About me
Charles Fairall has served the BFI National Archive in the UK for some 40 years as a technologist, engineer and senior manager. During his 10-year stint as Head of Conservation, he took primary responsibility for leading the technical teams who pioneered innovative techniques to conserve, preserve and make accessible through digitisation and photographic processes, the extensive moving image collections of film and videotape which constitute the BFI’s Film & Television Archive. Currently, Charles' professional interests are tightly focussed on maintaining and repairing machinery spanning all legacy magnetic tape formats, along with investigating and helping to innovate scientific solutions to help sustain continued replay and digitisation of archival recordings in the face of obsolescence and degradation. Charles is passionate about skills and knowledge transfer and is a proud member of the FIAT-IFTA Preservation & Migration Commission, where he has made significant contributions to seminars, workshops and written guides.
