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Introduction

The NRFTA's moving image holdings consist of five major film and TV collections, as well as a large number of smaller deposits from organisations and private individuals.

The BBC Look North Collection

The NRFTA holds all the surviving materials from the BBC's flagship regional news programme, Look North, from the period when location items were shot on 16mm film, 1957 to 1991. The complete 'programmes as broadcast' (PABs) were not recorded in the days before videotape, meaning that the live studio 'links' are lost: what survives are the filmed location reports and inserts. The run is not complete, as only items which were thought to have a future use for stock shots were kept - the other films were thrown away shortly after they were broadcast. The surviving collection consists of approximately 7,000 items. Most of this collection is available for research viewing at our Middlesbrough or Newcastle offices, although in a small number of cases there are preservation or copyright problems which restrict or prevent access. Other uses, including commercial footage licensing, are by negotiation with BBC Worldwide.

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The Tyne Tees Collection

We hold all the surviving film-based production materials from Tyne Tees Television, covering the station's launch in 1959 to 1990. The collection consists of regional news and sport items, plus the drama and documentary series produced by Tyne Tees in the 1970s and '80s. Highlights include the complete first series of the music show The Tube and the award-winning series of documentaries exploring regional life and culture, About Britain. Most of this material is available for research viewing, although due to copyright restrictions we are unable to provide public access to The Tube. All other uses, including commercial footage licensing, are by negotiation with Tyne Tees. More information can also be found on Tyne Tees' history page

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The Border TV Collection

This collection consists of drama and non-fiction productions made by Border Television from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is currently unconserved and uncatalogued, mainly due to an unresolved issue as to whether responsibility for preserving this collection lies with ourselves, the North West Film Archive or the Scottish Screen Archive. We are in the process of passing responsibility for providing a regional film archive service to Cumbria to the North West Film Archive, but the Border collection covers both Cumbria and Southern Scotland, making the issue of its long-term preservation a complex one which involves negotiations between three archives and, of course, Border TV themselves. As of April 2006, these negotiations are ongoing. This collection is not currently available for access.

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The Turners Collection

Turners’ Film Unit was a production company based in Newcastle, which operated between 1946 and 1995.  It produced a variety of promotional films, advertisements, educational and training films and industrial documentaries. We hold their complete output, a total of approximately 700 productions. Apart from a small number of productions which are awaiting preservation work, this collection is available for research viewing. We also hold all the rights to the Turners Collection, meaning that we can provide private viewing copies for sale on DVD, and license the footage commercially.

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The Trade Films Collection

Trade Films was a company based in Gateshead which specialised in political documentaries and TV productions, and in particular films about mining in the north-east and the trade union movement. Their collection has been deposited with us and is (subject to conservation) available for research and non-commercial viewing. The rights to this collection are controlled and administered by Common Features Ltd. of Newcastle.

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The Tyne and Wear Archives Service (TWAS) Collection

We look after a collection of films from a variety of sources on behalf of Tyne and Wear Archives Service (TWAS) relating to life and work in Newcastle and Tyne and Wear, and in particular the shipbuilding industry. Most of this material is available for research viewing, though the copyright sitation varies from title to title, meaning that commercial footage licensing has to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

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Industrial, Educational and Training Films

We hold a substantial collection (deposited from a number of sources) of films related to industry in the northern region. These include films which promote the work of major companies (e.g. the Vickers shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness, or the Dorman-Long steelworks on Teesside), sectors of industry (examples include glass manufacture in Sunderland and the region's railway heritage), to promote individual products or to train employees in specific industrial processes.

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Amateur Film and Video

The NRFTA is actively developing a growing collection of ‘home movies’ and videos from families and individuals throughout the region. Important holdings include films deposited by the family of T.H. Brown, a Middlesbrough dentist who was an active amateur film-maker from the late 1920s until the mid-1950s, and a collection deposited by the grand-daughter of a former mayor of Morpeth which documents life and work in Northumberland in the decades following World War II.

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This page was last updated on 22 April 2006. The text and images on this page are copyright of NRFTA Ltd., or of third parties and published here with their permission. You may not copy or use any part of this page in any way without our written permission.