Due to the poor physical condition of the films, and the fact that they are the original, nitrate-based versions, special equipment was designed and built to produce a high-quality digital copy.

A low-contact rig was made to hold each frame under light tension (no glass holders). The rig was positioned 15cm above a high frequency, cool-running fluroescent light source, with cooled air flowing between the rig and the light source to prevent heat build-up.

Each frame was digitised individually using a Jenoptic ProgRes 3012 camera fitted with a Jenoptic Lametar 25mm flat-field lens. It was decided not to attempt precise registration of the frames at this point, the aim being to keep exposure to light and heat to a minimum: positioning of the frames was therefore approximate.

The chore of registering each frame was performed by hand and eye (in Adobe Photoshop) for the first film, a process that took dozens of man-hours.

The second film was registered using a combination of image analysis and processing software, Photoshop and a little manual input.