Claudy Op den Kamp
Transtechnology Research
Plymouth University
Portland Square, Room B312
PlymouthPL4 8AA

 

claudy.opdenkamp@plymouth.ac.uk

Claudy Op den Kamp is a graduate of the University of Amsterdam (Film and Television Studies) and holds an MA in Film Archiving from the University of East Anglia. She most recently worked as Haghefilm Conservation’s Account Manager in Amsterdam and prior to that as a Film Restoration Project Leader at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. She has started her PhD at Transtechnology Research in October 2009 with a research project entitled ‘Copyright legislation and the re-use of archival footage’.

This project addresses practical and immediate issues with political as well as cultural dimensions. Digitisation confronts archives and their users with the need to operate in a fundamentally different manner. The proposed project will analyse the production histories of several representative examples of the re-use of archival footage (such as historical documentaries on television) to ascertain whether copyright legislation – ideally, designed to regulate and enable exploitation of the work – impedes access. The particular focus will be on so called orphan works, works protected by copyright but with an unknown current owner. Orphan works pose a problem for heritage institutions; difficulties in acquiring legal permission for re-use can render collections dormant.

The project will examine the pressures on film archives to digitise their holdings and the difficulties arising from the uncertain copyright status of much material. These difficulties constrain archives’ attempts to make available film and audiovisual material that represents and speaks to a constantly changing local, national and international cultural heritage. What are the varying responses to these pressures by different archivists and cultural, legal and political frameworks, national and supranational? What are the practical implications for educational institutions, for the creative industries and the general public?


 

Research Seminar 19 January 2011, Recycled Images

The interactive seminar, based on several key questions, will examine aspects of recycling images in the practices of found footage filmmaking and digital remix, taking Panel C from Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas as a starting point.

The seminar will be preceded by a (found footage) film programme on January 18, 2011 (5-10pm), Jill Craigie Cinema, Roland Levinsky Building:

  • 5:00 – 5:06 pm Home Stories (dir. Matthias Müller, DE, 1990, 6 min.)
  • 5:10 – 6:30 pm Decasia, the State of Decay (dir. Bill Morrison, USA, 2002, 70 min.)

>>> 15 min. break

  • 6:45 – 8:15 pm Los Angeles Plays Itself (dir. Thom Andersen, USA, 2003, 180 min., first half only)

>>> 15 min. break

  • 8:30 – 9:30 pm Pixel Pirate II (dir. Soda Jerk, AUS, 2006, 60 min.)
  • 9:32 – 9:38 pm Gravity (dir. Nicolas Provost, BE, 2007, 6 min.)
  • 9:40 – 9:44 pm The Sound of the End of Music (dir. People Like Us, UK, 2010, 4 min.)

For those who cannot be present at the screening on the 18th, clips from the films screened the night before will be used in the seminar, supplemented with remix cinema clips/trailers.

 

Research Seminar 19 May 2010, Reel Laws: Archiving and Copyright

This seminar will discuss the use, re-use and distribution of audio-visual material in relation to copyright. Amanda Egbe and Claudy Op den Kamp will present research that reflects on practices that demonstrate approaches to re-use that look beyond the assumptions about rights, ownership and use implied by copyright laws.

Amanda Egbe will examine the use of archive material in her own work, and by artists Cummings and Lewandowska in their project Enthusiasts: archive, a collaborative art project using and re-using works from amateur film clubs in Poland, to discuss copyright and copyleft, approaches to the archive that replace property with generosity.

Claudy Op den Kamp will discuss the Bits & Pieces collection, put together by the Nederlands Filmmuseum from unidentified film fragments, to address ideas of collection building, re-use, and archiving.

Research Seminar 16 December 2009, The Science of Film / How Restoration Informs Interpretation

This presentation will give an introduction to early colour restoration and will try to address issues of restoration in relation to film historical interpretation using four different versions of the same tinted and toned scene.