Reference code

CAT INSPAI 13

Level of description

Collection

Title

Video Play Fonds

Date(s)

Date of creation: 1984 / Date of addition: 1984-2008

Volume and support

228 audiovisual productions (moving image) in MPEG2 format, each occupying 715 MB of disk space, in magnetic storage media; and 113 digital photographs (still image), in uncompressed TIFF format, with 27 MB of disk space occupied by each image of approximately 2400 × 3600 pixels and 21 × 30 cm with 300 PPI, in magnetic storage media.

Name of producer(s)

Antoni Martí i Gich, Dolors Fuster, Àngel Quintana, and Xavier Roca, among others.

Producer history

The film and video production company Video Play Serveis was established in 1984 in the municipality of La Bisbal d'Empordà thanks to the initiative of documentary and film maker Antoni Martí, together with several partners including his wife Dolors Fuster, Ángel Quintana, and Xavier Roca, among others. Video Play Serveis has been commissioned to create reports, documentaries, and commercial and tourist advertisements for public administrations and private companies. It has also produced documentaries on diverse subjects alone and in co-production projects, in most cases related to Girona province. In addition, it is currently carrying out work to recover elements of our cinematographic heritage, based on which it makes documentaries that show our province from the beginning of the century up until today. Some of Video Play Serveis work has been recognised and awarded at different festivals.

Archive history

This fonds is the result of the work that Antoni Martí, along with his team (Dolors Fuster, Àngel Quintana, and Xavier Roca, among others), has carried out in the production company Video Play Serveis, working mainly with video formats. Their productions have been filed, organised, classified, and preserved by Antoni Martí in the headquarters of the Video Play Serveis production company, at number 25 Carrer Ample in La Bisbal d'Empordà. They are organised in a room used as an archive where camera equipment and finished productions are kept. In the same place, the material created by Antoni Martí outside of the production company is also stored, but this has been organised separately so as not to lose the order or meaning of either fonds. The finished productions were digitised in high-quality MPEG2 format by the production company, which at the same time created a catalogue of all of the productions. In 2008, Mr Antoni Martí, aware of the value of his work, transferred digital copies and usage rights to INSPAI, Girona Provincial Council's Image Centre. The author has the original material, but probably after a certain period of time it will be preserved definitively in the INSPAI facilities. The acquisition by the Image Centre took place through four deliveries of 50 audiovisual works, each in digital format in a magnetic hard drive, and each delivery was accompanied by lists that served as a catalogue, which the owners had previously prepared. Together with the audiovisual material, Antoni Martí also provided digital copies of photographs of his film shoots and material related to the fonds (described in section 5.3)

Details of entry

Acquired on 21 May 2009 through an agreement for the transfer of cinematographic works produced by the company Video Play Serveis and their exploitation rights to Girona Provincial Council's Image Centre.

Scope and content

The fonds gathers the audiovisual material generated by Antoni Martí, together with his colleagues and collaborators. The chronological scope of the material spans from 1984 until the present. The company continues its work today, thus making this an open fonds. Geographically, the content of the material is mainly focused on Catalonia. The fonds comprises 228 films with videos of reports, documentaries, advertorials, musicals, theatre productions, and audiovisual works for exhibitions, among others. One of the production company's most important projects is its recovery of the cinematographic heritage of Girona province. In addition to conducting research, it has also created documentary productions to reflect this heritage, such as Tren petit (Little train) or La mirada del viatger (The traveller's gaze). It should be noted that in the audiovisual projects, apart from the authorship of the production that corresponds to Mr Antoni Martí, there may also be music, old images extracted from other productions, and scripts with their own authors and, therefore, their own rights. The 113 photographs of film shoots are also worth highlighting.

Conditions for access

Free and open access.

Related documentation

Digital copies of posters for films and documentaries made by Antoni Martí, digital copies of magazines with interviews and material relating to Antoni Martí and his colleagues, and newspaper cuttings relating to the work of Antoni Martí and his colleagues.

Author and date(s)

Description by SGM in October 2009.

Sources

The unit of description. For a better description, we used the lists prepared by the creators (mentioned in section 4.5), publications that refer to the creators (mentioned in section 5.4), and related material (mentioned in section 5.3).