FIF say there is no typical method for acquiring collections, as each collector and their circumstances are unique, from geographical location to their physical condition to the number of films in their collection.
In a couple of instances FIF have had to move quickly to acquire collections, including the one containing 6 episodes of Doctor Who, two of which were the two missing episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan. The collection went to court because the executors of the estate predeceased the collector, and the entire estate had been left to a high street charity. The court upheld the will, and FIF negotiated directly with the charity and acquired the film collection.
In the case of the two Master Plan prints, the film itself had physically shrunk. The collector had never projected the films; if he had they would have been damaged due to the sprocket holes not aligning on the projector.
Research into cutting copies is ongoing and they’ve found a seam of interesting research, especially by way of former industry professionals (especially Simon Chambers and Robert Maynard). They have provided a lot of feedback on the two Master Plan episodes, advising they are the final iteration of cutting copies known as “answer copies”.
The BBC’s practice was to use one label type was put on all iterations of cutting copies.
FIF have two groups they deal with in the film community, active living film collectors and film collectors’ estates. FIF’s profile in the community as a neutral party is facilitating returns of missing material.
FIF estimate the number of active film collectors across the UK and Europe to be 2,000. Older collectors are less inclined to be “active", which highlights the importance of FIF’s role in contacting these “inactive” collectors.
John knows of a collection that holds “very important material” including “television episodes that everyone would like to see”. (Ed:- This sounds like the terminally-ill collector who as reported elsewhere holds at least one missing episode of Doctor Who.) The collector’s wife has assured John that she will contact him "when something happens".
Part of FIF’s role involves going into people’s homes and dealing directly with the bereaved, helping them work through their grieving. Regardless of length of time it takes, FIF supports the families and tries to preserve as much film as they can, respectfully and humanely.
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Meanwhile on their FB, FIF
announce that they will hold another live Q&A in November for Director tier members. Further, the
videos from this month's Q&A will be available on their YouTube channel "within a month".
And extraordinarily, on
Reddit user The_JohnnyRay posts
an extensive list of "up to 25 missing episodes" said to exist "in private hands":
Marco Polo (All seven missing episodes)
The Mythmakers (All four missing episodes)
The Daleks Masterplan (Episode four, eleven, twelve)
The Massacre Of St Bartholomew (Episode two)
The Tenth Planet (Episode four)
The Power Of The Daleks (Episode one, two)
The Highlanders (Episode two)
The Macra Terror (Episode one)
Fury From The Deep (Episode four)
The Web Of Fear (Episode three)
Space Pirates (Episode one, two, six)
(Ed:- "Space Pirates" episode two must be a typo, as it has always existed in the BBC archives.)
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22 - FIF release the third instalment of the Q&A webinar.
"Dealing with Copyright Holders"
The challenges FIF encounter when dealing with copyright holders are “many and various”. The physical medium of film has no relation to the IP rights and FIF’s first duty is to the copyright holder; however commercial networks in the UK such as ITV manifestly have no interest in their archival legacy. There’s no interest in preserving and showing historical programming as it’s costly and it isn‘t commercially viable for the network to show publicly.
If FIF finds missing TV that lots of people would want to see that was produced by the BBC, and FIF present this to BBC Archives and they would like to present this at FIF’s next event, if the rights holder ie, the writer decides they will charge a high fee for it to be screened the BBC won’t sanction it.
Independent broadcasters used intermediary companies to return screened material to the UK, and some of these “cut corners”; material wasn't always returned as requested. For instance, the recovery of Emergency Ward 10, one was so vinegar syndromed it couldn’t be identified as to which episode it was, and many episodes were missing from the batch that should have been returned and may have ended up in private collections.
Next was the answer to the question submitted by this blog's author, which was is there any update on the “several” collections known to have “several” missing episodes of Doctor Who?
John’s update: there’s no update in terms of acquiring missing material; John’s original statement did include the one known episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan, but John was aware of three other collections with three missing episodes of Doctor Who. One of these is that belonging to the terminally-ill collector. FIF continue not to be focused on individual episodes or television shows; they are preserving silent and feature films, documentaries and of course missing television.
Two collectors who are former industry professionals are concerned about losing their pensions, FIF is having ongoing dialogue with them about their entire collections, that comprise several thousand films. These collections are situated in different parts of the country. Their pipeline of collections and films is “overflowing”, which must be cleared before they can take the next items in. John believes there will be good news down the line in terms of preservation of material. FIF will continue to do what it does and treat collectors respectfully and humanely.
In response to has the Doctor Who community been a net positive or net negative to FIF’s mission? Justin Smith says overwhelmingly positive; FIF has this community to thank for a global awareness and support of FIF and its mission, particularly with the recovery of the two Master Plan episodes and the four public screenings. When two prominent film collectors were invited to a Doctor Who event they were overwhelmed by the support of Doctor Who fans for FIF’s cause. They are not on a treasure hunt, they aim to rescue at-risk film collections and Doctor Who fans have shown they understand this. New FIF staff member Laraine Porter has been impressed by the energy of this multi-generational fandom and its social media savvy.
