Projected Picture Trust

The Projected Picture Trust exists to “To locate, preserve, renovate and exhibit the equipment and data, past and present, of still and moving images”.

History
The initiative began with Charles Beddow, at the time the British Film Institute’s Technical Officer. He had become acutely aware of the situation while setting-up the Institute’s network of Regional Film Centres. What he saw on his travels convinced him that unless something was done soon, much of Britain’s heritage would be lost forever. Charles’s concern was shared by a handful of enthusiasts who responded to a circular letter. An open day meeting was held at National Film and Television Archive on the 13th November, 1978. 37 people attended that meeting from which a steering Committee was formed and consisted of Charles Beddow, Technical Officer of the British Film Institute, David Francis, the curator of the National Film and Television Archive, Bill Stephenson, a specialist designer and audio visual consultant, John Lawton, the managing director of a cinema screen manufacture, John Cannon, a member of a regional arts association and Tony Rose the editor of an amateur movie-maker magazine. Their first meeting was held at Ernest Lindgren House, Berhhamsted, Hertfordshire on the 8th December, 1978. Early after that date, the steering Committee was strengthened by the addition of Alan Knowles, Head of the British Film Institutes’s Regional Department and Harold Brown, a founder employee of the National Film Archive at Aston Clinton. At the meeting of December 8th, the name The Projected Picture Trust was agreed. In 1983 the PPT was registered as an Educational Charity.