The Royal Family, Windsor, 1965 (British Pathé)
When the lockdown began, a mood of anxiety gripped the doc sector. Many filmmakers found their projects put on hold. The misgivings were shared initially at newsreel archive British Pathé, which holds huge amounts of film material from 1896, the very start of cinema, to the early 1980s. Would anyone pay to license this material during such a difficult period? The answer was a resounding yes.
As it turns out, British Pathé has just had the most successful year in its recent history. Simon Witter, Business Development Manager at the company, is coy about sounding too upbeat given all the suffering caused by Covid-19, but these have been bumper times. Documentary makers and broadcasters are turning more and more to archival material during the pandemic, and British Pathé is reaping the benefits.
“What has been surprising is how well business has kept up in this weird time when it seemed that no-one would be doing anything but re-runs for a while,” Witter states.
For reasons no-one can quite explain, British Pathé’s tax year runs from October to October. 2018-2019 was also a very strong year.
“Once you’ve had your best year, it’s a slightly stressful idea to match or exceed it in the next one,” Witter comments. “When halfway through, we had a lockdown followed by an industry-wide production freeze, it seemed that it was going to be the end of that ambition. But it has gone the other way. We have ended up by the end of September having the best quarter we’ve ever had and the best year. It has been a very pleasant surprise.”
The British Pathé exec has to respect client confidentiality so can’t reveal just which documentary makers and broadcasters are buying archive footage in such huge amounts. However, he can point out trends. And yes, royal material remains as much in demand as ever.
“We are always amazed how that source of interest never dries up. Between Britain, Germany, France and America, there is just always someone making something, doing some angle on the Royal Family.”
The World Wars are steady earners and historical anniversaries can be lucrative. In 2017, the 70th anniversary of the partition of India led to a big spike in business.
Traditionally, British Pathé has relied most heavily on its UK clients. However, that is changing. “Europe is picking up a lot for us…this last year has just been amazing, particularly eastward. Russia and Poland, we’ve had sales there like never before. France was amazing, Germany, Spain and Italy were all consistent.”
It helps that British Pathé archives have material shot all over the world. The recent series Berlin 1945, which looks at the last year of the war from the German perspective, drew very heavily on British Pathé material. “We had endless footage shot in the rubble of Berlin after the war and of bombing raids and things the Germans themselves didn’t have footage of…”
There may be clouds ahead. Brexit could hamper business. “I do worry that the tax agreements we have and the seamless way it all works at this point will be slightly disrupted but nobody has told us yet how that is going to work,” Witter acknowledges.
British Pathé digitised its entire collection several years ago. That frees the company and its clients from any reliance on the original physical assets, some of which would have been very difficult to access during lockdown. Staff are currently working from home but this hasn’t caused any interruption in services.
While the archive has thrived during the pandemic, so has the company’s SVOD service, British Pathé TV, available on Amazon Prime. Subscriptions have shot up in the last 6 months.
The last British Pathé newsreel was shot 50 years ago but the archive collection continues to grow. In 2018, the company struck a deal to represent Reuters historic f
ootage filmed before 1985.
Before COVID halted travel and moved most festivals online, Witter had become a regular attendee at doc events like Dok.fest in Munich and Doc Salon in Berlin. He recently launched a British Pathé Archive Award at Munich for a documentary film project in development using archive material. “It all happened over zoom this year but it has all been very gratifying,” Witter says of the enthusiasm for the award.
