I have been researching Film Archivists and their information needs and behaviors thus far; however, I have missed a large piece of the puzzle. After an archivist preserves, manages, and documents a motion picture asset, what comes next? Who are the users that search for and retrieve it? Filmmakers, especially documentary filmmakers, are some of the most important users of film archives. More and more moving image content is being created and preserved at an exponential rate by libraries, cultural institutions, studios, and stock footage corporations, but there have not been many studies done to investigate this specific information-seeking process (Treat and Judkins, 2018). In “First there is the creative decision, then there is the dollar decision”: Information-Seeking Behaviors of Filmmakers Using Moving Image Archives, Treat and Judkins take a deep look inside filmmakers and their working relationship with film archivists.
Treat and Judkins start by analyzing the limited research that has been done with moving image archives, which has focused on general still image and basic audio-visual research. They argue that there has been too much research on scholars and no emphasis on filmmakers themselves who make up the majority of a film archive’s users (Treat and Judkins, 2018). The lack of understanding for “who is using our moving image collections and for what purposes could also hinder the acquisition of funding for the preservation of these materials” (Treat and Judkins, 2018). Without properly tracking who is using the collections and what for archivists are missing out on so much potential revenue for licensing assets and funding for future preservation projects.
In order to help filmmakers and film archivists better understand each other, Treat and Judkins created a research project to document the information needs of filmmakers. Through online surveys, they found ten qualified filmmakers with backgrounds as producers, directors, and footage researchers, then conducted in-depth phone interviews with specific information-seeking questions. “All participants reported that their information-seeking processes typically begin by identifying a project’s visual requirements and creating a footage wish list or timeline” (Treat and Judkins, 2018). After establishing production needs, most begin with an online search to see what materials and resources may be available quickly and digitally, they consult with people and sources they already know or have worked with in the past and look at the end credits for films of similar scope to see where they got their footage (Treat and Judkins, 2018). Filmmakers enjoy working directly with archivists because they understand the value of their knowledge and ability to find materials that are not readily available; however, they generally have a 9-5 schedule which contrasts greatly with the life of a filmmaker who may work at all hours of the day to finish a film (Treat and Judkins, 2018). This availability is one of the main problems that arise. Archivists need to find a way to be able to meet the difficult production timelines of filmmakers, but filmmakers also need to make sure they give archivists enough time to properly locate and provide an asset. Once they find an asset they may want to use “another obstacle and potential source of tension is the cost associated with accessing and licensing archival moving image collections” (Treat and Judkins, 2018). So many film archives have complicated rights usage which makes it difficult for both parties to understand what they can actually use. To make things more frustrating, filmmakers are frequently paying to digitize and locate materials that are not readily available and without even seeing the footage which can lead to large costs and unusable content (Treat and Judkins, 2018). Many filmmakers also claim it is difficult to “independently review collection materials due to a lack of adequate descriptions or availability of online content (Treat and Judkins, 2018). Film archivists need to better describe and document their materials so that it is easier to find and also make it available online for ease of access so it may be viewed at any time. This could ease some of the work in the queue making turnaround shorter and leave archivists with more time making assets available digitally.
Treat and Judkins found that although the underlying information-seeking behaviors of filmmakers as they search film archives are similar to everyday seeking behavior, archivists need to better understand the non-linear timelines and varying budgets that filmmakers are given to better serve their needs. Based on their findings, they ended the article with a list of ways film archivists can better serve filmmakers and create a better working relationship:
Manage expectations.
Understand rights management issues related to your collections.
Create policies and procedures for licensing materials from your collections.
Create policies for attribution and citation of your moving image collections.
Provide description and search tools that increase discoverability.
Educate yourself in the terminologies and procedures of the filmmaking community.
Promote the use of your collection.
-Treat and Judkins, 2018
These suggestions can be applied to almost any information-seeking community and the need to make information easier to obtain: Understand and get to know your user, allow public access to your collections, provide appropriate keywords for findability and make sure people know you exist.
This article helped me understand the working relationship between film archivists and filmmakers and their need to understand and work together to properly serve one another. If archivists can do a better job at listening and anticipating the needs of filmmakers, they can better organize their collections and acquire more money and funding at the same time. If filmmakers can give archivists better communication and articulate their timelines ahead of time, they can receive the best possible footage in a timely manner. Not only is this understanding important between these two groups, but it can also be applied to any type of information relationship.
When the article was written, Laura Treat was the Moving Image Preservation & Digitization Librarian at the University of North Texas and is now the Curator of Moving Image Collections, Film & Media Studies Librarian at UC Santa Barbara and Julie Judkins was the Assistant Head of Special Collections at the University of North Texas Libraries and is still at the position. The article makes use of forty-seven references which include information sources that we have been studying like Dervin as well as other film archive sources that may be useful in the future like those from American Archive.
References:
Treat, L., & Judkins, J. (2018). “First there is the creative decision, then there is the dollar decision”: information-seeking behaviors of filmmakers using moving image archives (Vol. 81, Issue 2, pp. 373–393). Society of American Archivists. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-81.2.373