Neil Killeen (Research Platform Services), Donna Hensler and Nicolette Freeman (VCA Film and Television)

The University of Melbourne’s VCA Film and Television is Australia’s longest continuing film school.  Its high-value (historical, cultural, research, teaching), 50-year old Student Film Archive was originally only stored on transient and largely inaccessible media such as celluloid film and magnetic media.

The VCA took initial steps many years ago to digitise and preserve their collection, however it wasn’t until 2015, with the approach of the school’s 50th birthday that the Film School was able to start the process of digitising 50 significant film titles to celebrate and promote its uniquely historical moving image collection. That same year, the archive was recognised as a Cultural Collection by the University. This was achieved based on a Significance Assessment, which made the case for the archive’s value and research, teaching, learning and engagement potential. A digitisation investment grant from Film Victoria then enabled a cultural partnership to be entered into with ACMI, who took on the digitisation of the celluloid films in the collection.

Subsequently, in 2017 and 2018, and facilitated by a grant from the Australian National Data Service (see http://www.ands.org.au)  the VCA, Research Platform Services (ResPlat), and commercial partner Arcitecta (supplier of the Mediaflux data operating system - see http://www.arcitecta.com) have since transformed the digitised films into a highly-curated, meta-data rich film archive, accessible via a specialised and re-usable Audio-Visual Archive Portal operating in ResPlat’s Mediaflux data management platform. This work is an essential part of the on-going process to ensure maximum University, National and International use of- and leverage from this important collection.  Most recently, this visual showcase has received a further grant from the University’s Student Services Amenities Fund which will further enhance the interface and functionality.

The picture shows a box of digitised USB drives which are being uploaded and the screen shows a few of the films via the current AV Archive interface.  Films are stored in 3 formats: the master (JPEG2000 – preservation quality), the mezzanine (Pro Res 422 - for editing and exhibition) and the H.264 proxy for streaming via web browsers. Interface functionality includes the ability for users to upload films, view films, upload associated artefacts such as stills, store rich descriptive meta-data, create playlists and tag film segments for later discovery and viewing.