Archives, institutions and collections
Institutional work is different from a shoebox of home movies, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone’s time. Collections come with catalogues, accession numbers, condition reports and budget approval cycles.
Assessment before scanning
For a collection we assess first and quote second. That means establishing what the elements actually are: camera original, print or reversal, optical or magnetic sound, wound on cores or reels, and how much shrinkage is present. Those answers change both the method and the price.
Why 16mm is its own job
16mm is a professional gauge and behaves like one. It carries sound in two entirely different ways, it was used for everything from newsreels to teaching films, and its stocks age differently from consumer 8mm. A lab that treats it as a bigger version of home movie film will produce a scan that works and misses what makes the material worth keeping.
Deliverables
File format, resolution and naming can follow a specification you supply. Tell us what your catalogue expects and we will match it rather than handing back something you have to rename.
Working with a collection?
Archives, churches, schools and estates get a written assessment before anything is scanned. Tell us roughly what you hold and we will tell you what it involves.