The Battle of The Somme

Feature film documentary restoration.

Dragon DI were deeply honoured to carry out the restoration of the iconic and priceless Battle of the Somme on behalf of the Imperial War Museum.

The Battle of the Somme (1916) documents the opening stages of one of the most important and bloodiest campaigns in British, and indeed world military history. As such it exists as an historical document as well as a cinematic document of global importance.

The extant material for The Battle of the Somme brought with it the predictable challenges of scratches, breaks and duped sections, but more importantly suffered from severe flicker and loss of detail both in the blacks and whites, rendering the film difficult to watch and devoid of ‘depth’. So severe were these problems that Dragon DI were obliged to work manually frame by frame to stabilise the flicker, and endlessly re-graded the film to tease out the details from the background. The result, coupled with a superb new orchestral score, has an impact not experienced since its original release.

In 2007 The Battle of the Somme was awarded ‘World Heritage Status’ by UNESCO, the only British document (and the only film of any nationality) to achieve this status. Dragon DI are very proud to have been part of this unique restoration project.