By Amara Thornton

I’ve spent hours going through Lankester Harding’s footage since we received the digitised version earlier this year.  The digital file we received was all the individual films sequentially rolled into one, making up about an hour and a half of ‘raw’ footage.  There were short breaks where the ‘leaders’ attached to each canister’s roll indicated the reference number we had assigned it – LH1 and so on.  So one of my first tasks was to separate the digitised files into each canister’s film using the leader breaks as a guide.  I was able to do this relatively easily in iMovie, and since then I’ve been experimenting with creating bespoke films using the footage and related digitised archive material in order to draw out different facets of the film and the archive.  Each time I watch it I see something new, which is pretty exciting!
 
I made this short film for the Institute’s recent World Archaeology Festival event on 11 June this year.  Having the Harding footage in a digital format makes it pretty flexible in the creation of new narratives.   Being able to manipulate the total film in iMovie allows me to view the footage almost frame by frame, bringing a new focus to my own viewing experience.  And, it’s leading to the creation of new ‘archive’ of films – thematic ones.  
 
The film embedded below features sequences from eighteen of Lankester Harding’s films.  You will see the film canister reference numbers on the top left hand corner of the footage sequences.  Harding’s photograph albums were also very useful in illustrating Harding’s initial experiences as an archaeologist in Mandate Palestine and his relationship with some of the workers on site.  The photograph of Hilda Petrie was in one of his albums, as were the group photographs of local families.  These might be particularly useful in future in helping to identify some of the workers featured on film. Thanks are also due to Alice Stevenson (Petrie Museum) and Robert Winckworth (UCL Records) for permission to include digitised images from each source.
 
I hope you enjoy this first ‘narrative’ film – there will be more to come!

...the first publicly accessible snapshot of the Harding footage!  Thanks to Tim Emblem-English and his team's efforts, we have now received the digital files of Harding's films.  We've put together a short preview film with clips from a few of the canisters, available to view on YouTube.

On the top of each clip you will see our reference number for the footage's original canister.  In this short film we have selected clips from four canisters - LH2, LH4, LH15 and LH23.  

The first clip, from canister LH2, shows a picnic scene at an unknown location.  While most of the picnickers are unknown to us, one person we were able to identify in this clip is the archaeologist Olga Tufnell.  Tufnell worked with Lankester Harding on several sites, and eventually was responsible for the publication of much of the Tell-Duweir excavations.

The clips were chosen to show the different sorts of activities Harding captured with his camera. While clips from LH15 and LH23 show excavation in progress, LH4 shows a more mundane (but necessary) factor of everyday life in the field - dental hygiene.  

We're still researching the films to identify people and sites, so if anything in these clips looks familiar to you let us know!

Guest post by Tim Emblem-English, formerly Archive Telecine Specialist at BBC Studios and Post Production Digital Media Services, now running his own company, The Flying Spot

​Friday 14 August 2015, and Amara and Ian from UCL visit BBC S&PP DMS at our base in South Ruislip with four neatly tied boxes containing Gerald Lankester Harding's 9.5mm film collection which we have been commissioned to digitise. After introductions and over mugs of tea we discuss the subject of the films, the equipment and processes involved in their digitisation, and the form of the deliverables at the end of the process. 

Shortly afterwards, I settle down to begin my inspection and preparation of the Harding films to make them ready to run on our Cintel Mk3 flying-spot Digiscan telecine, specially modified in-house to handle 9.5mm film. 

The Harding films are contained in the usual 9.5mm Pathe cartridges which come in two sizes holding either 10 or 20 metres of film. My first task is to sort them into numerical order following the markings that Ian has previously applied. Then it’s a case of attaching a length of new white spacing film with a CIR adhesive tape splicer to the start of the first film 'LH1' and gently winding it out of its cartridge and on to a large 1200ft capacity film spool. 

​As I wind the film through my fingers I feel for any splices or damage such as torn perforations. Splices in films of this age from the 1930s almost always need attention; any that I find I check for correct registration and reinforce with the CIR tape splicer. After 80-odd years the original film cement becomes brittle and the action of the telecine machine, although much more gentle than a projector, will certainly find the weak splices. Similarly, any tears or damaged perforations are patched with splicing tape. A quick squint through a lupe eyeglass to check that the images are the correct way round and then I reach the end of the first cartridge.

​I either cut or detach the end of the film from the spindle and the usual problem with 9.5mm films that have been stored in their original cartridges for many years becomes apparent – the inner turns have been wound up tightly on such a small diameter spindle for so long that they have the curliness of a watchspring and just want to coil up in a tangle. Having sorted out the tangle I manage to attach a short length of white spacing film to the end which calms things down a bit and move on to the next cartridge and repeat the process, adding successive films with white spacing between until the large spool is full. Onto each length of spacing I write the next film’s reference number so that they can all be identified to avoid any confusion. Another length of white spacing on the end and films 'LH1' to 'LH18' are joined up and ready for cleaning. 

Cleansing of films such as these is done by hand and involves winding the film slowly through a folded Selvyt cloth moistened with Isopropanol.  A pause every so often to remoisten the cloth and see how much dirt has been removed and if it looks spectacularly filthy I give the reel a second pass - which turns out to be required for the Harding films.  Once the large first reel is cleaned I start on the remainder of the cartridges.  In due course, taking time to refocus my eyes, films 'LH19' to 'LH46' are duly inspected, mended and cleaned.

​Although I haven’t studied the images closely at this point, during all the winding and inspection it became apparent that the collection is the result of several different cameras and some of the individual cartridges are compilations edited together from different sources on different film stocks, although all in black-and-white. Two of the cartridges turn out to be commercial printed films – the “home entertainment” of the 1920s and 30s. These incorporate Pathe’s “notched titles” feature, where a notch cut in the edge of the film would cause the projector’s transport to stop for a few seconds before moving on. Used for freezing static shots or titles and captions this was a cunning way of extending the screen time of films which otherwise might only run for 1½ minutes from a small 10-metre cartridge. With time, as projectors got brighter and lamps got hotter the system had to be dropped since the risk of burning stationary film in the gate became too great.

In a perfect world, once cleaned it is best practice to leave 9.5mm material like this which has come out of its original cartridges wound up tightly on a large-diameter spool or film core for as long as possible to “rest” and persuade the extreme curliness to relax. Not doing so can cause loss of focus during transfer towards the end of individual films when the curl is so strong that the film refuses to lie flat in the telecine gate. This time to rest is a luxury we don’t always have when jobs come in with tight deadlines but in this case Amara and Ian are in no hurry and I am able to leave the Harding films wound up on two large reels safely stored in cans in our secure and temperature-controlled vault, waiting for the next stage of the process – the telecine transfer itself. 

To be continued…