Cutting edge technology to view days gone by

NZFA MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release

Cutting edge technology to view days gone by

It’s time to move on from good old VHS, announced the New Zealand Film Archive today as they launched medianet - their new national digital access service at Artspace in Auckland. “For almost 30 years the Film Archive has collected and protected our unique film and television history,” said Chief Executive Frank Stark. “But all thatᾠwork would be pointless if we didn™t make sure people could still see it.

Through state-of-the-art digital video technology, the Archive is now offering high-quality, full-screen and full-length versions of hundreds of classic film and video titles with a click of the mouse at various sites around the country.

Located in a range of public institutions, including museums, art galleries and libraries from Whangarei to Dunedin, medianet provides a digital database of over 500 videos. The content selected is an eclectic mix of feature films, short films, documentaries, home movies, newsreels, music videos and advertisements, spanning over 100 years of New Zealand cinema and television. Unhindered by broadband capability and the risk of illegal downloads, medianet provides immediate access to film and video at much better quality than YouTube or other web-based sources - and with the full support of the producers.

The sites which will launch medianet this month are the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, Te Puna Toi in the Christchurch Arts Centre, Te Wananga-o-Raukawa in Otaki, the central branch of the Hamilton City Libraries and the Film Archive offices in Wellington and Auckland. Still pending are the Whangarei Public Library, the New Dowse in Lower Hutt, the Otago Settlers Museum, the Whanganui Regional Museum, Palmerston North Library and the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hawkes Bay.

Medianet has been designed to provide something for everyone says Film Archive Project Developer Diane McAllen. “With so many films to choose from it was hard to come up with a nice cross-section that would appeal to a range of users - what we really have here is a resource that will be adjusted and added to over time, in direct response to the feedback from local communities. The content has been selected to appeal to a wide range of userῳ, whether their interest is in New Zealand film culture, history, local history, literature, the arts, popular culture or Maoritanga.

“It’s also an opportunity to see many short films made by New Zealanders that don’t otherwise get seen. Film fans and students can watch films like Taika Waititi’s Academy Award-nominated short Two Cars, One Night. Anyone can access the collections if there is a host institution in their local town.”

The Film Archive has previously run eight regional Video Access Sites, since the first opened at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, in 1996. Each site housed around 300 VHS tapes of Archival material but faced with the eminent demise of VHS tape, and demand from the partners for a digital resource, the Film Archive began researching the capabilities of video streaming technologies to deliver regional access without compromising on the quantity, quality and security of the content made available.

Diane McAllen says, “As hosts of our previous VHS-based network, our partners contributed greatly to the early stages of the medianet interface development and selection of content. ”

The medianet project began in November 2007 when the Archive received funding for the research and development phase from the Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund, and contributions from the eight partner organisations. The Archive has worked alongside Chrometoaster New Media Ltd over the past two years to create the medianet system.

Medianet content can be grouped into playlists by the host institutions. Catalogue information and associated materials, such as posters and publicity photographs, are presented alongside footage, providing valuable contextual information for the user.

As McAllen says, “The clips on medianet ensure our collections don’t only exist in vaults in Wellington. They also provide a way of finding out more about ourselves and our own unique history. For example, just taking a snapshot of the independent documentaries on medianet, there’s Lost in the Garden of the World made by Pacific Films in 1975, abo῵t young kiwi film makers traveling to the CannesᾠFilm Festival and interviewing the likes of Martin Scorsese, Dustin Hoffman and Werner Herzog. There™s the Vanguard Films documentary Mururoa 1973, Campaign by Tony Sutorious which covers the 1999 election, Bastio΅ Point - Day 501 by Merata Mita and the 2005 documentary Dawn Raids.ᾠThese are all important markers of our cultural ῡnd social identity, which people need to watch.

Alongside historical moments such as the Springbok Tour of 1981 and New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War viewers can watch politicians from the past such as Robert Muldoon and Michael Savage; our writers Katherine Mansfield, Frank Sargeson and Margaret Mahy; the work of our artists Len Lye, Colin McCahon and our film makers, Gaylene Preston, Vincent Ward, as well as a wide range of sport, music videoῳ and television commercials, plus our local A&P shows, beauty contests and street parades through the decades.

Many people use the Film Archive to research their family stories and occasionally find footage of family members. Academics constantly use the collections for PHd research and television production companies also access the collection for use in documentaries etc.

In addition to more than 500 titles available, users can search and request other titles using an interloan service.

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