Winding Up

Once the ins and outs of winding and splicing were established, it was time to move onto the bulk of the project. Due to the quantity of reels left in our care, coupled with time and budget restraints, it was determined that we would focus our efforts on winding and splice repairing those reels already identified by the custodians as High Priority. This could mean one or all of the following:

1) The film had already been noted in previous examinations (not conducted by our team) that there were signs of deterioration in effect.

2) There was developed stages of vinegar syndrome setting in (shown by the trusty little AD Test strips!).

3) The footage on the film reels was in high demand for use.

The winding of these high priority films took three people, working from 9am-5pm, on individual 4-5 hour shift rotations, one and a half weeks to complete. This also included checking, recording and removing all of the test strips that had been placed within the reel tins at the beginning of the project. None of the AD Test strips showed any major fluctuations (except for two tins which had already been identified by the owners as having Vinegar Syndrome) which was a great relief! The majority of the films were in good condition, with the most common issue being a loosely rolled film with brittle and broken splices.

This project has been a very interesting and informative learning process and has given us the opportunity to discover new processes and skills that were previously unknown to some of us. I would like to thank the whole team for their effort, as well as our Supervisor, Marcelle Scott. Thank you to everyone who provided help and equipment to us throughout the project, without this it would not have been possible!

Signing Off,

Kelly Leahey  (Project Leader)
Asti Sherring (Team Member)
Sarah Brown (Team Member)