The Story of Us
In his latest 3-part series for the BBC, The Story of Us, historian Simon Schama explores how art and culture has captured the transformations of British society since 1945.
In the first episode, which was broadcast on BBC2 last week, Schama takes a close look at the fragmentation of British identity in the postwar years as different and sometimes clashing voices emerged.
Simon Schama visited the BFI National Archive Conservation Centre last February, to take a close look at the impact of Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, delving into special collections material including press cuttings on how the film was received in the UK and US, production materials, original posters and stills. Schama also interviewed Jarvis Cocker, a Sillitoe fan, about why the film remains an important influence on him.
The first and third episodes of the series also feature film footage arranged via Archive Footage Sales.
A shout out to the Special Collections team, Archive Footage Sales Team and Simon McCallum for their input and help in making this happen.
– Sarah Bemand, Press Officer
Film cleaning anniversary
A little fact you may not be aware of.
20 years ago this month, the wet lab team started keeping a computerised record of the amount of film stock being cleaned at the Conservation Centre.
Since 2005, the film cleaning department team has cleaned almost 52,500,000 feet of film – the equivalent of over one and a half times around the moon! It also equates to:
- 9,990 miles or 16077km
- 2,625,000 feet a year
- 218,750 feet a month.
Processed by our one-person department, all of this film is cleaned via one of five machines, which are selected based on the condition and size of the film. Watch the video above to learn more about the process!
Happy New year to you all.
– Ian Lawman, Senior Conservator (Film Lab)
40 years off-air
The festive period is a time for seeing loved ones, eating good food, setting resolutions and above all… watching lots of television.
Seems only fitting that the 1 January 2025 marked a big birthday for the BFI National Archive: 40 years of off-air television recording, a core activity that preserves programmes alongside the idents, adverts, trailers and weather bulletins of linear TV. In the 1980s this was done by selecting programmes and recording them on to videotape on site at the archive. Now we capture the continuous broadcast output of 17 channels that are automatically ingested into our Digital Preservation Infrastructure (DPI).
What did we record on the 1 January 1985? Well, the day kicked off with TV-am’s Good Morning Britain, with Mad Lizzie exercises, cooking with Rustie Lee and, of course, Roland Rat. Thames Television aired a new year special of their charades-based gameshow Give Us a Clue, hosted by Michael Parkinson (obviously) with contestants including Julie Walters and Bruce Forsyth. Prime time continued with an edition of This is Your Life where Eamonn Andrews sat down with actor and life peer Bernard Miles. The day ended in style in Sheffield with Peggy Lee and Roberta Flack in Concert Live at City Hall (Yorkshire Television).
Meanwhile, alongside Brookside, Channel 4 broadcast a selection of archive programmes under the banner ‘It Was 20 Years Ago Today’. Within that retrospective was a brilliant Dan Farson-fronted documentary about the pop music heritage of Liverpool, Beat City (Associated-Rediffusion, 1963).
And what did we preserve from the 1 January 2025? We’ve recently expanded our off-air capacity, so alongside our continual preservation of PSB channels, we can now preserve ad-hoc selections from 10 further Freeview channels: Sky News, Arts and Mix; U&Drama, Dave and Yesterday; GB News; TogetherTV; and QVC! So now we add Bangers and Cash (U&Yesterday), Queer Lives Today (funded through TogetherTV’s Diverse Film Fund) and Up-to 60% off Christmas Grotto Sale (QVC) to the archive. Marvellous.
– Elinor Groom, Curator of Television
The Inside the Archive blog is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.
