A historical treasure trove is being discovered in long-forgotten film canisters in cupboards across Queensland.
Family members of deceased amateur filmmakers are uncovering home movies dating back to the 1930s, which document life in the Sunshine State over generations.
However, due to age, heat and humidity, the films are deteriorating at a rapid rate and the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) is in a race against time to save them.
SLQ staff are digitising and storing the best quality home movies they are given and sharing them online.
Serena Coates, lead of preservation services at the SLQ, said "if we don't do this work, then we are at serious risk of losing content that's on this material".
"It's crucial that it is done sooner rather than later," she said.
While some of the movies are approaching 100 years in age, video cassettes that are only 20 or 30 years old are already deteriorating.
"Not only does that media deteriorate, but we also lose access to the equipment to be able to do that work."
Reuben Hillier, a specialist librarian at the SLQ, said the films were "very strong in social history — what we wore, what we did, where we lived".
"That's changed very much, especially in a city like Brisbane," he said.
The moving images of decades past propel the viewer into a time warp — sending them on an exploratory journey of addictive viewing.
There are flickering scenes of a bustling Anzac Square in Brisbane's CBD — before World War II.
Black-and-white pictures from 1939 reveal a time when City Hall dominated the skyline and the Story Bridge was just about to meet in the middle over the Brisbane River.
Another film, 30 years later, shows the Captain Cook Bridge being built.
In 1954, there are crowds of people, dressed in gloves and hats, cheering and waving as they catch a glimpse of a young Queen Elizabeth in a passing motorcade.
While in 1969, there are despondent faces peering through fences as a wrecking ball turns Brisbane's original Tivoli Theatre into rubble.
"It's an insight into another era," Mr Hillier said.
Everyday life in Brisbane captured
As well as significant events and developments, perhaps the most captivating films are those that feature everyday life.
"Your average home movie from that period — it's got kids in the backyard, it's got trips to the Gold Coast, holidays on the Sunshine Coast, street parades — everyone loved to go out to Warana and film the floats go by."
There is the Gayndah Orange Festival, the Warwick rodeo, peace parades at the end of World War II in Barcaldine and the Bundaberg Show.
One film shows children waddling like ducks for novelty races at Esk State School.
Another reveals spectators crowding around a concrete slab in suburbia that figure skaters had turned into a rink.
Amateur comedies and dramas
Homegrown slapstick comedy skits were also popular.
"People would like to make their own comedies and dramas … with their kids as the cast and their backyard as the setting," Mr Hillier said.
"They can be pretty madcap experimental kinds of films."
There were plenty of trips to Brisbane's Ekka as well.
"No-one ever gets tired of good footage of the Ekka — it says a lot about how we celebrate and how we entertain ourselves," Mr Hillier said.
A filmmaker in 1964 even added his own voiceover, describing the scenes at the showgrounds in a clipped Australian-English accent.
Nancy Soden, 85, cannot recall a family event that was not captured on film by her father, Len Pass.
"I featured in a lot of them, of course," Ms Soden said.
"I think the family as a whole loved being part of a movie, which of course in those days was quite unique."
Snippets of the great-grandmother's early years are liberally sprinkled through her father's expansive film catalogue.
There's Nancy as a toddler in the 1930s, waking up at Christmas to find a new doll at the end of her cot.
There's Nancy as a teenager, in a swimming costume on the beach playing with her pet dog.
There's Nancy as a bride, beaming in a long white veil as she walks down the front stairs.
And there's Nancy as a mother playing ring-a-rosie in the garden with her daughters.
Ms Soden's father was an electrical engineer, whose passion for cameras and creating images began when he was a schoolboy.
"He liked anything different — he was quite artistic in his own way — an inventor, that's how I'd put it," Ms Soden said.
Pioneers in video
One of the first committee members of Queensland's Cine Society, Mr Pass built most of his photographic equipment and even developed a machine to do timelapse photography.
"As a growing child, I just took it for granted as far as him tinkering and playing and discovering things."
While sound and images can now be beamed around the world in seconds, Mr Pass was involved in transmitting the first images from Brisbane's old Tower Mill to Ipswich.
"He and this friend of his really started the beginning of the TV industry," Ms Soden said.
Call-out for more footage
The SLQ is on the lookout for more quality home movies.
"There is a chance there is significant footage out there and we're always interested to look at new collections but they must be assessed according to condition and content," Mr Hillier said.
"Some are a bit too blurry or there's too much movement and they're not something we can digitise.
And rather than being hidden away in climate-controlled storage, once digitised, the old films will find a new life.
"We don't squirrel it away — we are constantly using film footage in our exhibitions and displays," Mr Hillier said.
"We use a lot of our film footage on our social media channels or at a show, such as the Ekka, to highlight the history of that event."
In the SLQ's preservation labs, the digitisation process is underway every day.
There is a backlog of 10,000 items to digitise and it is a slow process, with every recording having to be cleaned first.
Experts crank each film by hand, using an eye piece to check individual frames for mould, before the item is ready for digitisation.
Information on how to preserve your own film, video and audio recordings is on the SLQ website.
Ms Coates said it was recommended that multiple copies were made and stored on personal computers, the cloud and external hard drives.
"If you can store some on an external drive, give them to your neighbour so that they have a copy so that if the worst happens and you have some sort of disaster at home, you have a back-up copy," Ms Coates said.
"You can digitise something, you can preserve it and make all of your best efforts to ensure that it will be around for as long as possible, but you can never say forever."
