Welcome to our News Page, where regular updates will keep you informed about forthcoming events, recent developments, and other LFA news that may be of interest.

STILLS FROM MOTION PICTURE FILM
People often ask us if we can supply stills from films in the Archive. Perhaps they’ve spotted a relative in some footage seen on TV or at one of our shows; or they may be planning a book on a particular local history topic, and need some suitable illustrations.
Unfortunately, for a whole variety of reasons, still pictures produced by enlarging individual frames of motion picture film are seldom very satisfactory. We are happy to try, if there seems to be a reasonable chance of success, but the results do tend to be disappointing.
To help explain why this is, and what the limitations of stills taken from motion pictures are likely to be, we’ve produced an information leaflet ‘Understanding Stills from Motion Picture Film’ which we’ll be happy to send to anyone who is hoping to obtain some pictures of this kind. During the last twelve months, a number of clients have been sent a draft version, and they told us how much they’d appreciated the comments and advice: so we decided to make it more generally available.

FLASHSCAN
Perhaps the most exciting development during 2007 was our acquisition (thanks to a Lottery Grant) of a Flashscan telecine machine which makes it possible to produce much improved digital transfers from 8mm film. This gauge was widely used in its various versions by home movie makers from the 1930s onwards, and a good deal of potentially interesting material exists in this form, but its very small size and limited picture quality – intended for domestic use only – have always proved a headache for archivists who have struggled to find ways of presenting it to larger audiences. The technical quality and overall convenience of the Flashscan represent a major step forward in the handling of 8mm. And of course, we shall be able to pass on many of these advantages to private customers when we transfer their own 8mm home movies to DVD.

NEW ACCESSIONS
At present, we’re working on three different collections of material, recently accessioned. There are films relating to the well-known Lincoln firm, Ruston Bucyrus; some delightful family footage from the Cleethorpes area in the early 1950s; and a large collection of material from the Stamford area, shot by the late Gordon Turnill, some of it dating back to the 1920s. Two Turnill films are already in the Archive, (381) Britain’s Lincoln Reds, and (349) the hilarious antics of a group of Stamford pensioners on an outing to Wicksteed Park. Now that Gordon’s son has generously donated the complete Turnill collection, we are very much looking forward to bringing some more of these films back to the screen.
There’s always a certain time lag between a film’s arrival at our workshops and its appearance, fully described and documented, in our website Catalogue. Cleaning, repairs, and transfer to digital formats all take time, and so does the detailed historical research which is often necessary before a film can be made available for showing. The films referred to above may not yet have reached our website, so if there’s something that particularly interests you, and you can’t see it in our main listings, by all means phone, write, or email for further particulars.

NEW PROJECTOR
We’ve recently upgraded the projection equipment we use at our popular Archive Film Shows. Thanks to various technological developments, today’s projectors are not only brighter, but smaller, quieter, and more readily adaptable to suit the prevailing conditions at each particular venue. So from 2008, we expect our presentations to feature screen images even more striking than before.
If you would like to arrange an Archive Film Show for your Club or Society, please see the Contact page.

SOCIAL EVENING
The Annual Social Evening for members of ‘The Friends of LFA’ was held on Friday 1st February 2008. Members enjoyed a Buffet Supper and a special film show featuring recent acquisitions.

If you would like to support our work by becoming a ‘Friend of LFA’, please write, phone or email for details of membership.