R3store Studios

Synopsis

Established in 2016 and celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, R3store Studios has rapidly grown into one of the UK’s leading archive and restoration specialists. The studio offers a comprehensive range of services, including film scanning, colour grading, tape digitisation, and digital restoration, all delivered with a focus on preserving the integrity of original materials. Working with a diverse client base from film archives and cultural institutions to brands, broadcasters and commercial media organisations. R3store is trusted with projects of significant historical and cultural value, playing an important role in safeguarding audiovisual heritage for future generations. Following a move into brand new premises in 2025, the studio is expanding its outreach, opening its doors to more tours and training opportunities than ever before, and reinforcing its commitment to education and industry collaboration.

Archival highlights

The following are highlights from R3store Studios submission:

R3store has demonstrated significant impact through its restoration work on major archival-led cinematic productions, including the complete restoration of all archival footage for our feature documentary, THE EYES OF GHANA. In delivering this work, the company refined its approach to complex, multi-format restoration by implementing highly adaptable, clip-specific workflows capable of handling material ranging from standard-definition broadcast footage to newly scanned 4K film elements across varying frame rates and conditions.

Importantly, R3store has been a partner on this project since its earliest stages in 2023, when we first engaged them to digitize the Chris Hesse/Ghana film archive. From the careful handling and high-resolution scanning of these original elements to the final preservation-grade restoration, their involvement has spanned the full lifecycle of the film. This continuity ensured both technical consistency and a deep familiarity with the material that proved invaluable as the production evolved.

Beyond the technical execution, R3store strengthened collaborative workflows between archives, scanning facilities, and post-production teams, helping productions navigate increasingly compressed delivery schedules without sacrificing quality. They also graciously opened their facilities to our production, allowing us to film on-site with our storyteller, Chris Hesse, and several of their diligent team members appear in the documentary itself. Their openness and enthusiasm reflected not only technical excellence, but a genuine commitment to the storytelling process.

Through projects such as this, R3store continues to advance restoration best practices, client workflow integration, and high-resolution archival presentation—delivering tangible benefits to both its clients and the wider archival and post-production community, while helping position archival footage as a central cinematic element rather than supplemental material.

Reuters Connect

Archival highlights

The following are highlights from the Reuters Connect submission:

In 2025, Reuters Connect (formerly Reuters Screenocean) believe we have demonstrated our commitment to the industry across archival preservation, discovery and access.

Our submission highlights the impact of these initiatives: Enhancing storytelling with newly digitised rushes and providing a platform for emerging filmmakers to gain visibility.

Building on work to make tape archives held by Reuters news bureaus around the world accessible, in 2025 we established permanent in-house infrastructure to continue this work indefinitely, and we marked the milestone of digitising more than 7,000 hours of video from 16 bureaus worldwide.

We established the Reuters Media Ingest Hub: a permanent, end‑to‑end facility for digitisation, metadata enrichment and media management. Our portable hardware enables on‑site digitisation where outbound shipping is restricted, opening pathways to bureaus such as Cairo and Baghdad.

Access to archives is often restricted, leaving early‑career creatives without the means to explore historical footage or develop archival storytelling skills.

The Reuters x Make Film History Challenge addresses this, by giving emerging filmmakers free access and extensive usage rights to the Reuters collection. Dr Ciara Chambers (University College Cork) noted that the project is “laying the groundwork for more engaged and inspiring uses of archival film by a new generation of creative producers.”

Together, these initiatives form a complete cycle: rescue irreplaceable material, make it discoverable, and ensure the next generation has the skills and opportunities to succeed in our industry.

Footage.net

Archival highlights

The following is an abstract from Footage.net submission:

In this difficult climate, rather than sowing competition between industry players, Footage.net is working to act as a rising tide that lifts all boats. They have also been a true ally to the Archival Producer community— soliciting our feedback, offering their help to support a membership directory, and generally working to develop a collaborative and productive relationship between us and the archives. Domenick Propati’s efforts are doing a great deal to make sure that the world of archives remains relevant and productive despite the many challenges to the industry. -Archival Producers Alliance