The BFI National Archive preserves the nation’s film and television heritage. Moving image content exists in numerous forms, including physical film, videotapes and rapidly growing collections of digital assets. Our conservation and collections management teams protect and provide access to this wealth of treasures – from the original footage shot in 1895 by R. W. Paul and Birt Acres of the Epsom Derby, to the ‘born-digital’ content stored as files and destined for secure storage within the BFI’s digital preservation infrastructure.
We facilitate research access to the national collection in partnership with the BFI Reuben Library team.
Each format has specific preservation and conservation needs, dictated by the material itself and its condition when we acquire it. For film, cold and dry conditions are needed for long-term preservation. Video and audio magnetic recordings present a major challenge owing to the obsolescence of multiple recording format technologies and the scarcity of skills and machinery. Digitisation is the best approach for preserving these vulnerable magnetic recordings and we have collected obsolete machinery and maintained specialist skills to achieve this.
You can discover more about the BFI National Archive’s preservation methods in our and by reading the profiles of our team members.
Helen Edmunds, Director of Collections Management
Helen is responsible for collections management standards and practices for the care of and access to BFI National Archive collections.
Read Helen Edmunds’ profileKieron Webb, Head of Conservation
Kieron Webb is Head of Conservation at the BFI National Archive, leading the film laboratories and overseeing the Archive’s restoration projects
Read Kieron Webb’s profileFilm
Dave Gurney, Lab Operations Team Leader
Martin Coffill, Conservation Specialist – Projection
Paul Hexter, Conservation Specialist Team Leader
David Jones, Conservation Specialist Team Leader
Nigel Gray, Conservation Specialist Team Leader
Jane Fernandes, Film Operations Team Leader
Ben Thompson, Image Quality Team Leader
Conservation Technology
Chris Naylor, Film Preservation Engineer
Alex Zorba, Archive Technology Manager
Peter Young, Video Conservation Technical Leader
Charles Fairall, Videotape and Engineering Advisor
David McLelland, Archive Support Engineer
Brian Fattorini, Digital Capabilities Engineer
John Daniel, Digital Preservation Engineer
Video, Audio and Digital Operations
Scarlett Starck, Archive Project Manager
Andrew Sargeant, Digital Operations Team Leader
Stephanie Perrin, Technical Operations Manager
Mike Kohler, Audio Conservation Specialist
Collections Management, Access and Logistics
Fiona Grimes, Archive Projects Coordinator
Katrina Stokes, Archive Sales Manager
Lynn McVeigh, Collections Access Manager
Jo Molyneux, Conservation Centre Coordinator
Rob Ewart, Collections Care Manager
Chris McKee, Vaults Manager at BFI National Archive, John Paul Getty Jr Conservation Centre