By Ian Carroll and Amara Thornton
We have been marking the film canisters in the Harding collection in preparation for taking the film footage to be digitised. There are in total 46 metal canisters holding film stock in the collection, ranging in size from 68.4 mm to 51 mm. Once empty of film, each original canister will be kept.
Marking the original canisters will allow us to retain the association between the information on the film canister and the digitised film. This contextual information will be added as metadata in the archive's record.
We have been marking the film canisters in the Harding collection in preparation for taking the film footage to be digitised. There are in total 46 metal canisters holding film stock in the collection, ranging in size from 68.4 mm to 51 mm. Once empty of film, each original canister will be kept.
Marking the original canisters will allow us to retain the association between the information on the film canister and the digitised film. This contextual information will be added as metadata in the archive's record.
 Ian Carroll practices marking using a special ink dip pen (detail image to the right) and white ink. Photos: A. Thornton, I. Carroll, 2015. |  |
Marking the film canisters was a three-stage process. First, paraloid was applied to the surface of the canister in an appropriate space, roughly the same place on each object. Many of the canisters had labels around the sides so we opted to mark the canisters on the top.
The marked canisters. Photo: I. Carroll, 2015.
Once the paraloid was dry, we used white Rotring ink so that the numbers would show up on the surface of the black canisters. Then a second coat of paraloid was applied on top of the white painted number. In line with conservation technique, this process is reversible so the markings can be removed at any point if necessary.
We put canisters into rough groupings, partially guided by references in the archive. Canisters with site names on the labels were kept together, and any numbers were put in sequence where possible. Although not all the canisters were labelled, some that were had information on the where the films were developed.
We put canisters into rough groupings, partially guided by references in the archive. Canisters with site names on the labels were kept together, and any numbers were put in sequence where possible. Although not all the canisters were labelled, some that were had information on the where the films were developed.
One of a few canisters with a developer label; this label indicates that the developer was based in Jerusalem. Handwritten annotations on the printed label are clearly visible. Photo: A. Thornton, 2015.
Labels on some of the films suggest that a few canisters may contain films bought for home viewing. In one case we found a partial film title peeking out from beneath a developers label.
This film canister's developer label is partially destroyed, revealing another label beneath it with a partial title in French. Photo: A. Thornton, 2015.
Marking the film canisters enabled us to reflect on the range of material on the films in this collection. While some of it is certainly archaeological, there may be unexpected surprises in store. We’re looking forward to seeing the digitised footage and finding out whether the information we currently have is actually reflected on screen. In other words: do the films do what they say on the tin?
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