The last footage of the last captive Tasmanian Tiger, now shown for the first time in colour.
In 1935 Brisbane based filmmaker Sidney Cook travelled to Tasmania to shot a travelogue "Tasmania the Wonderland", shown publicly later that year.
In 2020 researchers Branden Holmes, Gareth Linnard and Mike Williams from the Tasmanian Tiger Archives discovered 21 seconds of footage withtin the original 9 minute film of 'Benjamin' the last captive Thylacine.
He died the following year in September 1936 at the Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, Tasmania.
In 2021 the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia released colourised 1933 footage, which was of much higher quality and colourised by French experts Samuel Francois-Steininger, of Composite Films.
Now in 2022, right here in Tasmania, the final footage of the last tiger in captivity has been colourised using the same painstaking processes used in France and is presented here for the first time.
The original footage has been slowed to create more natural movement, each of the original 503 frames individually enhanced, colourised, recompiled into video and original narration re-applied. This process was conducted over several weeks. While now of much higher quality than the original b/w clip, efforts have been made to ensure the feel of the black and white version have been retained.
On a personal note, this was a labour of love, not a paid project and to have a completed this work as a Tasmanian comes with both a sense of pride, but also sadness of what became of this magnificent marsupial.
For full information about the original clip, please visit : www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/tasman...
Tasmanian Tiger Archives Facebook Group:
/ tasmaniantigerarchives
The Media Workshop
/ mediaworkshop.com.au