The seed of the company sprouted when entrepreneur Craig Spaulding opened a retail store with a sideline in eclectic music LPs. Spaulding cultivated soundtrack contacts across the globe and soon became known throughout the U.S. as an authority on obscure and rare scores.

He sold the store, but kept SAE as a conduit for preserving rare recordings, focusing on pre-1960 Golden Age films with cherished soundtracks. Universities and studios soon came calling for Spaulding expertise in restorations that captured the excitement of each project from the composer own personal notes to the finest mastering of the music to the marketing of the final product. Major releases include Alfred Newman’s Wilson and Captain from Castile, Max Steiner’s Marjorie Morningstar and Pursued, and Dimitri Tiomkin’s The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.

The merge with Film Score Monthly in 2004, was the fourth major expansion for SAE since being started in 1991. When Spaulding couldn’t get the attention of major studios, the Library of Congress or the Smithsonian to do more to keep film scores from further deterioration, Spaulding financed the projects himself. Today SAE has contracts with composers, their estates or heirs, and major record labels to produce soundtracks for collectors in limited quantities. SAE also produces the Brigham Young University Film Music Archives collection under BYU own label.

At the same time, SAE built up a strong market among collectors as a major outlet for film scores from all sources, from the largest recording companies to the tiniest of specialized producers. With the advent of the Internet, the awareness of Spaulding’s personal projects and distribution services grew exponentially. Today, the SAE collection has many thousands of titles, from Amarcord to Zulu, and includes hot niche markets such as scores to Anime films and video games. Much of SAE success comes from a dedicated staff that has not only increased rare acquisitions for the company, but has honed a superbly realized, interactive and easily surfed Web site that includes music title searches by composer, label, or even specific genres and many entries include tantalizing sound samples. This same staff provides the fast worldwide shipping and expert customer service that have now become a respected industry standard.

Whatever the future of movie music becomes, Screen Archives Entertainment will be at the forefront in bringing it to the world.