The National Library of Wales
Prestigious nomination for the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales
Thu, 30 Apr 09 12:04:00
The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, has received a prestigious nomination for this year’s Focal Awards, to be held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on 5 May. The nomination is for restoration work done on the film Memoirs of a Pit Orchestra.
Directed by Richard Watkins, the 1981 film is a series of dialogues and scenarios adapted from the poetry of Idris Davies, Harri Webb, Alun Lewis, Leslie Norris, Dannie Abse, and John Davies. With archive material from the two world wars and a roving band of musicians, the director contemplates his homeland, the industrial south, ravaged by the economic booms and busts of imperial capitalism.
John Reed, Preservation Officer at the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales said
“Restoration involved making new 16mm negatives of the picture, new magnetic sound tracks of the audio pre-mix magnetic tapes, re-editing and synchronising of both picture and audio, followed by a full audio mix in a dubbing suite to create a new final mix magnetic sound-track. We then created a new optical sound negative and matched it to the action negatives to create a new sound print suitable for screening.”
Focal is the Federation of Commerical Audiovisual Libraries and is an internationally acknowledged body.
Anwen Pari Jones, Access Management and Development Officer for the Archive said,
“To receive a nomination for a Focal Award is a great achievement and an honour to those who were involved in the restoration work. Restoring films gives future generations the chance to see and enjoy great features, which otherwise would be lost forever.”
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