Twofour to launch rare footage library
Plymouth-based media company Twofour will be working with regional film archives to create an online library of rare amateur and professional content, part- funded by the Technology Strategy Board and South West Screen’s iNet fund.
The platform will feature rare footage such as King George VI’s visit to Plymouth at the height of World War II, the Beatles in concert and VE Day celebrations in London, plus a significant amount of local and niche interest content, captured by amateurs and regional TV companies.
The aim of the project will be to unlock the value of newly digitalised archive film footage, increasing the amount of this content used by the creative industries and creating a sustainable revenue stream for the regional film archives.
“This project comes at a crucial time for the regional film archives, when budgets for the important work they carry out have been cut,” said Clive Martyn, Twofour Digital’s head of commercial Operations
“Our portal will showcase the archive’s rare and unique content, some of it from the early 1890s, to a global audience, creating an essential revenue stream for the content owner and preserving our visual cultural heritage for future generations.”
Key innovations will be around the use of metadata, content discovery and visualisation, and the ability to download very high-quality clips immediately.