Home>Final Report on the Volunteering Project at the National Film Archive of Thailand (NFA)

Final Report on the Volunteering Project at the National Film Archive of Thailand (NFA)

November 10, 2005 | admin | trackback

Conclusion

I believe that the National Film Archive of Thailand is an example of how important it is to understand that stability, growth and public awareness of an institution are an ongoing process – a one off publicity campaign will not suffice. In my opinion, the main problem is really an organizational, political one: no decision can be made within the Film Archive itself. This leads to a problematic staff structure as well as major equipment problems. For example: if the Film Archive has to give access to the collection and does not want to risk the originals, some transfer/duplication will have to be made. The archive has one viewing table that has been adjusted to be used as a telecine, therefore most films are available on vhs copies. Most TV stations (as clients for stock footage) would have wanted Beta tapes, but it took 15 years for the administration to sign the budget for it, at which point Beta was already being phased out and new equipment had to be asked for.

Political climates are not something that a volunteer can or should, in my opinion, mingle with. The main goal of volunteering is to exchange knowledge and also to support motivations, remind people of their reasons for being. The Archive needs mental support to keep on struggling for independence. Currently too many decisions are being made that go against the responsibility of the institution for the objects in their care. The international community can support the struggle for independence with visits, interviews and volunteering. But the volunteer her/himself in this case can help mainly by simply working on areas that need it most. This of course goes hand in hand with the qualifications of a volunteer. To mention just one example, if I would have been a laboratory expert and had some years of experience in this field, I might have been able to work with the technician without speaking Thai.

Another issue I came across was preservation management, in trying to find out workflow and other organizational problems and suggesting different solutions. Sometimes an outside view can help in finding more efficient ways to handle the problems. In this I am convinced that a risk assessment could be very useful. I will further investigate and discuss this with the staff at the NFA in the following months.

One of the major problems I did encounter – not unexpectedly – was language. On some occasions this did become an issue, especially if one of the set goals is teaching and exchanging of knowledge and experiences. I feel that this will be an area that will also improve next time, as both sides are more used to each other and can better converse without spoken language. There are of course cultural differences that come into play here and might have made me overly careful in trying not to make mistakes, which made me more of a distanced watcher than part of the everyday procedures. Over the two months this relationship changed, but I felt not yet enough. Spirit House at the Preservation Facilities of the NFA in Salaya, Nakhorn Pathom, Thailand. It is a model of a traditional movie theater in the country side in Thailand.

From other volunteering projects one can learn how difficult it is to set clear and coherent goals before beginning and I think this will be the major challenge for an umbrella organization: to help in setting up these goals and knowing what can realistic be achieved and what can not. It has to be understood that the main goal is to use the abilities of the volunteer in the most efficient way for the most pressing needs of an institution. But to learn about what an institution really needs migth take time. From my current knowledge I would say that there are three things needed for the NFA:

1. International support.
2. Hands on workers (one could think of an internship program for one of the programs for filmarchiving like NYU or GEH in addition to the volunteers that are starting now)
3. The ability to make their own decisions and pick their own staff which equals independence from the National Archives and the Fine Arts Department.

Acknowledgments

This project would not have been possible without the ongoing support of Ray Edmondson, Paolo Cherchi Usai, Chalida Uabumringjit and Dome Sukvong. I would also like to thank the International Federation of Film Archives and The South East Asia Pacific Audio Visual Archive Association for their financial support.

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