The NFSA has released colourised footage of the last known surviving Tasmanian tiger – or Thylacine – for National Threatened Species Day earlier this month.

Through his company, the Paris-based Composite Films, Samuel François-Steininger has colourised footage from the NFSA collection of Benjamin, the last Tasmanian Tiger in captivity. Naturalist David Fleay shot the original footage in black-and-white at Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart in December 1933. At just under 80 seconds, Fleay’s footage is the longest single film of the 10 separate thylacine films known to exist.

The NFSA scanned the original film negative using a Scanity HDR (High Dynamic Range) film scanner and sent Ultra High Definition ProRes files to Samuel in Paris. Samuel’s team then commenced extensive research before embarking on the colourisation process.

You can read more about the project here.