Digitisation is the process of converting information into a digital format and for Pass It On is an important part of sharing items and stories from the Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) archive.
To insure our digitised files are useful and accessible to a wide audience our digitisation process is detailed and performed by a number of skilled volunteers. The process involves scanning items both from the archive and loaned to the Theatre. The scans are then edited by our Photoshop volunteers this involves cropping, rotating and erasing parts of the scan to ensure each digital file represents its real-life partner accurately. After being labelled with as much information as possible; size, key names, production, they are then transferred onto a CFT digital server, accessible to Festival Theatre staff. A selection of these files are also uploaded to the online Digital Archive so that members of the public who cannot access the physical archive at West Sussex Records Office are able to see an accurate representation of the items.
Digitisation is an ongoing project that tries to pick out some of the most interesting items from the archive. We hope by the end of Pass It On in January of 2016 to have available online a production photograph and cast list from every CFT production from its opening in 1962
With the Theatre committed to maintaining a digital archive until 2017, the digitisation work will continue past the end of Pass It On and ensure more content from our vast archive can be shared and enjoyed.
