The repair and preservation of The Departure of the Second Contingent for the Boer War

Towards the end of 1993, a small tightly wound piece of nitrate film was deposited at the Film Archive.

After extensive and painstaking research and repair, it was discovered that this was New Zealand's earliest surviving piece of film.
View the restored film

The images below offer an illustrated guide to the restoration of the film.

It was so brittle that even examining it caused damage. The Archive’s Conservation team identified that the images were from New Zealand.

Frame enlargements were taken and shown to historians and archivists who agreed that the film was of soldiers departing for the Boer War in 1900.

The film was extremely delicate. Even taking great care, new breaks appeared each time it was handled. To ease this handling difficulty, the pieces were taped together and wound around a specially constructed core.

The film and its core were then suspended over a fuming agent of Glycerol and hot water, which was replaced daily. This relaxed the film enough to enable work to proceed.

The springy brittleness of the film meant standard repair techniques were not appropriate.

The emulsion separated from the base as the film was uncurled. This was re-attached and secured with clear tape. The pieces of tape had to fit within the frame line.

Small chips had broken off and had to be matched like a jig saw. Hundreds of new perforation holes had to be cut, by hand, one at a time, the film was shrunk by 2.2% and precut tape did not fit.

The film was stored on the specially constructed core during the entire repair period and eventually looked more relaxed and printable.

During the repair work, consultation with the National FIlm Unit concluded their printer would be unable to handle such a delicate film. After consultation with Ritrovata Laboratory in Bologna, Italy it was agreed that their special nitrate printer could possibly process the film. The original nitrate was sent to Bologna where it was succuessfully printed and new print material was returned to the Archive.

The repair of this precious 30 second film took a total of 160 painstaking and careful hours.

Read more on the repair process