What we collect
Shetland Film Archive is interested in moving image material of Shetland, or made by Shetlanders. This could be holiday home-movies, fictional works created at school or with friends, documentaries or informational material capturing important events. We collect moving image material in all formats; analogue film, magnetic tape and digital video, and from all decades.
We can provide advice about, and assessment of, moving image material; so please get in touch if you have material but are not sure of its condition or how to view it.
The Donation Process
We are always interested to hear from people who have moving image material they might be
interested in donating to the Shetland Film Archive. Please get in touch to discuss. Firstly, we will want to assess the moving image material, to look at its condition and content. If the
content meets our collection remit, and the condition of the material is good enough, we will offer to accept the material into our collections.
As a community led organisation, it is important that donors trust us with the material they have
kindly provided and have confidence that we will treat it with respect. Therefore, as part of the
donations process, a member of the archive team will help complete a donor agreement which will specifically outline how you wish your material to be used. We will refer to this agreement when considering use of your material and contact you for further discussion when necessary.
Digitisation
We only provide digital access to moving image material in our collections. If material is given to us on an analogue carrier (such as film or magnetic tape), this will be digitised before we share or make it available for others to view. We work with a specialist audio-visual digitisation lab to ensure material is handled carefully and is digitised at the highest quality possible. Donors will always receive copies of their digitised material.
As we are a small charity with limited resources, it may not be feasible to digitise all material
donated to us, or we may propose to share the costs involved. While we aspire to digitise material at no cost to the donor, the timescale is dependent on available resources. Any decisions will be made in consultation and with agreement of donors of the moving image material.
