The Story of the Kelly Gang
A search, sparked by an impending centenary celebration of the world’s first feature film, led to a stunning discovery in February 2006. An extended clip from The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) had been found at the British Film Archives, prompting The National Film and Sound Archive to engage Amsterdam studio Haghefilm on a challenging and potentially invasive restoration.
The Story of the Kelly Gang, produced in 1906, was the world’s first full length feature. A popular film, it is estimated that over 100 copies were made and distributed across the world.
Sadly, as Trevor Carter—member of the Archivist Team for the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA)—reveals, segments from just three of these first generation reproductions have be found.
‘Nothing from the original negative remains.’
The NFSA oversaw the restoration of the remaining fragments — 19 minutes in total — in an operation that spanned across the globe.
The challenge of historic film
Archivists battle to maintain the integrity of historic film. As with many clips that predate the 1950s, Carter says that The Story of the Kelly Gang is fragile, due to its Nitrate base.
‘It’s actually classified as an explosive.’
The NFSA holds two of the three surviving clips in its Mitchell facility, in air conditioned, humidity controlled bunkers.
‘It’s a fine balance; the film cannot dry out, but if it is too humid it will cause the film to deteriorate further.’
The stock has, over time, become sticky to touch and has shrunk to varying degrees—common symptoms of aging in Nitrate film. And, as projectionist clips shown in cinemas at the time, the footage wears the mark of use.
A new find
During preparations for the centenary celebration, Curator Sally Jackson found the extended segment of the film at the British Film Institute archives. It was a significant find that literally doubled the footage available. Given the distance and the tools available, NSFA arranged for the footage to be shipped to Haghefilm, a restoration facility in Amsterdam, to embark on the restoration. The commercial studio was familiar with the archivist’s editing tool, Diamant, which NSFA were in the process of purchasing at the time.
Preparing for the restoration
Given its cultural significance, and that one clip was in a particularly fragile state, NSFA’s archivists were reluctant to let the Ned Kelly footage go. So a process of photographic reproduction on the facility’s Neilson Hordel camera began. Prints were made, then re-photographed onto polyester film. Over 60 frames had shrunk to a point where they were too distorted to advance through the camera. Unable to source an attachment, NSFA custom-built a manual advance system. The new negatives were then flown to Amsterdam. Haghefilm’s editors used Diamant to automatically compare differences between frames, isolating manufactured artifacts from those captured on film. The software’s predictive motion settings would account for some movement, but the slow frame-rate used meant the software was easily tricked and required manual intervention.
‘At 18 frames per second, the movement between each frame can be quite significant’.
Haghefilm sent QuickTime movies over the internet for NSFA to compare and review one frame at a time, after each treatment.The final output restored 17,000 frames.
‘We learned a lot about (the Diamant) workflow’.
In spite of Diamant’s capabilities, the archivists decided against introducing new frames.
The director’s vision
In 1906, the projectionist reels were created with Kodak coloured Nitrate film base to enhance drama in the various scenes.
‘In the original, the fighting scenes were colourised red,’ says Carter.
Not a decay colour, replicating the red was easier compared with the orange/yellow scenes which commonly appeared in the outside sequences.
With no appropriate documentation, the NFSA archivists viewed the reproduced footage on a Kinton Variable speed projector to identify the frame-rate at which the film was originally shot.
‘There was no given standard at the time although we knew that we were not far off.’
The Story of the Kelly Gang extracts will be shown at various film festivals and will be available on DVD.
Filed under: DG magazine 127
