Luke Ainger on printing films at BFI’s laboratory

An interview with Luke Ainger, Senior Conservator at the British Film Institute and one of the few technicians running the film laboratory, one of the most active archival labs in the world, which is expanding the scope of the services it offers.

 

When was the BFI preservation laboratory established?

The lab was built in 1987. And it just so happened that part of Kodak’s major processing lab closed in 1985, which was local in Hemel Hempstead. So, some of the country’s leading film technicians came to the BFI to help establish to the printing and processing facilities here in Berkhamsted.

All those old technicians’ documentation was kept and preserved. So we have an amazing amount of processing research, chemical analysis and rare manuals all still on paper in our records. Which was all very insightful to read through and study when I first started.

My colleague Ian has been here since 1989.  He has helped preserve the valuable skills and practices taught to him by those Kodak technicians and was a great help to me when I started here.

Which processes do you currently run? Where are the processing machines coming from?

With a lot of the lab’s priority being in preserving the BFI’s older collection, much of the focus to the present day has been on with black and white material. So we have separate processing machines for our D96 (negative) and D97 (positive) jobs. Our D97 processor is still the original Caulder machine built in 1987. It has been well maintained by myself and the rest of the team and it still works perfectly to this day. Our D96 machine was built more recently by Photomec.

I’m currently building a colour ECP-2E processor with the team. This is another Calder that we’ve converted, a processing machine that was kindly donated by the Swedish Film Institute. I’ve found the community spirit amongst non-commercial and archive-based film labs really incredible; everyone is always sharing knowledge, technical advice, and ideas. It’s great to see.

Building a new processor is always exciting. I love experimenting with what to keep the same since the 80s and what to modernise, as well as how to make them more environmentally efficient. One of our engineers, Thom, made me an amazing new software to help us analyse our colour to an incredible level of detail. At the end of the day, the build itself is a lot of physical work and requires a lot of patience, but I find it great fun.

 

Are you printing in 16mm and 35mm? What is the technical workflow to make these prints? Full analog or going through digital stages?

Yes we can print in both 16mm and 35mm. Our workflow is a mixture of full analogue and digital intermediates, depending on the project. We still have the technology onsite to create grading tapes. Being able to make graded prints without having to move into the digital realm is very exciting, and I can’t imagine there are too many labs keeping that tradition alive.  We have a wide range of printers here and we choose the printer based on the project as each one has its own specialities. We still use a Matipo that is almost 100 years old now.

We also have some ARRILASERs which I have been getting up and running recently. It’s always fun when calibrating the machine to test with modern BFI acquisitions. I printed a few test sections of Charlie Bit My Finger when the BFI acquired that!

There is an incredible attention to detail at this lab. I’ve previously worked at commercial labs, so the change to not having a customer breathing down your neck for rushes was a real adjustment.  But it meant that I have had the time to properly learn the in-depth science and history behind sensitometry, chemical compositions and colour science. The extra time we’re allowed for each print means they are always of a really high standard.

 

Which films do you chose to make prints of and how many do you make? That is : how many of each film that you print and how many total in a year time? How are these prints circulated? Are they just for BFI use or a larger circle?

 We make prints internally for BFI seasons/festivals, and we make prints that are sent to archives and institutions all around the world. There has been particular interest from American universities recently that are curating their own film archives. It seems students are not only seeing the benefits of watching film on film but are understanding the advantages of physical film archiving and how they provide a material stability that digital storage cannot achieve.

When sending to an external client, we tend to make two final prints (after test prints), one for the client and one for us. Archival stocks cost a lot, so it isn’t possible to make too many prints in one go unfortunately.

It’s hard to say how many prints we make in year. Some films that are in immaculate condition and still have good quality grading tapes can be made up quickly. Whilst other films need a lot more attention if they’re in poor condition. There is only four of us in the lab and the whole workflow including printing, cleaning, and quality control is pretty much entirely done by us. We make our prints to a high-quality standard, so we don’t rush the process.

get in touch with Luke: luke@ainger.me.uk