining official archive images from TV stations, military audiovisual services, Soviet propaganda images and private archives of ordinary people (photos, letters, and personal belongings), FCI offers to the viewer a fresh look on the last years of the Soviet Empire.
www.farewellcomrades.com/en/
Broken Tail
Director:
John Murray, Colin Stafford Johnson
Producer(s):
John Murray
Footage Archive Researcher:
Cepa Giblin
Archival Sources:
BBC NHU, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Journeyman Pictures, Film Images, Huntley Film Archives
Production Company:
Crossing the Line Films
Country of Production:
Ireland
Synopsis
One of the world's leading tiger cameramen travels through India on a personal pilgrimage, piecing together the extraordinary last journey of Broken Tail - one of the planet's most famous wild tigers. Colin Stafford-Johnson spent almost 600 days filming Broken Tail & his family for some of the finest tiger documentaries ever made. In order to make this documentary all the footage of Broken Tail throughout his life had to be sourced from a wide range of companies and agencies. The film would not have been possible without the wonderful footage of Broken Tail from cub right through to his last days as an adult, as well as the fascinating older archive of tiger hunts in the time of the Maharajahs, newspaper headlines from the time of Broken Tail's death and the many still images people took of him.
Liquidator
Director:
Karel Doing
Producer(s):
Karel Doing
Footage Archive Researcher:
Karel Doing, Elif Rongen-Kaynakci
Archival Sources:
Haarlem (Mullens, 1922)
Production Company:
EYE Film Institute Netherlands
Country of Production:
Netherlands
Synopsis
'The project Liquidator started with a research question; where lies the ultimate border of film preservation, and how does it look? In other words I was looking for a filmprint that was on the brink of complete deterioration. My friends at the Dutch film archive (EYE) came up with a recently discovered print of Haarlem; a commercial 'city branding' film made in 1922 by Dutch film pioneer Willy Mullens. This particular print of Haarlem was interesting for me for two reasons: the deterioration of the nitrate had caused stunning visual effects and the original utilitarian nature of the footage was in stark contrast with the drama of this deterioration. I isolated the sequences where transitions took place between well preserved images and, partly or completely, vanished images. I reworked this footage zooming in, slowing down and reframing these sequence. The most dramatic moments I reworked using optical flow and morphing techniques. With the resulting material I composed a new film with the same duration as the original. I then asked composer, software developer and distortion specialist Michal Osowski to make a soundtrack for the film using a direct link between image and sound. Although Liquidator started from pure fascination with the deterioration of film material, it is no coincidence that this film appears in a time of liquidations, radioactive water and Wikileaks.' Karel Doing Rotterdam, November 8, 2011
Senna
Director:
Asif Kapadia
Producer(s):
James Gay-Rees, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Footage Archive Researcher:
Florence de Bonnaventure, Antonio Venancio, Miyuki Tokoi , Paul Bell (Archive Producer)
Archival Sources:
Formula One Management, G2 Films, AFAVA, INA, BBC Sport
Production Company:
Working Title/Universal Pictures
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
Senna's remarkable story, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained, is the subject of SENNA, a documentary feature that spans the racing legend's years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later. Far more than a film for F1 fans, SENNA unfolds a remarkable story in a remarkable manner, eschewing many standard documentary techniques in favour of a more cinematic approach that makes full use of astounding footage, much of which is drawn from F1 archives and is previously unseen. The UK's most successful ever cinema documentary, made entirely from archive footage.
Harry Belafonte - Sing Your Song
Director:
Susanne Rostock
Producer(s):
Michael Cohl, Gina Belafonte, Julius R. Nasso
Footage Archive Researcher:
Helen Weiss
Archival Sources:
ABCNews Videosource, FootageWorks, Getty Images, Historic Film Archive, Thought Equity Motion, Hope Ryden
Production Company:
S2BN Belafonte Production
Country of Production:
USA
Synopsis
Wonderfully archived, and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style, and musical panache, this inspiring biographical documentary, Sing Your Song, surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social-justice movements. Belafonte is a tenacious hands-on activist, who worked intimately with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took action to counter gang violence and the incarceration of youth. An indomitable sense of optimism motivates his path even today. In this documentary, the viewer is taken on a journey through 85 years of music performances and history. The use of archival footage provides visual documentation of Harry Belafonte's life and activities. From footage of Jamaica and Harlem in the beginning of the 20th century; to Belafonte's rise to, and worldwide success as, a singer and actor; to footage of the American Civil Rights movement, including impactful incidents of violence; to contemporary footage from news sources depicting racial strife in today's cities, the use of archival footage forms the very core of this programme.