The Riverside Studios event on 31 October is their event, with members of FIF in attendance.
FIF conduct triage when recovering and removing film from a site. The factors used in assessing the level of risk relating to each collection include whether the collector is recently deceased, and the circumstances of the family involved which are often as FIF describes it “distressed circumstances”, the condition of the actual films and the conditions in which they are stored. FIF have at times entered buildings in a state of physical collapse, and extreme care has had to be used for fear of actual physical injury. The family often also wish to sell the property and move on with their lives, and there is often a very tight timeframe to do this triage and remove the films (as little as two weeks). As a result, FIF will never be able to save every film or even film collection will be saved. John was recently offered a film collection in Penzance but there simply wasn’t enough time to get to the collection, perform the necessary triage and save it in time.
Finally, FIF is working as collaboratively as they can with the BFI but time and costs do not always allow this. FIF relies on institutes like the BFI to provide “clues” as to where material could be, there is a lot of detective work involved.
23 - FIF release the fourth instalment of the Q&A webinar.
"Future Plans and Ambitions"
FIF’s goals for the future include adding the to the history of
film, such as compiling an oral history of film collecting by way of
the knowledge and memories of collectors and industry professionals
(editors, film cutters). Also through acquiring technical knowledge, for
instance research into differing definitions of “cutting copies”.
Another goal of FIF
is to continue to encourage older collectors to catalogue their
collections, and add the list to their will as a codicil. This
cataloguing work however requires enormous resources and additional
personnel, as FIF now deal with thousands of films a week.
John mentions
clearing an upstairs loft in 42 degree heat.
John is contacted
every week by the Doctor Who brand team asking for news on finds.
John is cautious about saying more, that we now know as much as the
brand team does, and he says we will all find out at the same time
when there is something to say! (Ed:- John's coy demeanour at this point struck me as being highly
suggestive that they DO know something else that they are choosing
not to disclose at this time – which to be perfectly frank is
something I already suspected. Time will tell.)
FIF would also like
to show an extended run of the recovered episodes of popular and
influential series Emergency Ward 10, together with star
Annette Andre. The episodes feature a storyline in which Annette is
prominent.
FIF doesn’t
currently know of any similar organisations that do the kind of work
that FIF does. FIF have been contacted for advice in
setting up local equivalents, and John has been invited to the USA
and Australia to speak but John’s on the ground work in the UK
prevents this. John encourages anyone who has the energy,
determination and enthusiasm to start something themselves.
When deciding what
to save, FIF separate out any films that are in poor condition and
take them back to their storage facilities, where a decision is made
whether it can be salvaged.
24 - On their YT, FIF post a
notification that the first part of their webinar Q&A will be available to view on YouTube on Thursday, 26 October at 9:30am UK time.
The other three instalments will follow daily at the same time.
In other news - Obverse Books post on their FB about the
release of "Fabulous: A Missing Episodes Anthology", featuring short stories from various television series - including
Doctor Who - that are missing episodes.
The book will be released in November 2026, with all profits going to support the work of Film is Fabulous!.
25 - On the YT channel Who's Views, John Franklin is
interviewed to give an update on missing episodes. (The interview runs from 36 to 58 minutes.)
John mentions he just took delivery of the collection of a late film collector, and the host says that FIF have taken in other collections during the week.
John reiterates about the "three collections" known to have missing episodes of Doctor Who, one of which is a "very large collection" amassed over a lifetime and belongs to a longtime friend of his. John says that if all runs to plan, the missing items will be returned to the BBC per FIF's procedures.
The two other collections belong to former BBC employees who are in their 80s; FIF is building relationships with them to try to resolve their concerns in coming forward.
28 - On GB, member Steve Manfred posts a
handy analysis of the two episodes likely to be in the "fish fryer" collection (
Ed:- i.e., the film collector who when Paul Vanezis had dealings with him "had bigger fish to fry" at the time and thus wasn't ready to talk about loaning his episodes to the BBC):
"OK, here we go. These are the clues we have from Paul Vanezis.
They are from two different Hartnell stories.
They are _not_ on the list of 23 stories (not all of which are currently missing) that Australia returned all at once in 1975.
They are also not Dalek episodes.
And one half-clue is that when he initially talked about them, Paul said that one was on the '75 returns list and one wasn't, then some time later he corrected himself to say both were not. It had been some time since he'd looked at the list, and confused one with being on it when it isn't. This leads me to think it's in a cluster of stories where the ones close to it in the story order are on it, and others aren't, leading to his mistake.
Those first clues limit the eligible stories to these six: Marco Polo, The Reign of Terror, The Crusade, The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, and The Savages.
The half-clue leads me to think the mistaken story is one of those last three, because the '75 returns list doesn't start until The Space Museum and has some season 3s in it."
30 - On Planet Telos, member The Space Pirate reports that although FIF have been releasing Patreon videos on their film cataloguing efforts, they also plan on a video series looking at their cataloguing of 16mm television episodes, being done by John Franklin.
