Our new name and new home

Movette Film Transfer is the new name for Video Transfer Center. We re-opened at our new home at 1407 Valencia St. on November 7, 2012 after over nine years at our old, 395 South Van Ness Ave. address.

About us & about film

Movette Film Transfer is devoted to making the fleeting images of years gone by accessible to future generations. We possess the Passion, Experience, Training, and Technology to take the moving pictures of the twentieth century into the digital age.

The Founders: Jennifer Miko and Buck Bito

The original owner of Video Transfer Center sold the business to Buck Bito and then wife, Jennifer Miko in 2003, they immediately began transforming the business to focus on film transfer under their ownership. The transformation of services was completed at the end of 2010 from which time the company has been providing film scanning services exclusively and the business was reborn as Movette Film Transfer and moved to its current Valencia St. location in 2012.

Jennifer is a 2008 graduate of The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and brought that training and knowledge to developing film handling and scanning workflows for the business. Buck's background in software development and digital video technology provided an excellent complement to Jennifer's formal training as they transformed Video Transfer Center into Movette Film Transfer.

Jennifer left the company in 2021 to pursue other aspects of the preservation world and Buck Bito has taken on the role of President and sole owner.

Anne Marie Smatla

Anne originally came to Movette in 2013 from Denver, CO and began her career in film in the 1990s working at a film to video transfer company, Denver's 1930s Fox movie palace, the Mayan Theatre, and for the Denver Film Society. She is a 2008 graduate of The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation. and upon graduation she received the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's 2008 Preservation Fellowship bringing her to San Francisco to work on restoration of a 1923 35mm nitrate film, "Screen Snapshots #7", at Monaco Labs (RIP) sparking a love for San Francisco and an ongoing relationship with our fabulous Silent Film Festival.

Between 2008 and joining Movette in September 2013, Anne pursued more traditional photochemical film restoration as a Printing & Processing Technician at CinemaLab Preservation in Englewood, CO where she gained practical experience handling films of various gauges and degrees of damage, including severe vinegar syndrome and nitrate decomposition. She also served as Managing Director for the Denver Silent Film Festival during its early development where she presented new restorations and built relationships with internationally-known film archivists.

Anne moved on to work in the Bay Area Video Coalition's highly regarded preservaton department from 2017 through 2021 and we are thrilled to have her back at Movette where she can bring her newly honed digital video skills to bear on the physical film she loves to work with.