The Camera That Changed the World
Director:
Mandy Chang
Producer(s):
Chris Durlacher (Executive Producer)
Footage Archive Researcher:
Lisa Clayton-Jones, Anna Cowdry
Archival Sources:
Robert Drew Associates, Argos Films, BBC Motion Gallery, INA, Pennebaker Hegedus Films
Production Company:
Lambent Productions
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
The Camera that Changed the World tells the story of how in the summer of 1960 the fly-on-the-wall documentary was born. It was the bloody-minded filmmakers and ingenious engineers who led this revolution by building the first hand-held cameras that followed real life as it happened. By amazing co-incidence, there were two separate groups of them - one on each side of the Atlantic. This remarkable story is told by the pioneers themselves, some of whom, such as DA Pennebaker and Al Maysles are now filmmaking legends. Back in 1960, they were determined young revolutionaries. The Camera that Changed the World highlights how the contrasting camera technologies produced effective and compelling 'reality' films. In the US, the pioneers used their new camera to make 'Primary', a insightful portrait of American politics. They followed a then little-known John F Kennedy as he began his long campaign for the presidency. Meanwhile, in France, another new camera was inspiring an influential experiment in documentary filmmaking. 'Chronique d'un Ete' captures the real lives of ordinary Parisians across the summer of 1960. Both these extraordinary films smashed existing conventions as handheld cameras followed the action across public spheres into intimate and previously hidden worlds.
Night On Film: An A-Z Of The Dark
Producer(s):
Elaine Shepherd
Footage Archive Researcher:
Phil Clark
Archival Sources:
British Pathe, BFI National Archive, BBC Motion Gallery, NASA, London Transport Museum
Production Company:
BBC Entertainment
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
An alphabetical look at the Dark featuring everything from bats to vampires. The night comes alive in this unusual mixture of music and archive. How to create an alphabetical hour about darkness with no commentary and no presenter? There's only one man to go to. Phil's imagination let rip and the result was a combination of the delightful, the beautiful and the strange. Coursing through the programme is Phil Clark's unique take of the theme. He alights on dark rooms, late night bakeries, knockers-up, vampires " an extraordinary array of the fantastical and mundane but nothing is ever glib or familiar. His incredible gift for the perfect sequence turned this programme into a powerful and inimitable experience.
The Loving Story
Director:
Nancy Buirski
Producer(s):
Nancy Buirski, Elisabeth Haviland James
Footage Archive Researcher:
Lewanne Jones, Polly Pettit
Archival Sources:
ABC News Videosource, NBC Archives, FILM Archives, CBS/Thought Equity Motion, UCLA Film Archives
Production Company:
Augusta Films
Country of Production:
USA
Synopsis
A racially-charged criminal trial and heart-rending love story converge in this documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman married to a white man against the law in 1950's Virginia. Thrown into rat-infested jails and exiled from their home for 25 years, the Lovings fought back and changed history. They were paired with two young lawyers driven to pave the way for equal rights through a historic Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia. Told through luminous cinema verite footage and rare photos, this film takes us on a journey into the heart of race relations in America. We are fortunate to have discovered the work of Hope Ryden, a producer who had the foresight to document the Lovings at a time when few realized the importance of their story. Shot in 16 mm cinema verite style, the footage places us as observers in their home, lawyer's offices, '60s diners and courthouses. By allowing the footage to play out in extended scenes, we have invited viewers back in time and place. Paired with rare period photographs and other archival footage, we have created a fully immersive experience and, as result, heightened the empathy for our subjects.
Entertaining The Troops
Producer(s):
Alexandra Briscoe
Footage Archive Researcher:
Rory Sheehan
Archival Sources:
IWM, British Movietonews, British Pathe, NFBC, ITN Source
Production Company:
BBC Entertainment
Country of Production:
UK
Synopsis
During World War Two an army of performers from ballerinas to magicians, contortionists to impressionists, set out to help win the war by entertaining the troops far and wide. Risking their lives they ventured into war zones, dodging explosions and performing close to enemy lines. Featuring the memories of this intrepid band of entertainers and with contributions from Dame Vera Lynn, Eric Sykes and Tony Benn, this documentary tells the remarkable story of the World War Two performers and hears the memories of some of those troops who were entertained during the dark days of war. This story of wartime entertainment presented a challenge in a number of respects. Most particularly, how can you illustrate the personal with the universal? Rory's sharp eye for the right shot, combined with an editorial grasp of the programme, gave the programme a fluent immediacy which reached into the heart.
Blacks of France from 1889 to the Present (Noirs de France)
From 1889 to the present - 130 years of shared history. This three-part documentary film weaves together many archives and new testimonies to tell us about contemporary French black history over 130 years. This film gives a voice to both the protagonists and the heirs of this history and relays the building of a French Black identity. An old history, a presence which becomes visible with the 1889 World's Fair. A story illustrated with archive footage which goes through two World wars, the colonial period, the Independencies, and the time of the migrations from the West Indies and Africa, but also from the Indian Ocean, New Caledonia, and from the African American influence since the Interwar period.
