Gandoorese Television and Film Archives

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The Gandoorese Television and Film Archives (GTFA) is an archive of television and film productions originating from Gandoor. The GTFA is managed by the Gandoor Broadcasting Corporation but contain material dating back to the 1890s from all Gandoorese television and film production companies. The GTFA was established in 1959, with archival being made mandatory in 1970. It has been said by the GBC that the costs of maintaining the GTFA only makes up a small amount of the GBC's annual budget.

History

Origins

The concept of a centralized media archive in Gandoor originated in 1954, when the GBC attempted to acquire broadcasting rights to the 1932 film In the Shadows of the Evening from the Constellation Film Corporation for broadcast on GBN. However, Constellation was both unable to locate any copies of the film, which had been a minor box office success when originally released, and unable to locate copies of any film they produced prior to 1935. Concerned after learning that the entire first eleven years of output by Constellation was considered to be lost, Mark Anders (who was in charge of acquiring broadcast rights to motion pictures for the GBC) proposed the creation of a national archive of Gandoorese film to his superiors at the GBC.

Despite this, the GBC did not move forward with any plans to establish a media archive until mid-1956, when a fire broke out at a warehouse on United Pictures Incorporated's backlot. While no one died in the fire, although three people were hospitalized with non-life threatening burns, the fire destroyed the entire contents of the warehouse, which was stated by UPI to have contained nearly the entire catalog of films produced by them between 1917 and 1930 and that they considered most of the films destroyed by the fire to be irretrievably lost. This dramatic and public loss of Gandoorese motion picture history spurred the GBC into action when it came to media archival, as they felt that their status as a non-commercial broadcasting enterprise of the Government of Gandoor meant they would be best suited for the task.

During early discussions, the archives were intended to be used solely for film preservation, but it was later decided that they should be used for the preservation of both film and television productions, especially as it became increasingly common for television productions to either be recorded directly onto film or having their live-broadcasts recorded onto kinescope for repeat performances.

Early Years

The creation of a centralized archive of film and television productions was announced by the GBC in June 1958, with them encouraging all production companies based in Gandoor to donate material to the GBC for archival and preservation. On 3 March 1959, the GBC announced that the Gandoorese Television and Film Archives had been officially established and already contained over 500 hours of television programming and over 1200 films. During a special broadcast on GBN on 7 March 1959, viewers were given their first glimpses of the GTFA's contents; the special procedures used to ensure that film stock stored in the GTFA would remain stable and not decay or catch fire, in order to prevent a repeat of the 1956 United Pictures fire; and were shown clips from various early Gandoorese films from between 1908 (the year of the oldest film or extract in the GTFA at the time) and 1920.

Donation to the GTFA was entirely voluntary, with many production companies only submitting copies of films or television episodes that they considered to be of contemporary or historical importance for preservation. Even the GBC itself often neglected to submit material to the GTFA, especially after their own organized archival system for GBN was established in 1962. Smaller production companies, such as Wonder Waves Radio Corporation (the owners of the television channel Rajio-Terebi), were avid proponents of the GTFA, as it allowed for the preservation of programming that they would have otherwise had to destroy, as they lacked the storage space for long-term archival of their productions.

By 1964, five years after its establishment, the GTFA was reported to have now contained over 1500 hours of television programming and over 1700 films. Notable inductions to the GTFA during its first five years of existence included: complete copies of six films thought lost in the 1956 United Pictures fire, 16mm copies of these films had been located in unmarked canisters in a warehouse; A Day in the Life of a Tramp, a 1903 comedy short and the then-oldest Gandoorese film considered extant; and Prime Minister Junichiro Suzuki's speech from the 1951 New Year's Eve Broadcast, the then-oldest surviving example of GBN-produced programming and of Gandoorese television programming in general.